IN THE FACE OF ALL the recent dot-com failures and shakiness in online marketing, one small New England company is taking everything in stride.
“I won’t consider myself a failure if I don’t make $1 million overnight,” says Mark Lappen, president of NetworkPackaging.com Inc., a one-man industrial supplydistributing operation he runs alongside his family’s firm Randolph Paper Co. in Taunton, MA.
Out of Pocket Unlike the majority of dot-commers, Lappen hasn’t gone after big venture capital, choosing to finance the whole online setup out of his own pocket.
NetworkPackaging carries products such as boxes, bubble wrap and padded mailers as well as janitorial and maintenance supplies. So far, the site gets about 130 hits a day, with an unspecified number of the visits resulting in sales. Most users are small businesses and individuals who work from home.
The minimum purchase is $35. Lappen posts the shipping costs on the main page. “That way, there are no surprises for people,” he says.
Since opening up shop last year, Lappen has been able to line up several hundred customers nationwide and has taken in about $25,000 a month. He’s promoted the site by word of mouth and through listings on search engines such as Google and banner ads on Web site search service iFunnel.
Some listing services like Yahoo! have not worked that well for the company, he concedes.
This year, Lappen is looking to enhance the business a little more, seeking possible affiliate arrangements with compatible sites and offering them a percentage of sales.
Low Tech Despite operating on the Web, NetworkPackaging runs on a somewhat low-tech basis.
“Right now I’m doing the purchase orders by hand and faxing them, but I hope soon to have a software product that will generate them automatically,” he notes.
Lappen’s also considering a visitor registration system so repeat customers won’t have to set up new electronic shopping carts every time they go to the site.
From efforts such as this, Lappen hopes to clear about $250,000 this year.
Network
