In 1995, camping enthusiast Richard Wescombe started selling outdoor gear to locals in Adelaide’s western suburbs. Having already launched his own lawn-mowing business, Richard’s entrepreneurial spirit helped Snowys quickly grow from a small shop front to a store 15 times the size.
Snowys employs 100 people
Snowys had dipped a toe in the digital pool, but Richard knew they needed to dive in head first to grow the business further. So, in 2011, they created an online store and turned to Google to help it thrive. Ben Collaton, Snowys’ SEO and SEM specialist, says “Our website is also part content creation and inspiration. Content helps to tell stories around the products.” After investing heavily in YouTube to tell these stories, along with in-house SEO and Google Ads, Snowys saw a 500% growth in users to their site. “The majority of the business is online and we have customers Australia-wide,” Ben says. “So much so that 50% of our employees solely handle our online orders.”
Three locations and 100 employees later, Snowys hasn’t lost sight of its humble local origins. “It’s a family business and employs the local market. We often have multiple members of other families working for us,” Ben says. After Snowys’ success with Google Ads, Ben is excited to see the role it will play for other regional businesses. “Google could become even more of a trusted partner in smaller towns. We would recommend all businesses use Google to grow their business Australia-wide”.
