A Hobby Now a Successful Business

As Model express grew the basement became a repository for 100s of car and truck models. Model Express had an established small but loyal customer base that continued to buy its specialized products.

In 1997 Model Express went to the Internet to advertise and sell its products. The company had some trepidation and anxiety about its "new" media, they were guarded about the initial cost to set a site up. Model Express's approach to the Internet was cautious and conservative. The web site was built then posted to the world. From that point on Model Express's business grew and prospered. Web site traffic was carefully monitored, the site was regularly updated and changed. Many Model Express customers phoned, e-mail or faxed suggestions for improvement to the site. Their suggestions were implemented, and today, 14 months later Model Express has become an Internet success.Model Express owns its own domain name "www.modelexpress.net" and enjoys up to 100 visitors a day. Most visits result in sale of a wide variety of stock.

The Model Express story is one of a small home based business that went to the Internet to expand its customer base and take advantage of the new technology. The company has been conscious about its site, and made use of all eight commonalties successful web sites share.

The most interesting aspect of this story is how the web site, its product mix, and its customers changed over time. Model Express as a world based web site has reached hundreds of new customers. Recently, for example, Model Express delivered a number of die cast metal models to the Antarctic via Massachusetts. A number of loyal customers have referred other new customers to "www.modelexpress.net" because its owner provides a high quality, effective service to all visitors. As the customer base of Model express has grown so has its customer appeal. Links have been posted to other sites, by Model express's own customers, where others can utilize the service. For example; Model Express's URL had been posted to various exotic car sites. The owners of these exotic cars (yes real cars you drive) have then contacted Model Express for plastic model kits of their cars. These plastic scale models, in the past, had no one buying them; now, however the specific exotic car models are selling at a premium!

The owner of Model Express has made several comments about his site and his new customers. "This last week I have received numerous inquiries and sales from Europe" and "My old customer base was a small but loyal group, but as a group they have aged and are buying less, however thanks to the Web Site itself I have quadrupled my new customers".