Local e-commerce firm WebLinc doubles sales for retail lighting site

In the world of residential lighting sales, online retail is a small piece of a much bigger pot. But thanks to some Philadelphia technology, a major retail lighting outlet is focusing more effort online and seeing impressive returns.

Old City-based WebLinc, which is housed above National Mechanics — the bar that the web developers also own — recently helped Southeast U.S. lighting company Progressive Lighting launch an e-commerce platform to show off its extensive selection of lighting.

Since the launch of LightsOnline.com in April WebLinc’s e-commerce technology has increased conversion by 91 percent, doubling online sales, Progressive Lighting director of e-commerce Jon Eggleton says.

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SUMO Heavy Industries, Bart Mroz and crew building new e-commerce development firm

If Bart Mroz was pushed to give you a piece of advice, it just might be to limit yourself.

The founder of the recently re-branded SUMO Heavy Industries says a lot of firms doing web work get caught up in trying to do too many things and come up short doing them well.

“We started as a web development company that did all kinds of things like brochure sites and app development for different clients,” Mroz tells Technically Philly. “Then we decided to only do e-commerce work — the best decision that we made.”

In March 2008, Mroz co-founded round3media and by last November, Mroz had learned his greatest skills were focusing strictly on e-commerce site development. After his two partners in round3 wanted to work on different projects, Mroz started anew, launching e-commerce heavy SUMO with new partner Robert Brodie and creative director John Suder.

With a new name and a freshly announced, local client, Mroz is — and forgive us for this — entering the dohyō and fighting to build his company’s name as the top e-commerce development company in the region.

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