Quest Awards, is a provider of Recognition and Sports Awards (Acrylic Awards, Plaques, Trophies, Medals). It had been operating for 19 years as a small home-based business to create a little extra income.
In October 2013, Quest invested $200 in a Shopify Store, $1,000 for some Shopify Expert customization and presto on November 15th we re-launched our business with 1,000+ products, as we celebrated our 20th year in business!
Business is growing month over month and shows great potential for future growth that we could never have imagined.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
It was all about improving the customer experience and wow did we ever! In the awards and recognition business each product is customized, customers select products, provide their logo and engraving instructions, (often unique to each award). Well Shopify to the rescue! We automated the entire process, no more trips to a trophy shop, just select the product, pick your options, upload instructions, and checkout.
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
We had Paradise Commerce Inc. (a Shopify recommend Partner) to customize our theme and to recommend Shopify add-on apps to provide the functionality we needed. We utilize a number of apps such as: the Canada Post App for calculating shipping but also provide a free customer pick-up option, Product Customizer from ShopStorm for the functionality to uploading logos and instructions, the Shopify Facebook App for our Facebook store, and Custom Orders by Bold Apps to create custom orders. Custom Order’s is a very cool allowing us to quickly turn phone orders into an online order!
What are your top recommendations for new ecommerce entrepreneurs?
Shopify is often promoted as a great solution for start-ups, but I believe Shopify provides a tremendous opportunity for existing companies to rethink their on-line eCommerce strategy. We view "time" as our greatest competitor and Shopify provided the infrastructure to re-invent ourselves and expand our business in just six weeks, offering a better customer shopping experience with more products to choose from!