Name of your website?Inkjet Oasis Canada
Your name?
Warren Penner
Your Location (city, etc)
Steinbach, Manitoba
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Inkjet Oasis provides new compatible and factory remanufactured ink & toner cartridges for home and office printers, copiers and fax machines by Brother, Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark. We provide free shipping in Canada for orders over $50.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Having paid ridiculous prices for OEM printing supplies for years, our initial desire was to provide a reasonably priced source for quality compatible and remanufactured ink cartridges and toner.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
The first business site I launched was Norwood Tent & Awning in Winnipeg back in 1996. The site provided product information, photos and diagrams which outlined available products and services.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Based in the prairies of Southeastern Manitoba, we wanted to provide a one-stop shop where online shoppers could acquire printing supplies quickly and easily from a Canadian supplier. An "Inkjet Oasis", right in the heart of Canada.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
We're locally owned and operated. We purchase all of our products in Canada and sell only to Canadian customers. We're committed to providing reasonably priced, quality products and to providing fast, friendly service to our loyal customers.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Inkjet Oasis started off as a home-based business in 2005 and we've grown slowly but steadily ever since. We're a family-run business and we fully intend to keep it that way.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
As any business owner can tell you, it takes a lot of sweat equity and elbow grease to get a business off the ground. After two years, competition has been tough but hard work has really started to pay off. We've stuck to our customer focused commitments, continued to provide a high level of service, maintained our integrity and our customer base has continued to grow significantly every month.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I'd like to implement a fully integrated and searchable database application with real-time shipping and inventory lookups and a fully integrated secure payment system.
All of these changes are currently being implemented and upgraded, but an unlimited budget would allow us to outsource and expedite development.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Our site is hosted by a Canadian ISP and our storefront software is relatively easy to upgrade.
We're currently working to improve the user experience, streamline the website code and implement an SQL database driven site.
All of our products are procured from Canadian suppliers, so stock is easy to procure within a few business days.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Brokerage fees, shipping costs, merchant accounts, payment systems, wireless access fees, accounting, secure gateways, online merchant accounts, hosting issues, marketing, advertising, the usual pitfalls that ever business owner or manager has to learn.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Securing reliable products at a reasonable price from reliable sources. In addition, while the products may be available, product information, photos and specifications are often much harder to secure.
We've learned a lot in the past few years and we're confident in the products we now provide.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Given the nature of internet marketing, there really is no catch-all method. We've worked hard to strike a balance in our efforts and we've found that to be working for us.
Providing useful and informative content on our website, pages that users can link to, has truly proven effective. Additionally, participating in online forums, providing help and suggestions is another interesting and fun way to build traffic.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It seems that as soon as you think you've got a search engine figured out, everything changes and months of work can be rendered useless in an instant.
The belief that "if you build it, they will come" is naive and shortsighted. Everyone wants to be number one, so it takes a lot of hard work to build and maintain traffic and interest in a website.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
We've been running our online shop since 2005 and it's taken that long to get it off the ground. Traffic has been growing steadily and our conversion rates have grown as well. Honestly, it's been a fantastic experience very interesting and a lot of fun to see it grow.
I've never hoped for instant popularity or millions of visits every day. We're happy doing what we do and being able to serve our customers at a higher level than they expect.
Like any small business owner, we'll keep going as long as it's profitable and enjoyable. Given that our customer base keeps growing, we're expecting to be around for quite a while.
What would you do differently if you had to do it all over again?
As they say, "Education costs money". In retrospect, there's really no way to tell how much business a site loses because of poor processes or design implementations.
If I had to do it all over again, I'd have taken more time to evaluate the website requirements, focused more on the design and user experience from the outset.
Additionally, we'd have taken more time to secure local Canadian suppliers that could meet our needs and expectations in terms of product, pricing and service.
What is your website address?
Inkjet Oasis Canada
