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Ali Asaria gave up a lucrative job as a software engineer at Research In Motion Inc. to start his own online health and beauty store, Well.ca, in 2008.

The 28-year-old entrepreneur gave up his car and his Toronto home and moved in with his father to keep expenses low. Consulting for other companies, he put together some $10,000 in capital and spent his spare time building his website.

Today, the Guelph, Ont., company is doubling sales revenues every four months and has swelled to 17 employees from two. Based on "click-throughs" tracked by third-party companies, Well.ca is the Canadian online leader in the health and beauty category.

What really kick-started Well.ca was its offer of free shipping. "The key was turning on the free shipping. As soon as we did that, you could see a big jump in our growth," Mr. Asaria says.

Earlier, Mr. Asaria joined us to discuss his company's breakthrough.

Dave Michaels, globeandmail.com: Welcome, Ali. Glad you could join us today and share your advice.  We have lots of questions, so let's get right to them:

Noor Syed from Ottawa writes: Hello Ali, congratulations on your success. I hope you can help an aspiring online entrepreneur by answering two questions: 1.) Your shopping cart software seems wonderful. How can I implement something like that on my website? 2.) Can you please expound a little bit more on how you made the connections with distributors and how they ship on demand for you? Thanks a lot.

Ali Asaria: Thank you for your kind words.

As for our funky, animated shopping cart, that was built in-house. I had the funny idea of making the products actually "fly" into the cart one night, so I built that part in a day as a test. People liked it so we kept it in the product. You can see more about how we developed at our technology showcase website, http://labs.well.ca.

Regarding our close relationships with our distributors, this was something that grew over time. Many of them would only deliver to us once or twice a week (if we could get them to work with us at all). We did the best we could at the time and focused on growing with what we had. But every month, we would e-mail them with our new sales figures.

When negotiating with any partner your strategy must be to find out what they want most. When working with many distributors, often it's the regional sales reps who want to increase their local sales numbers. So you have to show them that you will increase their sales if they're willing to work with you more closely. That requires building trust and demonstrating growth.

David Austin from Toronto writes: Mr. Asaria, you mention your use of partners for distribution and shipping. Can you expand on this point, and discuss how this plays into your ability to offer free shipping to anywhere in Canada regardless of order size? Are you dealing with centralized or regional distributors, or both?

Ali Asaria: Our close distributor relationships are not directly connected to our ability to offer free shipping. However, we have a general philosophy of being lean on the back-end, and our connections to distributors works into that philosophy. Our desire to offer free shipping comes from an opposite place: we have a desire to "wow" our customers on the front-end. So our leanness behind the scenes enables us to be generous on the front stage.

To answer your second question, we deal with all sorts of distributors, large and small. We want to work with partners that share our vision and are willing to grow with us.

P.K. from Ajax, Canada, writes: How do you garner market online with so much competition for the same type of product? In other words, what can distinguish you from the rest - apart from your product?

Ali Asaria: You're right: most of the items we sell are not exclusive to our store. That's why we had to rethink our definition of uniqueness. For Well.ca, that came with the realization that our product is not the items in the box, but the actual shopping experience. We aim to distinguish ourselves with extraordinary selection, ease of use, and customer service.

Ed Hanada from Halifax writes: Mr. Asaria, what a remarkable story ... one which I'm sure we haven't heard the end of! My question relates to your 6 months of research before you acted on your data to set up your online business. What was the most important part of that research, and what was your most important resource(s)? Thank you, and continued success in the future!

Ali Asaria: Thank you so much for saying that — we're really excited for the future also.

To be honest, there never was a time when I sat down and researched for six months (the six months of research the reporter mentioned in the article was simultaneous with the first six months of running the business).
The best research we did was to build something and actually talk to our customers. So my advice to anyone looking to start a new business is to find a way to try it without making a large initial investment. The best learning you can do will be by actually getting out there, building something, and conversing with your customers. It takes time.

Daniel Paco from Toronto writes: What recommendations can you give for marketing a new online store selling shoes? And what do online shoppers seek and expect from an online store as good customer service? Thanks!

Ali Asaria: Although it's often spoken about too much, I think Zappos (the largest online shoe company in the U.S.) is a good model to study. We spent time looking at U.S. companies that did well to try and figure out what works and what doesn't. I recommend you do the same.

The interesting thing is that customers in Canada have extremely low expectations for customer service. We Canadians have been under-served.
So simply being honest, kind and fair will really surprise your customers. Small things like paying for your customers to return products is a great way to build trust. The key, always, is simple: Think about what you'd want yourself if you were buying online.

Remember, it's not good enough to have merely good customer service. It's got to be so good that people will talk about you. Try and find affordable ways to really wow your customers so much that they can't stop telling others. That requires being genuine and having an open heart: people will notice when you have actual care.

A Canadian Girl from Toronto writes: Hi! I run an online-only lifestyle/career magazine targeting young women 25-40. I'm wondering if you have any tips and tricks for people like me to increase readership as well as attract prospective sponsors/advertising. Thanks!

 Ali Asaria: That's exciting. There are so many people advertising to people on the Internet that it's really hard to grab people's attention. I think it's important to do things that create conversation, and definitely it's important to build and take part in community.

I know it's hard, but the easiest way to increase readership is to think about it in the opposite way. Instead of trying to increase traffic, spend time trying to increase the value you bring to your existing and potential readers.

Hans Lucas from Toronto writes: Hi there, and congrats on the success of your business. My question: How do you deal with shipping costs associated with more remote places in Canada where shipping costs are higher?

Ali Asaria: Thank you. It's neat. We have a great fan following in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. We love those customers; they send us photos of themselves opening their packages from Well.ca. We hear when new things happen in their lives, and we feel like they are family.

To be honest, it's really expensive to ship up there. However, those customers buy more often and a lot more at a time. Shipping to remote areas in Canada for free is more of a national pride issue for us than a business decision: we love those customers and we'd do anything for them.

Parthi Kandavel from Scarborough, Canada, writes: Did you used to write a weekly column for UW's Imprint newspaper?

Ali Asaria: Yes, I used to have a column at the university newspaper :) Writing and speaking are things I enjoy. These days I write mostly through my work blog.

Colin Z from Toronto writes: Hi Ali, we are in the process of setting up an online business in luxury goods (crazy, in this environment, I know). We will have a range of suppliers but want to keep control of fulfillment for continuity reasons. So we are working through logistics issues. How do you deal with shipping and fulfilment? In reading the article, it sounds like your suppliers fulfill the orders, but if this is true, I could not understand how multiple items from separate suppliers are dealt with by well.ca?

Ali Asaria: I agree, in order to maintain a standard of service, you need to ship the products yourself. We do the shipping ourselves. The end result is we have incoming products from many suppliers that we unpack and receive. Companies that want to maintain high standards must control as much of the process as possible, otherwise you'll be constantly apologizing for other people's mistakes.

Andre Veilleux from Quebec writes: Ali, you are a genius. As a proud Quebecer I would like to build a website to sell Quebec products, such as maple syrup and other goods. A good/bad idea? And what sort of expense - ballpark figure - should I expect to invest in having it built? Thanks.

Ali Asaria: Thanks, and congratulations on your new venture. Is it a good idea? I'm not sure, but the trick will be to find a way to test it out with the least risk possible. Make something small and see if people like it. You can use other sites to handle your e-commerce costs as you test. Things like eBay or Canadian startup Shopify let you build a store for little or no upfront cost. This will let you test the market.

Kevin Rolston from Vancouver writes: Can you give us more detail on how you budget your advertising dollars online? What percentage of your revenue are you using for advertising? How are you calculating the return on investment?

Ali Asaria: We do not budget our advertising spend based on a percentage of revenue. Instead we calculate exactly how much profit comes from every campaign. Any campaign that makes positive profit, after spending on the ad, is of positive value to us. When we find campaigns that work in this model, we will spend as much as the ad company will take.

Pierre L'Abbe from Canada writes: Hello Ali, you do have a great site. What methods of online promotion work best for you? Do you use Google ads, and if so, what proportion of your online marketing budget do they represent?

Ali Asaria: Thank you, Pierre. I appreciate your kind words. Most of our traffic comes from regular Google searches (organic). We also have had a lot of success from Google Adwords. We're playing with Yahoo and MSN's competing ad platforms. As long as those campaigns are profitable, we spend as much as those companies will take from us.

Walid Abu Esefan from Markham, Canada, writes: Hi Ali. What is the most effective way to drive traffic to your site? I am talking about new traffic and fresh eyeballs, not repeat customers who are satisfied with your product/service. Also, what is the mix that you used between online (banner ads, Google Adwords, etc.) and traditional media marketing (newspaper, Yellow Pages, etc.)?

Ali Asaria: Hi Walid. The most effective way to bring traffic to your site is still to have stellar customer service because happy people will tell their friends. I am not just saying this -- word-of-mouth is the most significant reason for Well.ca's growth so far.

Doing work to make sure that your site is searchable by the major search engines (SEO) and buying Adwords when it makes sense also works.

To give a little more insight into our marketing spend, currently we do not spend any of our budget on banner ads, print or traditional media advertising.

Dave Michaels, globeandmail.com, writes: That's all we have time for.  Thank, Ali, for spending time with us today.  And thanks to our readers, too, for an excellent batch of questions.  Have a great day everyone.