Catching Internet bug leads to growth.

It does not matter how many bells and whistles a company's Web site may have, if the company does not have a good product, then a splashy Web site will not help sell the product, says Sara Callaway.

Callaway and partner Bob Meister are co-owners of The Original Bug Shirt Company based in Trout Creek. The company sells more than 10,000 of the densely woven cotton or polyester anti-bug shirts and pants to retailers and directly to customers across North and South America and Europe.

"We actually made our first bug shirt in 1989 for me. But our trigger to get the business going happened when Bob lost his job in 1990," she says. "That's when we decided to give it a go.

"We had no idea what the market was and no idea what to expect," Callaway says. "We spent some time researching materials and we had people sewing in their own homes. Our first 150 shirts sold in about two minutes flat and we realized this is a product people want. We sold about 450 shirts that first year and realized we were onto something."

By the next year, the company sold about 5,000 shirts.

Of course, at that time, few had ever heard of the Internet and computers still had a way to go to becoming as common a household appliance as the television.

"I come from a background as a programmer and systems analyst and I had a friend ask me back in 1985 if they should get a computer," says Callaway. "I couldn't think of a single reason at the time to get one."

For the longest time, the company did a lot of business by word of mouth and it is still one of the most effective means they have for disseminating information on the company. By 1995, however, as the company grew, they opted to have an online presence. Internet sales now account for about 75 per cent of direct-to-public sales.

Callaway says one of the keys to an effective Web presence is a Web address that is easy for people to remember. For instance, their URL is www.bugshirt.com.

"That's one of the things about having a Web site. It allows you to tell your customers a lot about your product, as much information as they want to dig for," she says. "You have to lay it out so its easy for people to find ... on a Web site, you can include a lot more information than you would otherwise be able to in something like a brochure."

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Not being an expert in Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML), she relies on Microsoft's Front Page to allow her to update the program. The Web site's simplicity makes it easier to make changes and deliver the message of their product.

Callaway recommends people not expect too much from having a Web presence.

"Just because you have a Web presence does not guarantee the orders are going to come flooding in," she warns. "What it does is give people a better means of getting information about you and finding out how to contact you.

"You still have to have a good product and good customer service," Callaway adds. "Customers service is as important as it ever was."

www.bugshirt.com

By ANDREW WAREING

Northern Ontario Business