Many may ask why this site is using an “About Us” page as a home page. The reason is simple. This is not a sales site. It is simply the “headquarters” site for the licensed business, and is for information only on who Azgrand is and what it does. The actual business is conducted on many other sites, blogs and auctions, some of which will be revealed and yet others will remain confidential, for business purposes.
First, the basics, and then the story…
Azgrand Internet Marketing was founded 1999, starting with 18 online store fronts carrying over a million products provided by a third party company
2004 – helped to start a physical company to import tool organization products from Sweden
2004 – Started a web site to market tool organization products
2004 – Acquired a distributorship to an American tool organization line of products to add to the existing imported line
2005 – Moved base of operations from Mesa, AZ to Arkansas
2005-2015 Learned many new web design platforms, both free and paid versions
2008 – Became an Amazon Affiliate
2008 – Dropped the tool organization distributorship and warehousing operation, even though I was the largest full-line stocking distributor in the world for that line of products
2010 – Started using blogs as marketing tools
2012 – Lost Amazon Affiliation to a new state nexus law
2012 – Trained to become an “Education Specialist Trained by eBay” so that I could host day-long classroom-style seminars to teach others how to use the eBay auction platform
2012 – Became an eBay authorized Trading Assistant to sell other people’s items on commission.
2013 – Acquired Skimlinks as an additional affiliate revenue source
2014 – Became an eBay Top Rated Seller (first under azgrand001 eBay account with over 500 feedback score, and now working on azgrand002).
2015 – Changed state of operation and again became an Amazon Affiliate
2015 – Started traveling full-time while building up a digital and drop-ship business model to avoid having to run a warehouse operation. Such activities are still in operation
History of Azgrand Internet Marketing
Azgrand Internet Marketing was started in late 1999 in Mesa, Arizona, by me, John W. Abert. An internet business can be “as grand” (therefore the name) as any brick and mortar store. The location at the time, also added to the choice of names.
It started out with 18 different store-front web sites carrying over a million products, but the company supplying the platform for the stores and the products changed their way of doing business, and their name. Azgrand had no choice but to go in its own direction.
In 2004, Azgrand helped to set up a company to import steel tool boards from Sweden, and became the first, and largest distributor, outselling four other distributors nationwide. Later in 2004, while looking for items to compliment the tool boards without competing with them, it acquired a distributorship with Ernst tool organizing products and built that into the largest online full-line stocking distributor in the world. Azgrand stopped being a full-line stocking distributor for all companies in 2008, at its own choice, because buying in large quantities and then “warehousing” products did not fit into my future growth goals for the company.
In the spring of 2005, ten years of living in the heat and traffic of the desert Southwest had taken its toll, and a move was made to Cherokee Village, Arkansas. Shortly afterward, I lost my Amazon Associate status when Arkansas passed a sales tax nexus law in July of 2012, and Amazon forced me out of that portion of my business and income. But as of November of 2015, I again acquired a new address in a state without a sales tax nexus law (so I could once again be Amazon Associate). The state chosen as my new domicile and mailing address was then South Dakota. But that has changed also, to Indiana, and has now changed again to Texas.
The web platforms I use
From the outset, I experimented with several different web builders, just to see how they worked and be able to compare them. Besides platforms provided by product vendors, I also tried both free ones and paid ones. Over the last 17 years I have worked with FrontPage 2000, and it’s successor, MS Expressions, as well as WebPlus 9 and Web Plus X4 from Serif Software, and others created through “open source” providers.
As the search engines and marketing trends changed from static sites to social marketing and blogs, so did the methods of Azgrand.
In 2010, I started using WordPress blogs with my sites. Although WordPress was a new addition, the use of blogs is not.
As I, the owner of Azgrand, phase into retirement and out of warehousing physical products from my own real estate, I am working toward more digital and affiliate sales, which will be sold from my own web sites and blogs. I am also acquiring qualified drop-ship suppliers for physical products which will also be sold from my own web sites as well as eBay.
I am finding that the Blogger platform is easier to use and less maintenance to keep up with updates than the WordPress.org version (for use on private domains). Also, it allows more freedom of advertising than the free version of WordPress.com. Although the version used on private domains (WordPress.org) has much greater (almost unlimited) versatility, the free version at WordPress.com only allows their own advertising, and is very limited in functionality. Users of ANY blog platform need to read the fine print before they decide what will work for them!
I currently have two Blogger sites, at Incargonito.blogspot.com {to journal my travel activities) and HardyHandyman.blogspot.com (to feature many of my past building projects and assist the DIY crowd with ideas), with more in process and some that will remain private.
Other marketing activities
I was also involved with the “Education Specialist Trained by eBay” program as an eBay authorized and trained instructor (the only one in all of northeast Arkansas), and have also been an eBay authorized Trading Assistant for other people wanting to sell on eBay. I have since dropped both of those programs. (More about that is on the “Questions” page).
I still sell on eBay, having achieved the status of Top Rated Seller, although my activities have gone lax since I started traveling. However, I do plan to regain that status. But as one of the best known eBay “gurus” has said, it isn’t the rank or the status that counts… it’s what you take home at the end of the day. The bottom line is what really counts.
My Products
I have access to millions of products through various wholesalers and affiliate vendors. I can buy physical products for drop-shipping through eBay from vendors on World Wide Brands and many other sources, although I prefer to seek out my own products. I have affiliations with many private vendors who handle their own affiliate links, as well as many “aggregators” (managers of affiliate links) who have many hundreds or thousands of vendors signed up with them. And I also use Skimlinks/Skimwords, which has roughly 18,000 vendors and private aggregators signed up with them. Amazon alone has roughly seventeen times the inventory of Walmart worldwide, and I also do business with both of those. I also have several ClickBank accounts for other digital products.
My services
The service of building and managing web sites for others has been discontinued as I phase into retirement mode. There are no plans to provide services as a product to others at this time. However, I believe that customer service in general is of prime importance to any business. Without that, a business is doomed to fail.
I have also been providing some free training just from reading my posts, but I took a break from that as of December 1st, 2014. I hope to resume the free training on a new blog site, where readers can interact and ask questions.
I read a LOT of blogs created by other people…some are done extremely well, and others are a total mess. I have seen such mistakes as photos of the wrong sizes being inserted and having WAY too many of them, which creates long page loading times, bad writing, bad formatting, spelling and grammatical errors, no paragraph breaks, too many posts per page, poor navigation, failure to provide the FOUR different means of subscribing to the post notifications and even when provided…putting the forms in the wrong places…and countless other atrocities that simply drive people away. At the very least, it hurts the readership of the blogs.
Whether needing a static site for business, blogging for sales reasons, or social, the techniques are the same for all. The idea is to gain readership and provide a site that people will want to read and come back to, and yet from the looks of some of them, it’s as though they are intentionally wanting to drive people away!
Business web sites are like any other part of the business, and must be dealt with on a daily basis, and yet too many business owners are so oblivious to the need for a web site in today’s world that they totally ignore obvious things. For these and other reasons, Azgrand will no longer manage sites that have been registered or started by others, but will still manage sites if we have built them ourselves.
Azgrand is not an “IT” (Internet Technology) company, nor a graphic arts or web design company. I must know some of those things in order to operate efficiently, but my expertise is in marketing techniques for the web, which I will continue to do for my own use. It doesn’t take an “IT” tech or a graphics artist to create a good blog. Some of the ugliest sites in the world are also some of the most profitable. It does take “some” marketing knowledge to know what attracts readers and what looks good, as well as how to write a good sales letter and gather the most important information so you can stay in touch with those readers.
Keywords and keyword research is a big part of advertising and marketing, and we have special software to help with that. All of the techniques I use are equally important whether on blogs, web sites or auction platforms.
The same things that apply to making sales also apply to gaining readership. You can’t have one without the other, so whether bloggers realize it or not, they ARE part of the internet marketing industry. If nothing else, they are selling “themselves” to attract readers.
As tempting as it is for me to want to provide information to help people, the whole truth is that unless they want to help themselves, the words of teachers fall on deaf ears. I have learned that the hard way and invested much time in useless projects for people who don’t care about themselves or their businesses. It will not happen again. However, I will answer questions with honest answers if asked.
I don’t make my money from training others or building and managing sites for them… I make it by doing the things for myself that I “could” teach them, if only they had an interest in learning.
In summation
At Azgrand I am always experimenting with new sites, new web tools and new software to improve profits while at the same time cutting back on maintenance issues. I specialize in products and techniques with “longevity” in the marketplace, rather than fads and “flash in the pan” short-lived sales methods. Many of my sites will remain “anonymous”, designed to run on autopilot, while I continue the process of building new ones and eliminating those that do not perform.
But in retirement, I do it on my own time… not because I have a deadline or “have to”… but because I enjoy what I do, and don’t have to answer to anyone for my words or actions.
I do nearly everything “in house”, including the clerical functions, web work, and (as always) whatever it takes to get the job done. I didn’t know much of it when I started, but I read, studied and implemented what I learned and jumped in and got my hands dirty. I went to numerous seminars to learn even more, and yes, I even spent thousands of dollars for the education I got, because that’s the way it works. Nobody gets something for nothing in this world. If you want something bad enough you have to earn it.
It took awhile to get past the cost recovery time, but thanks to my dedication to study, Azgrand Internet Marketing has enjoyed a comfortable growth rate for the past few years, and 2024 is on target to be the best year yet.
Earlier, “retiring” was mentioned, and that is true. I have retired from being a master electrician and robotics technician, machine builder, and from all construction-related trades and tasks. And although I will continue my online activities, I have discontinued many of the time-wasting things that I have done in the past, and will be concentrating more on my own sites. As with any business, you have to eliminate what doesn’t provide the most profits, and find things that do.
The company, Azgrand Internet Marketing, will continue for my own use for as long as I see a need to run it, as it is the parent company for all of my individual web sites and ventures. But building the business, gaining more and more sales, and all of the other things that a normal business does will continue well into the future, although I may introduce more digital products of my own making, such as ebooks. As always, the name of the game is to go where the money is the greatest and the work is the least.
As of late November of 2015, I have sold off 90% of my assets, including real estate, and have gone into full-time RV traveling all over these great United States. Winters will be spent wherever it’s warm, and summer travel could take me anywhere cooler. I most recently spent a winter in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and have a fiance here now. Although we may have a base in Texas, we also will travel back and forth to Monterrey as needed,, and I will continue to conduct business online from wherever I happen to be.
Why have customers chosen Azgrand to return to for future purchases?
The single most important thing that has made my business successful is the importance I place on customer service. I despise the mindless (and many times meaningless) messages kicked out by autoresponders, so to date I haven’t started using one. Even my ebooks are delivered through a special process setup within a WordPress plug-in, rather than farmed out to a vendor. My emails have always been personally written. I answer each and every email I receive within hours. Product orders received online are processed within hours and shipped within 24 business hours in nearly all instances, whether for eBay or from my own web sites.
What does the future hold?
Many other sites and blogs are currently being built to continually expand the business toward more digital products, including my own books, possibly a new membership site that will be a joint effort with a new partner in Mexico, and as I travel more while running my business, I am working toward keeping my own sites more private, and will be depending more and more on my new partner to help build and operate that portion of the business. But don’t worry, wherever I am, I will be constantly monitoring everything that goes on.
