Merchant Spotlight: Knifeworks

Roger Claunch founded Knifeworks.com in 1998. After years in the convenience store business, Roger became interested in cutlery and related products. Knifeworks began as a brick and mortar business, but the overhead was cost prohibitive. Building an internet-only business appeared to be an attractive option, so Roger made the transition.

Roger states there are many advantages to building an Internet based business:

1. The ability to reach more customers - broad access to niche consumer markets is particularly important to a specialty store such as Knifeworks.com.

2. Increased hours of operation (store takes orders 24 hours a day yet business overhead is considerably less than when he ran a brick and mortar retail store.)

3. Owner flexibility - the Internet model provides Roger flexible (yet demanding) work hours.

These advantages have allowed Knifeworks to prosper in the online world. During the first year of online business, revenues were less than $50,000. Knifeworks.com currently generates over $1,000,000 in annual revenue.