Whiner & Diner: Office Live Small Business Customer Story

About 12 years ago, someone gave Steve Sims a wine crate and he decided to make a dog feeder for his dog. Catherine and Steve started out selling to local stores and giving them as gifts to friends with dogs and cats. Some crates have beautiful pictures of chateaus, some have clever writing - they are taking an item that would probably end up as kindling in someone's fireplace and giving it a new life as an attractive piece of furniture and a feeding station. Their budget for web site and advertising was pretty much non-existent. Catherine read in the New York Times in December 2006 that Microsoft was going to offer Office Live Small Business which would allow small business to design a web site for free. She thought it would be interesting to try so she built out the web site, page after page. She found it quite easy and user-friendly - she was able to do it herself with no web design background. She did the layouts and the pictures and made a wonderful web site very easily. Office Live Small Business has enabled them to have a shopping cart on their web site. From when they started until now, Microsoft Office Live Small Business has helped them increase their business tenfold in just over a year. Office Live Small Business helps bring credibility to the business. People are finding Whiner and Diner, rather than having to go out and find people. They have managed to reach people all over the U.S. and in Europe, China and Japan which they wouldn't have had without Office Live Small Business.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• website
• smallbusiness
• domain
• business
• marketing
• advertising