In a difficult economic environment, ReStockIt.com, an online retailer of restaurant products, cleaning supplies and other items, used a redesigned web site and new merchandising categories to post a healthy gain in 2008 e-commerce sales.

For the year, ReStockIt.com, No. 419 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, grew web sales by about 16.4% to around $14.2 million from $12.2 million in 2007. To achieve growth, the company grew its online inventory from 70,000 SKUs to more than 200,000 and added several new merchandising categories such as tools, electronics and office computer equipment. We saw a nice spike in top-line growth last year, says ReStockIt.com co-founder and director of sales and marketing David Redlich. We grew because we stick to what we know and added the product lines our customers told us they wanted.

In addition to more merchandise, ReStockIt.com also added a new site search application from Endeca Technologies Inc. and redesigned its web site. The redesigned web site features an enhanced navigation bar on the home page with extensive drop down menus for each merchandise category, cleaner navigation and enhanced product images.

The newly retooled web site and a bigger product base paid off with visitor traffic and sales in December rising by 40% and 60% respectively, Redlich says. We try to expand the buying power of small businesses and large households and that’s registering with our customers, he says.