case study

A Brick-and-Mortar Business Finds Success on Amazon

MetroShoe Warehouse was founded in 1997 as a brick-and-mortar business, and it still owns and operates several stores in and around Oklahoma City.

But today, nearly three decades after its founding, the bulk of the company's revenue comes from Amazon sales, a channel that requires a tremendous amount of time analyzing data.

"There's more to it than placing products up on the website," Zac told us.

To operate their Amazon business profitably, Zac and his team have developed deep expertise in a variety of areas, including:

Forecasting demand
Compiling data from multiple sources
Managing listings
Monitoring shipping
Tracking missing products
Navigating the never-ending conversations with Amazon support

On that evening on his back porch, Zac was staring down hours of spreadsheet work on exactly these kinds of problems.

These tasks are vital to MetroShoe Warehouse’s business model.

But they’re expense-related tasks, not revenue-generating tasks like sales, marketing, partnerships, or experimentation.

Zac realized that he was spending too much time on expense-related tasks, and not enough time working on efforts to increase revenue.

Looking for Help

Zac had heard about companies that had outsourced routine activities to virtual assistants. He was nervous about outsourcing business-critical tasks, but on that evening, staring at those reports, he decided it was worth at least exploring the idea.

He took a break from his spreadsheets, opened Google, and searched for VA services. That’s how he found Remote CoWorker.

“We reached out, and we got connected with Glena from the Remote CoWorker team,” Zac said. “And she’s been absolutely wonderful.”

Glena worked with Zac and his team to identify the tasks they needed help with.

Working together, they decided to pursue hiring one virtual assistant as an experiment.

Hiring a First VA

Glena helped Zac organize interviews with several VA candidates who had the right skills.

Zac selected one of the candidates, then spent the first week training him to help with the same spreadsheets he had been struggling through that evening on his back porch.

“It was unreal how much information he was able to take in,” Zac said.

“We worked through a huge amount of data collection, and we worked together to build the spreadsheets we needed.”

That first VA did more than simply take over tasks. He also documented the process and created training documents and videos for future VAs.

“He’s still with us,” Zac said. “He’s become a leader. He created a roadmap for new VAs and has been instrumental in helping onboard additional VAs.”

Expanding the Team: From One VA to a Dozen

What began as a single Remote CoWorker VA has grown into a team of a dozen VAs working across several MetroShoe Warehouse departments:

Amazon operations
Accounting
Customer service
Brand management
Social media

Glenna has continued to support Zac and the team as they’ve expanded their engagement.

“The turnaround time in which she can find applicants for us is almost unbelievable,” Zac said. “I was very hesitant and nervous about the process when we started. But she’s met every expectation, and the quality of the applicants has been wonderful.”

Of the dozen VAs the team has hired, all but one have been successful.

“The hiring retention percentage with our VAs is far above what it is when we hire for our in-person stores,” Zac noted. “In our stores, we might get 30 to 40 applicants and only hire two of them. The success rate has been much higher.”

The Result: Time to Focus on What Matters

The team of outsourced VAs now manage a wide variety of day-to-day, expense-related tasks, freeing Zac and his in-house team to focus more of their time on revenue-generating activities.

As a member of Zac’s Oklahoma City-based Amazon team put it:

“I used to spend hours every day just trying to get items listed on Amazon. But now I spend my days creating labels to actually send items. It’s been such a time saver.”

Zac’s Advice for Other Companies Considering an Outsourced VA

We asked Zac what advice he had for others who may be nervous about hiring an outsourced VA.

Here’s what he said:

1. Training is imperative

Zac’s first piece of advice is to invest time up front to train your VA to be successful.

“With our first hire, I took a full week to show him everything we were doing,” Zac said. “He really appreciated how much training he got right out of the gate. That’s what helped him be so successful.”

2. Split off the tasks that prevent you from generating revenue

If you are in a role where your primary responsibility is to generate sales revenue, but you find yourself spending all your time on repetitive, expense-focused tasks, you’re preventing yourself from being successful.

“You need to ask yourself: ‘What are the things that are taking me away from my ability to generate revenue?’” Zac said.

“Split those things off and ask yourself: ‘How can I train someone to do this?’”

3. Just start with one

Finally, you don’t have to outsource every repetitive task in your business in the first engagement.

“Just start with one VA,” Zac said. “Dive in, give it a shot, utilize one VA and see where it goes.”

“What do you have to lose?”

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