Name: Jessica Poirier, computer coordinator

Business: Isle Royale National Historical Association, Houghton, Michigan

Web address: www.irnha.org

Products: “Educational materials (books, videos, charts) and gift items related to Isle Royale National Park, Keweenaw National Historical Park or the region.”

Years on web: 5

Percent of sales from web in current year: 33%

Increase in web sales from previous year: 10%

Website designed by: Christine Mannines (president of the IRNHA Board of Directors)

Typical customer: “A person planning a trip to one of the parks or the region.”

Main method of promoting site: “Most visitors probably find us through the National Park Service website. Each park has a section on www.nps.gov, and when people are viewing the Isle Royale NP section, for example, a link labeled “Bookstore” goes to our site. It’s tightly integrated. Being a ‘cooperating partner’ with the NPS allows us this crucial link.”

Biggest challenge: “Constantly updating the site and getting all the merchandise from our shop and catalog available online. About a third of our products are available on the website now, but we hope to have it all online within the next few months. We’d like to be the one-stop shop for visitors planning a trip to one of the parks.”

Worst mistake: “One year, the website was revamped shortly before Christmas. There were glitches and the site didn’t work for about a week. Since we sell a lot of gift items, this was a bad time to be offline!”

Best online sale: “We accept membership fees online, and we once had a life member join through the website. Since a life membership is $1,000, that was pretty exciting.”

Outlook for online retailing: Retail websites are getting easier to use, which is great. I think web designers today are more familiar with and interested in marketing; they are less likely to be the technical type who fills a website with fancy elements of web design that just clutter the page.”

Unique features: “We keep our site as simple and easy to navigate as possible. We have a complete list of products and a section for new items. We are currently breaking products down into topic categories. We have a lot of books, for example, and we’re breaking our long list into categories so people interested in books about wolves aren’t having to scan past books about flowers.”

Comments: “IRNHA is a non-profit association. The purchases people make at our site help support interpretive, educational and visitor service programs at the two parks we serve. With such a good cause to support, maintaining this website is a great job.”

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