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AllergyBuyersClub.com

Company: AllergyBuyersClub.com,Newtonville,MA
Company Description: Founded and privately funded in 1998 by Mercia Tapping, AllergyBuyersClub.com is the leading e-tailer of healthy home products.We test,rate and review all our allergy relief products such as air cleaners and hepa vacuum cleaners. AllergyBuyersClub.com employs 22 fulltime employees.
Nomination Category: Stevie Awards for Women Entrepreneur Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Overall Company of the Year - Non-Service Businesses

Nomination Title: AllergyBuyersClub.com


Tell the story about what the nominated company achieved during the eligibility period (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

AllergyBuyersClub.com provides allergy, asthma and sinus sufferers with a one-stop destination for health information and product purchasing. Its research team rate and review product sold on site, providing consumers with honest pluses and minuses of the products offered. http://www.AllergyBuyersClub.com
http://www.AllergyConsumerReview.com

AllergyBuyersClub.com is a dotcom survivor with a business model rejected by venture capitalists. Calendar sales for 2003 were $8.4million, and over 500,000
unique visitors visit the site each month. The company e-newsletter,  Allergy Consumer Review is read by over 100,000 subscribers each month. Manufacturers
consult with AllergyBuyersClub.com while developing new products and compete for its prestigious 5 star product ratings.

The company was founded in 1998 and financed by Mercia Tapping, who believed that one could recreate on the web, the old fashioned storekeeper who sells products and is honest about their strengths and weaknesses at the same time.
There were numerous hurdles faced in early development of the web site in 1999,
causing mammoth cost overruns and launch delays. Financed with home mortgages, credit cards and her entire life savings, rejected by venture capitalists who scoffed at her vision, and with monthly product sales of less than $10,000 Mercia came perilously close to financial disaster by Spring 2000.

A consulting gig from an old friend and cracking the secrets for getting the web site onto the top of the search engines, gave Mercia the breathing space needed to bring the company to breakeven by October 2000, and by Christmas 2000 the company’s sales were $100,000 per month. Now the company is eagerly awaiting its first “million in one month” this year and Mercia has promised her employees a very special celebration.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: List each link on a separate line, begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.website.com]. NOTE: You may submit supporting materials for your nomination offline, but only judges who request them will see them:

http://www.allergybuyersclub.com
http://www.allergyconsumerreview.com
http://allergybuyersclubshopping.com

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography of the leader of the nominated company:

Mercia Tapping has had a long and varied career over 30 years, which includes that of a university professor, management consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and is a serial entrepreneur.

She founded AllergyBuyersClub.com after a long, 10 year debilitating illness of crippling headaches, and a fruitless round of 19 doctors until she discovered she had environmental allergies. Determined to cure herself, she tested many products before she achieved her personal goal; headache and allergy-free. The passion behind the vision of the web site http://www.allergybuyersclub.com is to pass that wisdom on to others.