Store Spotlight: Walleye Direct

Do your taste buds tingle at the thought of yummy, fresh water fish? If so, join me in sampling some of the finest fillets coming out of the pristine waters of Canada for this week’s Store Spotlight on Walleye Direct, your source for freshwater fish fillets. Everything from yellow perch, walleye, trout and catfish is available directly from the lake to your door overnight so you can satisfy your craving before you go mad. So how did this fresh fish market get started?

One day Jesse Ness noticed no one was catering to the fresh fish lover such as him online and Walleye Direct as a concept was born. Starting out took a bit more as Jesse recalls, “I was reading a Yahoo Store for Dummies book and realized that I was still too dumb to figure it out.  Luckily I was working with a guy that recommended going with Miva Merchant if I was in business for the long haul and would want to customize the site later on.  He was right and I haven’t looked back.”

Next came Jesse’s biggest challenge selling online; getting shipping rates correct. “Freight is a large percentage of my total sale since everything has to go overnight or two day air – so being too high on freight hurts sales and too low really hurts profits.  Early on I had a very small sale that I knew was going to lose about $30 total just shipping it.  There is a lot of fine tuning inside the UPS module that has gotten me to this point and I still adjust weights and discount percentages to keep the numbers close.” according to Mr. Ness.

Knowing you are getting a good deal on shipping and that your fish will arrive in a tasty condition are the two primary concerns for any potential customer to walleyedirect.com. As a result, a clear explanation of the limited shipping options along with a phone number for easy contact appears on every page. Now you just have to figure out if you want walleye, perch, bluegill, trout or catfish fillets. Once your freshwater fillets arrive why not try out a new recipe to bring a new taste to your mouth.

Of course, I had to ask Jesse about his thoughts on Miva Merchant, “Miva Merchant has helped me because I have a very professional look and feel to my store so if a prospect stumbles on to my site, they will be comfortable making a purchase.  If they can even find my competitors no one will have a better looking or performing site.  Now that I’ve had a couple years of experience I am able to make many changes and updates to the site myself—the main advantage over using Yahoo.”

Complete your summer time fish fry or BBQ with fresh walleye, bluegill or lake perch from Walleye Direct. Enjoy 10% off using the coupon code, MIVA09, for the next month.

Interested in having your website featured in the Miva Merchant Store Spotlight? Visit the Store Spotlight submission form.

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