It all started with Gatorade.
More than a decade ago Melissa Schechter decided to launch her own e-commerce business serving the niche industrial supply sector. At the beginning, she focused on distributing Gatorade and other hydration products to clients that wanted to purchase those items in bulk.
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One day, a client buying up beverages for a marathon race asked a surprising question: Could she also supply traffic cones for the event?
"I thought, why not?" said Schechter, the founder and CEO of OES Global.
OES Global is the parent company to businesses Hydration Depot, Traffic Cones For Less, Sanitizers Plus and Absorbents For Less. It provides hydration, sanitizing and traffic control items to businesses, events, film and television productions and more.
It's a profitable enterprise for OES Global, which reports it generates more than $10 million in annual revenue.
Despite the company's success, Schechter acknowledged it's not always easy to compete with online sellers like Amazon.com, which controls nearly 40% of the U.S. e-commerce market.
Focusing on just a few speciality items, the way OES does, helps it stand out.
'“We pride ourselves on being experts in these fields," she said. "You might be able to get these things on Amazon, but would you go there to buy specialty products?"
OES typically works with large businesses buying at high volume. It sends products to customers directly from the manufacturer, reducing overhead costs.That makes it possible for it to offer free shipping to clients.
"That's been a huge competitive advantage," Schechter said.
OES is also putting a spin on basic items to differentiate itself from competitors. Its most obvious with Traffic Cones for Less. Instead of supplying the standard orange cones commonly found on construction sites, OES allows clients to design their own branded items.
Companies such as Tesla, Jet Blue, Lamborghini and Tiffany have all come to OES for customized cones, with the latter requesting their items in its iconic robins-egg blue color. Television shows, such as the "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel," and some local government municipalities are also clients.
"It's for aesthetic reasons but some of them want to use traffic and crowd control products as branding opportunities," Schechter said. "Others see it as a good way to prevent theft."
Customers can upload their logos to the company's website and create their own cones for order. Because traffic cones are naturally curved, it isn't always easy to customize and print art work without the design warping. OES spent time investing in technology to make it easy for customers to seamlessly upload their own art, design the cone and then place an order without having to engage in back and forth calls or emails with a company representative.
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OES Global's expertise in their product areas was an advantage during the Covid-19 pandemic, when supply chain challenges made it difficult for businesses to obtain items like sanitizers. The company ended up having its best years during the height of the pandemic and continues to thrive, Schechter said.
After years of leasing office space, OES Global recently purchased a building for its headquarters in Pompano Beach.
"I want people to know that we're the best at what we do," she said. "We demonstrated we were always in stock and always ready to deploy when it mattered, and that's important to customers."
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