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ARDEN -- When Susan and Richard
Grassette of Sue's Race Shop wanted to take their NASCAR
collectibles business online, they turned to Web designer
Matthew Ledford.
"Matthew is a real hands-on
guy. It was a learning process for both of us," Richard
Grassette recalled. But that learning process paid off. By the
following year, Sue's Race Shop saw some $700,000 in sales of
diecast models, T-shirts, caps and other racing gear over the
Internet.
"When I saw small businesses
getting a good return on their investment, I knew we were on to
something," Ledford said.
Helping mom-and-pop operations
like the Grassettes' succeed has led to Ledford's own success on
a large scale.
Ledford and Co., which he started
in 1997 with Keith Enloe, has grown into Ydesigns.com™,
the featured designer of cyber storefronts for the
top-ranked Yahoo portal to the Internet. Yahoo hosts
some 22,000 cyber stores on the World Wide Web's
most popular shopping site. Since
2001, Ydesigns™ has been prominently featured
on the site. While Yahoo offers an easy d0-it-yourself
process for business people who want to add a
Web page, many opt for a more professional presentation
with graphics with Ydesigns.com™.
Ydesigns™ now boasts some 300 clients
from small operations like Sue's Race Shop to larger
firms such as Crabtree & Evelyn and the National
Wildlife Foundation. Ydesigns.com™
is tucked away in a small office in Arden Industrial
Park.
"We could do this from anywhere,"
said Ledford, the Asheville native who chose to make Arden his
headquarters. "We do it here, because I love the mountains. I
love Asheville. I love to get out and mountain bike in the
afternoons. And this is a great place to raise a family."
Ledford came to Web design
from academia. He served as an administrator for Mayland
Community College and Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community
College and UNC-Greensboro.
Enloe had been in the restaurant
trade, operating Domino's and Subway franchises around
Asheville. Then he helped his wife design and operate a home
business, AvalonGarden.com, which now employs several
stay-at-home moms.
Soon, Ledford and Enloe
discovered their common interests in Web design when they began
talking at their church, The Rock of Asheville. And then they
went into business.
From a two-man operation, Ydesigns.com™
has grown to 12 people. The company also has outsourced
some programming to Australia. Now
Ydesigns™ is evolving toward e-commerce consultation.
"We're not just building Web
sites," Enloe said, "we're teaching folks how to be business
people online."
Ledford said, "We have folks
call with an idea, and we help them grow it."
One idea came to Scott Reinhart
who started his own online company, AmishShopping.com,
selling furniture made by Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania.
Reinhart saw scores of visitors who came to Amish
Country by bus, but who didn't have room to take
home the furniture they saw and liked. After Ydesigns.com™
got his storefront up and running, Reinhart reports
an average of $10,00o in sales a week with as many
as 15,000 new customers.
Businesses should remember
that having a Web site offers an opportunity to build a rapport
with the customer. In fact, 98 percent of shoppers probably
won't make a purchase on their first visit to a Web site,
Ledford said. The key is to keep them coming back, sending out
newsletters or product updates.
"The material exuberance of the
dot-com days is over. In the wake of every technological
revolution, a period of structured growth comes after the
crash," Ledford said. "We're poised for that growth."
Contact Neal at 232-5970 or
DNeal@CITIZEN-TIMES.com.
STEVE DIXON/Staff Photographer
Adria
Tennant works on a Web page at Ydesigns.com™ in
the Arden Business Park. The company designs cyber
storefronts for small businesses on the popular
Yahoo shopping site on the World Wide Web.
Keith Enloe, left, and Matthew
Ledford formed Ledford and Company in 1997, focusing
on the p0ssibilities of e-commerce. Now known as
Ydesigns.com™, their firm is the featured designer
for Yahoo, the top-ranked Internet site for online
shopping. ON
THE NET: Ydesigns™ at www.ydesigns.com, Sue's
Race Shop at www.suesraceshop.com, Crabtree &
Evelyn at www.crabtree-evelyn.com, National Wildlife
Federation at www.nwf.org, www.AmishShopping.com.
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