IrrigationKing was established in Tualatin, Ore., by a group of people with many years of experience in the irrigation industry who wanted to try a new way.

“We wanted to sell direct to consumers to give them better prices,” Sales Manager Paul Nanson said. “In the past we have sold irrigation equipment exclusively to dealers and we wanted to break away from that.”

General Manager Chase Berrier started working on the website in 2015.

“The whole goal was to become an online retailer that makes it quick and easy to purchase what you need with good prices and fast shipping, almost to an Amazon level,” Nanson said. “It’s a lot different than your typical irrigation dealer, that’s for sure.”

They made about $25,000 in sales during their first few months in business in late 2016, and in 2017 sold $418,000 of product.

“Sales doubled every year for the next few years, and we ended up getting more salespeople and adding warehouses in Texas and Florida to better cover the country,” Nanson said.

Something that sets IrrigationKing apart from most websites, including Amazon, is providing customer service on the level of the local dealer.

Unlike many parts dealers, IrrigationKing posts its prices and shipping costs upfront so customers can make quicker decisions.

“We always answer the phones, and we have live chat and email so there are a lot of ways to get ahold of us and all of us are very good at helping customers figure out how to use our products and what they need to set everything up,” Nanson said. “Our primary customer is somewhere between a backyard farmer and a hobby farmer with orders averaging between $200 and $400, and there isn’t a lot of support for those people.

“We basically fill the gap between garden hoses at Home Depot and the bigger dealers who don’t necessarily consider 3 to 20 rolls of drip tape a sizable order,” Nanson said.

“We specialize in products for the smaller farmers with an acre or two, including a lot of 80 to 100 gallon-per-minute tripod sprinkler kits and a lot of drip tape and drip systems that we help people design,” he said.

“A lot of things like pressure loss and calculations can be confusing when you first start looking at all the parts and pieces and how they connect together, so we try to have kits here and there, where we package things together and reduce the number of decisions for the customer,” he said.

They also plan to start selling to local dealers within the next year.