Google and Rollier's click for online business
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Brett Satterfield, right, Web master of Rollier's Hardware's online site, sits with his brother, Derek, in a former conference room that has been turned into a packing center at the store in Mt. Lebanon.
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When Brett Satterfield started building a website for his family's business, he turned to Google search for help finding how-to sites and instructions.
Soon he became so successful -- and his narrative so pitch-perfect -- that Google turned to him for help.
Mr. Satterfield took the 88-year-old Rollier's Hardware store in Mt. Lebanon online, and the storied retailer on Washington Road found itself competing with big-box operations.
He fielded Google search traffic to his retail site from across the country with the help of Google AdWords, and was subsequently drafted as a freelance supporter by the company that helped him get there.
On the Internet, "you can look big without being big," he said.
It helps to use programs as big as Google's, which enjoys a dominant market share and earned reputation as a continual game-changer -- or, in industry parlance, "disrupter" -- across multiple industries.
Mr. Satterfield's story offers a glimpse of how a quiet outlet not known outside its community can rub digital elbows with what some hail as Silicon Valley's shining light -- or deride as the Wal-Mart of the Web.
Mr. Satterfield's resume includes a finance degree and brief stint at Federated Investors, but his age -- 27 -- was qualification enough to become the default computer guy for his family's business. The store, which is run by his father and two uncles, had little online presence before Mr. Satterfield joined them in 2007.
As Mr. Satterfield brainstormed Web ideas, his father offered a suggestion that might help the hardware store find its niche online: "Why don't we just focus on hard-to-find items?" he asked.
A name was born.
HardToFindItems.com launched two years ago and now operates out of an upstairs office in the 52,000-square-foot store on Washington Road. While floor sales go on below, Mr. Satterfield works behind a laptop in sleek red Puma shoes. His younger brother, Derek, helps with graphic design.
Online sales are currently up about 700 percent since last year, though Mr. Satterfield admits it's easy to go "to something from nothing" on the Web.
First Published March 14, 2010 12:12 am
