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By FBNews.net
"At first, I was negative about it. I thought I was just throwing the money away. The response has blown us all out of the water. After September 11th, I was prepared for business to go down the tubes. I told the guys that what we were doing was a luxury, not a necessity, and that if the economy grinds to a halt, no oneīs going to buy this stuff."
He couldnīt have been more wrong: "Weīre now booked 14 months in advance for restorations."
Despite Septemberīs tragedies and a recessed economy, Johnīs restoration business has continued to blossom, and his web traffic shows this trend is not a fluke. From December to January, for example, his site traffic increased 47%.
The numbers held steady in February, but March has shown still more growth. If anything, he says, itīs the sales of new appliances that have been sluggish. There has certainly been an element of serendipity to Johnīs success. A visit to the siteīs online showroom shows a variety of brightly painted refrigerators in red, yellow, and blue—not traditional colors for large appliances.
John admits that the reason for choosing these bold colors was not based on period style or artistic whimsy. They had been created as pieces for the online showroom simply because plain white refrigerators didnīt show up very well on the web site! Meanwhile, these colorful pieces have become hot items.
Although John was skittish about his initial investment of a few hundred dollars to create his first site, he now feels that it is undoubtedly responsible for the success of his restoration business:
"I depend on the Internet. Without the Internet, I wouldnīt have the antique business."
"If I were trying to market these items in a 100-mile radius, there simply arenīt enough potential clients that want these products or have the money to spend to make it a viable business. 98% of the business I do with the vintage appliances comes from the Internet."
John has certainly extended the reach of his business via the Internet beyond a 100-mile radius. His refurnished stoves and refrigerators have found homes all across the country and beyond.
"Very few of our clients are in our general area. We keep a map up in the office and we peg every city that we go to or ship to, and when you look at the map, the bulk of the clients have been in the New England states. Although weīve shipped something to almost every state in the Union at this point, the Midwest and the Northeast have been our biggest demand areas."
"Recently, we did our first International order. We shipped 2 refrigerators to an public relations firm in Riga, Latvia. They are being used in a national ad campaign for the Phillip Morris-Latvia Corporation. The refrigerators are the grand prizes. They contacted us about a month ago after showing their clients our web site."
He believes that much of his success, both online and off, stems from the fact that he is offering a truly unique service. Antique Appliances is the only company in the US that specializes in the restoration of vintage refrigerators, and one of only a small number who restores vintage electric stoves.
Many companies are restoring gas stoves in the US because a gas stove is rather simple to repair and restore—no wiring, no moving parts, no chemicals involved. Electric stoves, however, are more complicated—a thorough knowledge of electrical systems is needed.
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