Entrepreneur magazine and ProStores announced the winners of the eBusiness Boost Challenge during the eBay Live conference last week. AuctionBytes.TV was on hand to record the event, now airing on AuctionBytes.TV (http://digbig.com/4jhbf).
Chris Tsakalakis, vice president of Advanced Solutions for eBay, and Rieva Lesonsky of Entrepreneur magazine, announced the winners and congratulated Patrick Coughlin, one of the winners who will receive an "ecommerce makeover," in person.
Coughlin, owner of American Diamond Importers (www.americandiamondimporters.com), operates an independent jewelry store in St. Clair, Michigan. He faces severe competitive challenges from other Internet-based stores. Coughlin wants to commit to an aggressive Internet ecommerce presence and marketing campaign to sell his jewelry throughout the United States. "Internet sales are a must to survive and grow," he said.
ProStores will transform the design and functionality of the online stores for Coughlin and the other winners, who include include Elena Neitlich of Moms on Edge, LLC (www.momsonedge.com); Pamela Huber-Hauck of Spirit Work Knitting and Designs, Inc. (www.spiritworkknit.com); Warren Tracy of the Busted Knuckle Garage (www.bustedknucklegarage.com); Marc Desrosiers of Racewax.com, LLC (www.racewax.com); and Maggie Vasilyadis of Essenceology.com (www.essenceology.com).
Entries were evaluated by representatives from ProStores, Entrepreneur, PayPal and About.com's Online Business/Hosting Guide. Additional contributors to the makeovers include Neoverve (www.neoverve.com, advanced ProStores customization and search engine optimization) and Yahoo Search Marketing (searchmarketing.yahoo.com, paid search advertising).
ProStores enables small- and medium-sized businesses to create a professional online store, customized with their own branding and domain name, and with features usually found only on the e-commerce sites of much larger corporations.
Each winner will receive a one-year subscription to a ProStores Business tier store along with Web design services plus up to 20 hours of updates and maintenance to assist in the setup of a new online store.
The six eBusiness Boost Challenge winners will also be featured in the November issue of Entrepreneur magazine and on Entrepreneur.com. They will receive consulting services from the judging team, including Entrepreneur, About.com, PayPal, ProStores and eBay representatives.
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