SMARTbomb Case Study

“We needed a redesign, but we needed someone to do more than just fix things on our web site. SMARTbomb.com was looking for a more holistic approach to our needs. We needed a company that would help us; that would give us advice. We needed a design firm, but we needed a consulting firm too. We needed someone who would help us manage our business. We got exactly what we wanted in Solid Cactus.”
—Brant Shapiro, SMARTbomb.com

SMARTbomb.com is an internet pioneer, brought to life in 1996. The company sells vitamins, natural skin care products, teas, spa merchandise, air and water filters, books, herbs-a staggering 21,000 products. SMARTbomb.com started with just Brant Shapiro, but has exploded in the last 4 years. Now there are 12 full-timers at this internet-only company. Solid Cactus came aboard for the SMARTbomb.com redesign in 2004. Recently Brant added 2 more web sites, SpaFeatures.com and NationalSupplementCenter.com. They were both designed from scratch by Solid Cactus, which also tied all three stores together at the back end.

For SMARTbomb.com the journey to Solid Cactus began with the desire to find a web company willing to do more. “I was not happy with my old firm,” says Brant. “They weren’t fast enough for me and they didn’t really understand the importance of back end features.” So Solid Cactus designed the two new web sites from the ground up and made sure all three were completely integrated with each other. “We work with the same inventory, the same call center, and everything runs smoothly. Before, we couldn’t keep up with the traffic on one site.”

On the front end Solid Cactus increased the ability of SMARTbomb.com to cross-sell. One way is to feature items which relate to other products of interest to a potential buyer.

This allows SMARTbomb.com to segment its customers. “I don’t have to spend my day unpacking boxes anymore,” says Brant. “I can pay more attention to merchandising.” Another important feature for cross-selling is the Customer Review section. “When someone gets ready to spend $75 for a face mask, for instance, they want to know from other customers that it works. With Customer Reviews, now they can hear from people who have used it.”

On the back end SMARTbomb.com went with Cactus Complete Commerce. It made a huge difference to business efficiency. “Before Solid Cactus we were doing manual credit card charging,” says Brant. “It was awful. Now it’s easy. Handling inventory is easier too. I get 20 deliveries a day of different products. Now I can ship them out the same day they come in and still keep track of everything.” Cactus Complete Commerce also allowed SMARTbomb.com to manage its growth better. “We were growing so fast we couldn’t keep up with either our growing product line or our customer base. Solid Cactus gave us the ability to better handle where we were and positioned us to grow from there.”

Since the redesign, SMARTbomb.com has seen its sales increase by 25%. The average order size has grown 15% because of the added front end features. But the numbers are the tip of the iceberg to Brant Shapiro. “I’m working with real people and not some stuffy firm,” he says. “Solid Cactus really knows mail order, from the ground up. They helped me set up our entire mail order system. They even told me where to buy warehouse shelving and showed me how to set it up for the pickers to move through the aisles most efficiently.”

As for the cost of doing business with Solid Cactus, Brant Shapiro says it pays for itself. “We don’t need an IT staff; we have one in Solid Cactus. If there’s a problem I know right where to find them. Being a Solid Cactus client is like having a team of programmers and consultants a phone call away.”