CheapHumidors.com – David Sabot

There are lots of Internet marketers who claim they are able to offer you (usually at a high price) a fail-safe system that will ensure the success of your new online business.

Now, while not pretending for a minute that the technique I am about to name is by any means fail-safe, there is no doubt in my mind that the most important thing you can do to ensure success is to pick a niche and exploit it ruthlessly.

That’s what our latest “My Store” interviewee has done. David Sabot opened his Cheaphumidors.com Web store back in June 1997, hosting it on a free site with nothing more than a picture of three humidors, a price and an address to send checks to. Since then, he has grown his site in to one of the most successful cigar-related destinations online.

However, not only has David picked his niche carefully, he has worked hard to exploit it fully. How do he do this? Read on and find out…

Lang: Why did you decide to open a Web store? Why did you choose your particular product line?

Sabot: In May of 1997, on Mothers Day, I was visiting my brother in New Jersey. It was a beautiful day and we sat outside on the patio. He took out some fine Cuban cigars and we started to smoke and BBQ. When I was leaving to go home he threw a few cigars at me and told me to enjoy them.

I really didn’t know too much about cigars or how to store them, so I turned to the Internet. What I found out was that you needed a thing called a humidor to properly store cigars. So I started shopping for them. I went to my local stores, consignment shops, etc. Their prices were un-real. They wanted $200-300 for a box to store cigars. I almost fainted. I did some research and it turned out there were other people like me. Guys who wanted to store some cigars but didn’t want to spend a fortune doing it. Well it doesn’t take much to see there was a market here that was pretty much unfilled.

I found a company that would supply me with humidors and I could order only a few at a time for $45 a piece. I bought one as a sample and to store my own cigars in and decided to take a picture and throw it on a free-hosted Web site. Much to my delight I started to receive orders and inquires for the product and as they say, the rest is history.

Lang: What were your goals when you opened your store? Have you achieved them?

Sabot: To be honest I really didn’t have a goal when I opened up my store. I wanted to sell products and make money. After a few months of constant orders I started to notice something. People were coming to me for advice on cigars and storage. It turns out that since my prices were low they attracted the newbie or first time smokers. I turned that to my advantage in a number of ways.

The first thing I decided I needed to do was to become the category killer on the Internet. I knew that I needed to be priced much lower than anyone else to attract the sales. I also knew that pricing alone wouldn’t be enough to sustain a business. So I decided to offer as much information on smoking as I could. I built my Website with FAQs on smoking, tips, pictures, techniques, etiquette, etc. The newbies started to come to my site for the information, and left with a humidor.

The main thing I wanted to do was provide exceptional customer service. I had the experience of email void from a number of companies. You know, you send an email to them and never hear back? Well I made a promise to myself that I would try to answer all questions within 24 hours. I have been able to slice that down to about 2-3 hours, which makes my customers and prospective customers very happy. Three years later I am still the lowest prices humidor supplier on the Internet with the most information and best customer service, so yes I think I have accomplished my goals.

Lang: What are the major problems you faced?

Sabot: I believe there are many problems or challenges when selling online. There are always a large number of people who are reluctant to give their credit card information out over the Internet. The only way I have been able to handle that is to offer a toll free number prominently on my order page. I also offer to ship COD if they are within the US.

People are also wary of the quality of the products and the stability of the merchant. Without being able to physically touch, feel, smell, etc an item, people generally are cautious. I offer a 30-day money back guarantee and one-year warranty on all the items I sell. I want people to be happy and I find this usually does help. Our return rate is about 1%.

Lang: What server and shopping cart software are you using and why?

Sabot: I started off hosting my site with a company in NY that was taken over by Sage Networks. I was attracted to them due to the low price. When I started to have server problems I decided I needed to switch and I went with Webhosting.com. That was probably the biggest mistake I ever made.

If I learned one thing, it was to go with a well-known, well-trusted hosting company. Most of these companies today signup thousands of new accounts a month and just don’t have the capacity to handle the growth. My site was down all the time, and once it was down for 4 days straight.

I learned my lesson and went with Verio hosting who in my opinion is the best Web hosting provider around. Their servers are never down and they actually answer their phone.

For a shopping cart, I knew early on that I didn’t want to program anything. If something went wrong or broke (and lets face it, something always breaks) I didn’t want to have to fix it. I looked around and came across Americart. Americart, run by Wayne Cohoe looked like a great option. The cart was inexpensive, fast, powerful and appeared to be reliable.

I started using them three years ago and have never switched. I have never had one single problem with their cart. In fact, I have even written to Wayne a number of times to make suggestions of cart improvements and they have been done, such as support for third party affiliate programs and up selling.

Lang: How much does the store cost to run?

Sabot: I know you are going to laugh when I tell you this but I honestly started my business with $45.00. That was how much it cost me to buy my first humidor sample. The site was hosted on a free service and I just threw a picture online. People would send me checks to my own name and I would drop them off at my personal bank.

After a few months I knew that I had to open a real banking account and so I did. I then made all the needed improvements like getting my own domain, getting a shopping cart, toll free phone number, taking credit cards, etc. In all I pay about $300 per month to run my business.

Lang: What methods have you used to try and promote your store?

Sabot: I have tried it all, from newsletter sponsorships to banner ads. To be honest none of it worked well. So I never really spent a lot of money on promoting the site.

The biggest thing I have done, and continue to do is to publish a newsletter that goes out weekly to over 10,000 cigar smokers. A large proportion of my traffic comes from this source.

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to stay in contact with my customers. I knew that sending an email to them with specials would be ok but just wouldn’t give them a great reason to join the newsletter. I contacted a number of cigar Web sites and asked them to send me weekly specials via email. Every Sunday I compiled the email specials and sent them to my list of names. The sponsor of this newsletter, now called, The Cigar Bargains Newsletter, is of course Cheaphumidors.com.

The list started to grow as more and more people learned about it and I branched the newsletter off to a site called Cigarbargains.com. That site has migrated into what I now call Cigarsites.com. The site is a directory listing of hundreds of cigar and cigar related Internet merchants. People can rate and review merchants based on their experiences. These ratings and reviews are available for the world to see.

Lang: Why did you choose to launch an affiliate program and why did you choose ClickTrade to run it?

Sabot: I wanted to get my site listed on as many sites as possible. When I started out I went from site to site asking if they would link to me. The response was dismal. I found that Webmasters didn’t have the time or knowledge to update their site, especially when they received no benefit from it. So I decided to start an affiliate program after the success of Amazon.

I looked around for a provider and came to ClickTrade. I chose them because the price was the most affordable and my shopping cart provider informed me that he could integrate with their system. In a matter of a few days I was up and running and started to get affiliates. I have a few hundred affiliates now, but like most affiliate programs, only a small percentage make up the majority of sales I receive. I would say that 30% of my orders and 50% of my site traffic come from affiliates.

Lang: What made you decide to install HumanClick? Has it proved successful?

Sabot: I have always been looking for a way to interact with my customers in real time. The cost of such systems always was beyond my reach. When HumanClick came out I learned of it and tried it out.

The system works pretty well and has the added benefit of allowing you to watch people surf your site, live. I found this the most interesting feature as it allowed me to see where people were going. I have had HumanClick on my site for about 2 months now and have engaged in about 50 chats. Of the people that I talk to who are looking for product information, about 60% end up purchasing. People really love the live help function.

Lang: What are your plans to develop the store?

Sabot: I would like to expand the FAQ section to include many more questions and answers, even a knowledge base for beginning smokers if possible. I would also like to create a downloadable e-book on cigars and smoking for new smokers. I think this would not only be valuable but might be something that they pass to friends thereby creating a viral marketing effect. I would like to organize the products better according to what customers are looking for and even create a calculator so people could figure out how many of the types of cigars they smoke could fit in a humidor.

Lang: Finally, what are your top tips for anyone considering opening their own Web store?

Sabot:

If you want to open your own Web store you have to stop thinking about it and just do it. I started with $45 and really no idea what I was doing and I have been very successful.
Don’t go after the big guys. Nobody is going to go to your online bookstore to buy a book or your online CD store to buy a CD. You need to find a niche and exploit it. If you want to sell books or CDs, find a theme – maybe you sell magic books, or jazz CD’s. Maybe you have the Internets largest collection of knitting needles. The point is that you will never make it if you take the mainstream route. There are too many players and too much money involved. If you start with a niche and build it, you will do well.
Don’t spend tons of money on site design and hosting. There are so many places where you can get free templates to help you build your site. Give it a try yourself at first. But most of all don’t be afraid to get started. So many people ask me my advice and I give it to them, but then they never do anything. Don’t be scared, just do it!

CheapHumidors.com – David Sabot – Store Review

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