U.S. Commercial Service Charleston Guides West Virginia Company to E-Commerce Success

An image of the front of Echo-Lit's office space and building facade

Echo-Lit is a small, rural business based in Charleston, West Virginia that publishes original quality educational posters for classrooms using thoughtful materials. The U.S. Commercial Service (CS) in Charleston first visited Echo-Lit to introduce the value of exporting and the range of exporting services available for West Virginia companies. This connection seeded the company’s interest in expanding their reach to international customers, which led to steady collaboration with CS Charleston in developing an export plan.

During the peak of post-pandemic rising shipping costs, Echo-lit identified that allowing customers to purchase downloadable copies of their art prints directly from their website was key to their export expansion, but this required investing in website redesign and the digitalization of 30% of their art prints. Echo-Lit secured state funding to offset the costly adaptation of their website, while continuing to engage in CS counseling & resources. CS Charleston recommended the CS e-commerce specialists and the U.S. Commercial Service (CS) Appalachian Rural Export Center at two CS events they attended. Given this engagement, Echo-lit received a website globalization review to aid in increasing their visibility around the world and is engaged in Appalachian Rural Export Center market research projects to find the countries with the best prospects for them to focus.

Echo-Lit’s international sales percentage increased from 0% in 2023 to 4% in 2024. Through ongoing CS counseling support, Echo-Lit has generated sales through nearly 70 orders to 22 countries across Oceania, Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America since 2023.

“Working with Enybe at the Rural Export Center here in Charleston, West Virginia has been such an incredible experience. Our small business is very fortunate to have the knowledge and resources for international exporting support literally a mile up the road from our shop. In 2021, Echo-Lit has 1 international sale, because of the STEP Grant, the RAISE assessment and everyone I have worked with along every step of the way, I am thrilled to say that in 2023, Echo-Lit racked up over 100 international orders. The best part is that we are just getting started! We have just begun to lay the groundwork for our expansion into global markets.” Jeanne Stevenson Co-Owner, Echo-Lit