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West
To The Sun
SOLAREX continues it's hot growth
For Americans,
the idea of taking risks almost seems genetic. Most of our ancestors
risked life and limb to come to this country in order to better
themselves. That’s where we all come from. It’s in
our DNA.
Take SolarEx president, Michael Mahoney, and his vice president
of sales, John Norris, as modern day examples. They had a thriving
wholesale sunglasses firm established in the Cleveland suburb of
Brooklyn Heights, OH, not far from where the two grew up and went
to high school together. They were both married and expecting their
first child, and had extended family nearby to enjoy life with.
So, what did they do last year? They answered that old beckon call
of, “Go West, young man,” and started a second distribution
center in Gilbert, AZ, in order to better serve current clients
across the Mississippi and to surely attract new ones on the other
side of the Great Plains.
In order to make the west wing of SolarEx a success, the two relocated
their families, and the Midwesterners are getting used to the warmer
climate. “Having a pool in the backyard out here helps a
lot,” Mahoney said. “But the weather is also one of
the reasons we came here as a business. People need sunglasses
year round, so the potential for growth is outstanding. It’d
be nice to be able to see our extended family and old friends as
often as we would if we were living in the Cleveland area, but
we are really enjoying ourselves and think it was a great move.”
Mahoney and Norris had high school lockers only a few alphabetical
spots away from each other in Olmstead Falls, another suburb of
Cleveland. Eventually the two went to college and into the real
world. Norris took a position in a family business, while Mahoney
became a campaign manager for a few state senatorial runs in Ohio,
and even an election involving a U.S. Congressional spot.
During this time, they were both getting hands-on experience with
what it takes to make a business successful. With Norris, it’s
easy to understand him learning many of the rigors of commerce
in his family’s industrial contracting firm. But his future
business partner’s journey was a little more unorthodox.
“Coming out of college, going into business wasn’t what
I expected,” said Mahoney, a 1997 graduate of Ohio University
in Athens with a degree in Interpersonal Communication and Political
Science. “But once I got started in political campaigns, I
had to learn all the basics to running a business. I had to look
at funding. I had to create a budget, a business plan. I had to make
field plans. I traveled around the country.”
Circa 2000, Mahoney and Norris one day were hanging out together
in a Cleveland area mall and happened to spot a sunglasses cart.
Even though neither of them had retail experience other than part-time
jobs while in school, they went online to research the idea of
opening a cart of their own. They quickly made up their minds,
and SolarEx was born.
While retailing sunglasses in the early months, they began to see
a larger potential in supplying sunglasses. Before long, they opened
a 20,000 square foot warehouse in Brooklyn Heights, and a multimillion-dollar
distributor was about to take off.
And of course, they were just getting started in their territorial
conquests.
SolarEx Sets
Sights on New Frontier: the Web
Since launching www.solarexsunglasses.com three years ago, the
company has seen site traffic continuously grow to the point where
adding an online shopping cart was the next logical step. So last
January, the shopping cart went in.
The company had already been using email to contact past customers
about new arrivals and special offers, such as free shipping on
orders of 50 dozen or more. “In terms of what we do with
email, we are very careful with it and only send messages to customers
we believe appreciate the product oriented updates on our inventory,” Mahoney
said. “The fact that recipients can now order direct from
our website should make the email even more useful for our company
and our customers.”
SolarEx, whose busiest months are May through August, updates its
inventory online on a constant basis in order to allow customers
to see what exactly is available. Recently, sunglasses from its
stylish designer collections have been the most popular among retailers
shopping at www.solarexsunglasses.com.
The company has private label lines called FS Collection, Xcess
Sportswear, XS Fashion and Dimitris Dimitriou. There are eight
variations in each collection. The sunglasses in the latter four
brands cost $24 per dozen, while the FS Collection are listed at
$36 per dozen at the website. Online customers are asked to register
and sign in. One of the most convenient shopping features is the
site’s ability to search by item number, which allows past
customers to reorder in speedy fashion.
“The website has been great for us in terms of exposing our
products to new audiences,” Mahoney said. “There’s
a whole market out there that’s using the Internet to look
exclusively for sunglasses. And our repeat customers like it as well.
Even if they call the order in, they are looking online first to
make sure they know what they can get before calling. People can
see the new styles right away. The website has brought us a whole
new set of customers that we wouldn’t get through advertising
or wouldn’t get through our sales program or trade shows.”
When SolarEx implemented the shopping cart and essentially redesigned
and relaunched the website in January, Mahoney said that the transition
was almost seamless. But there were still issues to consider and
important decisions to be made, he said.
“We had some obstacles in terms of how we wanted to display
the products, and the ways we wanted to let our customers search,” Mahoney
said. “We included customer input from what they said about
the past website. We took their comments into consideration to make
it easier to use. We always listen to what our customers have to
say, no matter what medium we are using, so employing their thoughts
made complete sense as they applied to the website. I like the fact
that the design turned out real clean and lets you get where you
need to go.”
The website breaks down items into six major categories, but there
are also numerous subcategories for sunglasses such as Aviators,
Children’s, Clip On’s, Reader, Goggles and Runway Collection.
Site users who aren’t ready to make a purchase right away
can accumulate products on a Wish List during the ordering process,
and finalize the buy later.
The site’s navigability operates at a top level, and the
ordering process is so streamlined that customers can get in and
out of the online store in little time.
“If I could go back and do it again, I would have put the shopping
cart up earlier than we did,” Mahoney said. “We are very
pleased with its potential. But we grew our business with what we
knew, and what we knew was offline. We moved naturally, I think,
into the Internet space because at first in a business you have to
capitalize on what you know best. ”
One Stop Shop For Unique and Compare-to Sunglasses
Solar Ex, which serves mom and pops, flea markets, tourist boutiques,
online retailers and mall cart entrepreneurs, among others, emphasizes
that one of the key advantages to doing business with it lies
in the previously mentioned lines: FS Collection, Xcess Sportswear,
XS Fashion and Dimitris Dimitriou.
“For people that are looking for a different look, for an exclusive
line of glasses, our private label lines help set them apart from
the competition,” Mahoney said. “Whether in a mall setting
or a flea market, if the retailer is competing directly with someone
else, they can have something unique that has a higher quality.”
But SolarEx also has one of the industry’s best selections
of compare-to sunglasses that allow retailers to fill out their
carts, displays and shelves. As yet another example of the way
the company maximizes www.solarexsunglasses.com, it has created
a New Arrivals section that lets customers see the hottest compare-to
sunglasses and accessories coming into inventory. The compare-to
selections are generally in the $20 per dozen price range.
“We just got in new styles of compare-to sunglasses today,” Mahoney
said. “We are constantly getting new products in and posting
them at the website.”
Mahoney and Norris can identify the customer service needs of mall
cart operators in particular, since they still own and manage 10
such carts and kiosks in the Cleveland area. Even though the company
is now more than 80 percent wholesale and sees annual revenue figures
climbing towards the tens of millions of dollars, it still knows
the plot of the independent retailer.
“We know that some products will work for some retailers all
year long, so we don’t discontinue styles that are in our catalog,” Mahoney
said. “That way our customers who find good sellers in February,
March and April can get their moneymakers the whole year. They c
an get those quickly and get their profits.”
SolarEx is always trying to innovate for retailers as well. In
the coming months, visitors to the company’s website will
be able to see its new modular store/cart displays. The display
units can be customized to include the customer’s brand name,
and will hold anywhere from 12 to 120 sunglasses.
“They are being designed for either retailers or cart operators
with space issues, or those who want a fresh display for their business,” Mahoney
said.
Perhaps most importantly, SolarEx fully knows that its customers
are trying to build their futures. Mahoney and Norris, each 30
years of age, are proud fathers of toddlers who were born eight
days apart. Perhaps someday the kids will have neighboring lockers
in school before setting off to become entrepreneurs. After all,
it’s in their genes.
“Mike and I each understand from experience that our customers
are people with families who need to put food on the table,” Mahoney
said. “If our customers order something that doesn’t
work for their demographic or for one reason or another, we’ll
take that style back and replace it with something that does move
in their market. If the sunglasses are sitting in the rack, collecting
dust, that doesn’t help anyone. I want those glasses to collect
dollars for our retailers.”
Contact:
SolarEx (Ohio)
1215 Valley Belt Dr. Unit C.
Brooklyn Heights, OH 44131
Tel.: 866-298-0433
Tel.: 480-558-4373
Fax: 480-558-7445
Email: customerservice@solarexsunglasses.com
SolarEx (Arizona)
130 North Sunway Ste. 3
Gilbert, AZ 85233
Email: customerservice@solarexsunglasses.com
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