Bill Unyi suffered from allergies. Two years ago, he figured out how to turn his sneezing into sales.
By day, Unyi is a zone manager for the Ford Motor Co. in Chicago. But now he’s also the proprietor of AirPurifiersDirect2U.com, a site that markets a variety of air purifiers to the consumer market.
He followed the lead of his friend Jon Hoch — founder of powerequipmentdirect.com — into online marketing. Hoch pulled in $3 million in the first quarter of this year selling industrial equipment online. Unyi saw great prospects online.
Since May 2005, Unyi worked nights and weekends to develop the site. One of his first moves was to investigate pay-per-click advertising, which he found wasn’t the right move for him just yet.
“Actually, it’s pretty competitive out there so pay-per-click is something I’m gradually going to have to work myself into,” Unyi says.
His next move was to try and get his products featured on online shopping sites like Shopzilla.com, Bizrate, Shopping.com and NextAg. And he’s investigating what keywords might work best for his business.
“You can go crazy with pay-per-click real fast if you don’t do it right,” he cautions.
AirPurifiersDirect2U.com sources its products directly from about 11 manufacturers.
“I was surprised at how easy it was to set up,” he says. “Basically it involved getting in touch with the manufacturers and selling factory direct
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