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Surfers buy and sell on the Net

USA TODAY asked its readers to share their experiences of buying and selling on the Internet. More than 300 readers e-mailed us their stories. Here is a sampling.

Boaters' catch

Not only can people find exactly what they're looking for on the Internet. They also can make new friends.

Celeste Burger, 37, and her husband, Jeff, 44, longed for a Key West boat but couldn't locate one despite scouring the classifieds and boat trader magazines.

One night, Celeste gave the Net a try. After 15 minutes, she found what they were looking for - a 19-footer with a center console. They wanted a boat they could fish from whether the water was shallow or deep. When she showed her husband what she found, he thought it was a prank.

But without seeing a photo, Celeste knew it was the one. The next day, Burger called the owner who sent pictures and more information by mail. Six days later, the Burgers, who live in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., drove three hours to Indialantic, Fla., to see the boat and its seller, Fielding Troutman.

"My husband thought this was going to be a worthless trip, but when he saw the boat, he fell in love with it and wrote a check for $13,500. We drove it home," Celeste says.

"We didn't even put the boat in the water when we got there. We trusted this man (Troutman)," she says. He "spent a lot of time telling us about the boat. We became really good friends."

It was Celeste's first time buying anything that she found via the Internet. "I've never bought a baseball hat from J. Crew, and here we go out and buy a boat."

Pet project

Gayle Harper, 50, found her new love on the Net. No, she didn't surf computer-dating services, she searched for "pets." Harper always wanted a West Highland Terrier and found 8-month old Bently on the Internet.

At first, she looked in her hometown of McGaheysville, Va., but the going rate for a terrier was $1000 -- a bit more than what Harper wanted to spend. Though wary of buying anything on the Net, Harper gave it a try and located a breeder in Florida who knew of a purebred male for $200. But there was a catch: The dog had a broken tail.

Three weeks later, Harper bought Bently a plane ticket and flew him to Virginia, crooked tail and all. "I never thought I would do something like this. But thanks to the Web, I have the sweetest dog I have ever owned."

Plant business takes off

Searching for unusual plants and landscaping? Plant lovers can find everything from cacti to miniature plants at www.gdnctr.com.

The Garden Center & Nursery in Winterstown, Pa., doesn't rely entirely on sales through the Internet, but the online option does allow potential customers to browse its services and selections.

"People discover us and want our services and products - rare, and unusual and very hard-to-find plant material that no one else has," says John Shelley, 47, who owns the business.

Since plants are very fragile, they're tough to mail. So Shelley wasn't sure his $500 venture on the Internet would work.

To his surprise, the Net has brought people from all over the country to his nursery. Business people traveling from Dallas, New York and Toronto have made special trips to Shelley's nursery in Pennsylvania.

Shelley specializes in miniature plants and miniature landscaping. He buys miniature Alpine plants from Oregon that normally grow in an elevation of 7,000 and transplants them where they grow to less than 12 inches.

He also has 40 varieties of cacti that are grown from seedlings collected from the Grand Canyon. And Shelley spends four hours a day on the Internet, answering horticultural questions from people as far away as Bosnia, Indonesia, Japan and Germany.

Last year, the Garden Center snagged $90,000 in revenue from the Web. Shelley expects to reach $200,000 this year in landscaping and retail revenue. He says his customer base has jumped from 3,500 annually to 10,000.

A new vintage option

Selling antique furniture over the Internet has opened a whole new world for Kathy Burch, 44, and partner Edward Grzybowski, 48.

Eighty percent of their sales originate from the West Coast - though her store, Tri-State Antique Center, is in Canonsburg, Pa.

Since opening their Web site six months ago, sales have just taken off for hot "mid-century modern" and Heywood-Wakefield furniture.

People from all over the country call looking to buy pieces of well-made, streamline furniture to enhance their collection, Burch says. The Web site has increased their sales by 50% a month.

The one drawback is shipping. Single items are too large for express mail. But it costs too much to use large trucking companies, Burch says. Some customers opt to pick up the furniture themselves. "We could do even more (business) if we could find a reasonable shipping method," Burch says. In addition to selling furniture, she has bought antiques from other sellers.

Burch and Grzybowski spent $2,600 on a computer and designed their own Web site. Their address: www.tri-stateantiques.com.

Aardvark on wheels

The owners of Aardvark Cycles, an Internet-only business, credit customer service for their success.

Last August, David Adams, 26, and Kevin Innes, 24 opened Aardvark at www.aardvarkcycles.com as an experiment and a hobby. They sell high-end mountain bike components and accessories, the kind consumers can rarely find at local shops. Or when they do, it is very expensive, Adams says.

Business started slowly.

They got ripped off on their first sale. A customer ordered $600 of equipment - suspension components, front shocks and other accessories. Adams and Innes were so thrilled, they shipped the equipment the next day. Two hours later, they discovered the customer had used a stolen credit card.

Since then, Aardvark has landed several major sales - including to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Its traffic on the Net has increased to more than 600 people daily. Aardvark, which processes 10 orders a day, says its forte is attentiveness to customers: e-mails are answered hourly, Adams says.

Aardvark operates out of Provo, Utah, and had to overcome several small-businesses barriers.

It faced resistance from traditional small-business owners who feared it would undercut their prices and steal their customers.

And major distributors were hesitant to supply merchandise to Aardvark. They worried that the company, by selling products over the Internet, would erode the mystique of their brands, Adams says.

Aardvark's owners say sales would double if they could keep enough merchandise in stock to meet demand. They are looking to sell all or part of their business to a chain that has a strong distribution channel. Their Web site cost $500 to set up. But they have spent close to $7,000 on inventory since the site was started, Adams says.

Thrifty site

"Who could have imagined thrift stores on the Internet a few years ago?" says George Guiver, 44.

He runs Savers, a thrift store in Phoenix. And after 43 years of selling collectible items the traditional way, Guiver felt it was time to jump into the future. In January, he launched Savers' Web site. It cost $425 to set up, plus $25 a month for the server.

Consumers searching for collectibles can go to Savers at http://fp.sedona.net/savers. If the item is in stock, they'll find a description, list price and the closing date of the sale. Consumers then bid on the item. The highest bidder receives an e-mail and wins the item.

Guiver's business has exploded since he turned to the Web. Weekly sales jumped to $1,700, compared with $50 before he went online. "The Web site obviously has expanded our market for items like an early '60s Barbie or a Lionel Train set from the '50s," he said. Before, an item could sit in the store for weeks.

What hampers sales is that customers can't see what they're buying. "We spend so much time trying to describe items over the phone" that it's very time consuming, Guiver says. In August, Savers plans to launch a new Web site with photos and will increase its product line to 1,200 items.

Muffins 'n More

Tina Lindstrom-Boyle and Jo Ann Will wanted the perfect job. Their requirement: no bosses and flexible hours so they could work from home while raising their families.

Last August, they formed a partnership and started Muffins 'n More. They make gift baskets stuffed with home-baked muffins, breads and brownies. They even offer diabetic muffins. And they design baskets for gourmet chocolate fans, coffee lovers, gardening enthusiasts, weddings and baby showers.

Their home-based business in Edinboro, Pa., got off to a slow start. So Lindstrom-Boyle, 28, felt it was time for something new. She pushed the idea of selling baskets on the Net. But with only one Web sale since January, both women were disappointed.

Will, 41, who was skeptical at first, says they should have built their customer base before jumping on the Net. Setting up the Web site cost only $600. But they borrowed money, expecting sales to increase, and put too much money into the product instead of marketing, Will says. Spending more time on research might have helped the business get off to a better start. But Lindstrom-Boyle says they're not ready to give up.

They've developed a catchy and colorful Web site: www.muffins-n-more.com, where they change the background scenery depending on the season and update pictures of new basket ideas.

Caffeine alert

If you're not a coffee lover and need that jolt in the morning, try XTZ, which serves up an assortment of caffeine-laced teas, waters - and potent chocolate truffles.

Robert Bolling, 40, hates coffee. In fact, he has had only three cups of coffee his entire life. But he loves caffeine and was frustrated in his quest for the perfect drink to give him a lift in the morning. Bolling, who lives in Maryland Heights, Mo., said for 10 years the best alternatives he could find were Jolt Cola and Arizona Green Tea. But when he tired of those drinks, Bolling started searching the Web.

Within an hour, he found www.thebevnet.com. The site offered a menu of caffeine drinks. That's where he found XTZ, a citrus-flavored tea made with nine blends of herbs and mixed with black and green tea. "This is the perfect drink that gives me a sensation every time," he says.

Now Bolling has his own Web site selling XTZ. His site is: www.toastedravioli.com/rocketfuel.

Pony express

Kris Whelan-Griscom, 33, an equestrian and horse lover once spent nine months traveling to Florida and New England searching for a horse.

But she found the process time-consuming - and frustrating. "You have to be able to look at a horse before you buy," she says. A horse can sound perfect over the phone, but many times after traveling miles to see the horse it has horrible conformation or looks more like a donkey, she says.

Two years ago, Whelan-Griscom started EquiSearch, the first Web site to sell horses. She is now able to reach horse lovers across North America. It's also a great way to shop for horses, because people can see photos of them, including action shots and head shots.

It's been incredibly successful, with 11,000 hits on the Web site a day. Horses have been sold at an average of $10,000. Currently, EquiSearch lists 700 horses for sale.

Those interested in selling a horse on EquiSearch pay a basic cost of $50 a month until the horse is sold, but costs vary, depending on the information sellers want included.

Marketing initially was difficult, Whelan-Griscom says. She traveled to horse shows to spread the word, but people were intimidated by the Net. Now, people know about the service so when she shows up at a horse show, people hover around the computer to check out horses for sale.

Visit the Web site at: www.equisearch.com.

Livestock online

Interested in Boer Goats?

Check out Livestock World magazine at www.pitchfork.com. The only advertising it carries is for livestock and agricultural equipment. The magazine went online in January 1996, and now gets more than 30,000 hits weekly.

Kenn Evans, 57, decided Livestock World would be a great place to entice readers to buy his Boer goats, which are renowned for the massive amounts of meat they provide. So Evans, who has a farm in Boardman, Ore., turned to the Web to expand his business.

He normally sells about 150 goats a year to farmers in Oregon, Idaho and Montana. And currently, he has 150 mature stock and 100 babies.

After his ad appeared on the Web, Evans got a call from a woman in Minnesota interested in buying two goats. He was shocked. But everything worked out.

Evans just happened to be taking a trip out that way and took the two goats as extra luggage on the airplane, he said. Evans - who paid $100 to fly the goats to Minnesota - sold one for $800; the other for $500.

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©COPYRIGHT 1997 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.