In our Business Spotlight series, we highlight one of our merchants to learn more about their business and how they approach eCommerce.

In this installment, we will be interviewing We Sell Mats. They are an eCommerce retail business that sells EVA foam floor mats, gymnastics mats, and fitness mats. Their main market is to home users, but they also sell quite a bit of foam flooring to trade show exhibitors, schools, martial arts studios and other businesses.

1. Do you have a company mission statement?

Well Sell Mats is a family business that focuses on providing its customers with service, value, and safe, quality products. We strive to create financial security for our family, our employees, and their families while making all feel valued for their contribution as we share in the success of the company. We have and will continue to support our local community through charitable work and endlessly transfer our knowledge and experience to other entrepreneurs who want to follow in our footsteps to success.

2. How do you differentiate yourself from the competition?

We have higher quality, better pricing, and the widest selection of colors. We also pride ourselves on responsive customer service. We provide an authentic presence on Instagram and Facebook where customers can direct message us any time.

3. Talk about your eCommerce journey. How did you get to where you are?

We began selling foam tiles on eBay in 2006 out of a home garage. The business quickly grew as there was very little competition at the time. At that time Amazon had just made the transition from strictly books/CDs to other items and we got in at that very early time with foam and later gymnastics and fitness mats. As competition entered our space, we had the history, the rankings, the reviews to be on top. Because the gymnastics mats are very large, Amazon did not want to warehouse them. That led to becoming a drop-shipper (direct fulfillment to Amazon’s customers). Unfortunately we are now seeing more competition on Amazon who are selling at a lower price, yet their quality is terrible. We are currently optimizing our Amazon listings with fresh images, engaging A+ content and a new storefront.

Our own website sales had been way down in recent years so we redesigned our site and moved it from Magento to Big Commerce in August of 2019. We are beginning to see an increase in online conversions not only with a faster, more user-friendly site, but we also have a very engaging social media presence, regular email marketing, aggressive promotions, regular blogging, and new Google Adwords campaigns. Compare our Black Friday weekend from 2018: $9,000 in revenue in 2018 (Thurs-Mon) to $24,000 in 2019.

4. How does your company deal with Amazon? (Fight them? Join them? Ignore them?)

They are our #1 sales channel but would like to eventually become less reliant on them. They have been good to us!

5. What advice would you give to a new business just getting started in eCommerce?

You must have a fast, customer friendly website, be willing to spend money on advertising, and provide excellent customer service.

6. What is the biggest lesson you have learned since launching your online store?

Features don’t necessarily work “out of the box” on any eCommerce platform. We had many technical challenges in the first three months and still do. It can be frustrating because customers today expect the “Amazon” experience and it’s very hard to do that when you are a small company. (But I’m confident we can get there in time as we grow as a company).

Check out the wesellmats.com today and see their amazing products firsthand!.

Want to know how EYStudios can help your BigCommerce site? Call us at 678-402-6378 or email us at info@eystudios.com. 

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