Name of your website?Online Tool Show
Your name?
Jim Mathieson
Your Location (city, etc)
401-a Governors Highway, South Windsor, CT. 06074
Please give us a short summary of your website?
GLOBAL, 24/7 Industrial Online Tool Show for CNC and manual machine tools including: mills, lathes, grinders and edm machinery, hand tools, work holding, tooling supplies, machining products, accessories and more.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Since I've been responsible for trade show participation in several of my career positions, including my own company, I know what trade shows need to accomplish for both the seller and the buyer. Since SpiderCool has been exhibiting at major industrial trade shows for the past 7 years, I am keenly aware of the costs, including booth space, transporting our machining center to and from the show, internal rigging, electrical, compressed air and miscellaneous services. Our company spends a total of over $8,000 for a 10' X 10' booth at the 3-day Eastec Show alone. It is worth noting that unlike most exhibitors we have no accommodation expenses because we are located within 25 miles of the show. Companies with larger booths can easily spend 5 to 10 times the amount we do on just one single show.
www.onlinetoolshow.com was born out of our own personal need for more affordable marketing exposure and the realization that companies, like yours, have the same need. OnlineToolShow provides a unique, super low cost way, via your online booth, to list your total product offering, exhibit your new emerging technology and product special(s).
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The name came from being at trade shows and realizing the costs of even just a 3 day show and the idea and name were born from that.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Our website is different in that we offer a multitude of searches for products, tooling, services and suppliers. We offer manufacturers a low cost alternative and format where we do not charge for all the different indexes and listing categories, we do not charge for bolded words, we do charge a flat rate dependent upon the booth option selected.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Our eventual goal is for this to be a very profitable site that we will keep unless of course an irresistable offer comes along.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We have not been online long enough to really make that judgement at this time.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
About the only thing I might change is add different language formats.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes, the way the site is designed makes it very easy to maintain. If we got large enough to warrant it we can always add another web-master to the company.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
We planned the company ahead of time and have not really run into any unexpected costs. The only headache , and it is surmountable, is getting ranked highly in the search engines and getting the word out.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Search engine Ranking.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
We have been creating blog entries, pr releases and classified ads to promote the site so far. We will probably use adwords in the future
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It is going as expected.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site has been online for only a week at this time. We are committed to a long range plan for the site.
How long have you been in machining and IT ?
I have been involved in IT for over 25 years doing everything from programming to directing IT departments. My partner has been in the machining industr for over 30 years. He owns his own company that produces a machine tool accessory. A programmable coolant nozzle called Spidercool.
What is your website address?
Online Tool Show
