Ever since Ender Korkmaz started talking about selling air conditioners on the Web, doubters have been trying to cool his ambitions.

There was the business colleague who told him ACs were too big, bulky and expensive for online sales, and there was the e-commerce expert from a national hardware chain who told him it was pointless to even try.

The question was always "Who would buy an AC online?" recalls Korkmaz, 22. "They said it was impossible."

As it turns out -- on a sweaty summer day -- more than 60,000 visitors swarm his site at www.acfactoryoutlet.com.

Launched in 2003, the site sells everything from small window units to massive machines than can cool a warehouse and cost almost $3,000. Last year it did about $1.7 million in business.

Just a few years ago the company was a 100-percent brick-and-mortar operation in Doral where Ender's father, Korky, distributed brand-name units and manufactured his own in China and Thailand.

But increasingly, overseas factories were going straight to the clients, driving down prices and profits. In hopes of reviving flagging sales, Korkmaz started selling units on eBay, the online auction giant. But the experiment wasn't embraced by everyone. Korkmaz said some senior employees at his father's store thought it was a step in the wrong direction.

"They were like, ‘We went from manufacturing and distributing to selling on eBay?' '' he recalls.

But there was no ignoring the profits rolling in from the venture -- and soon the company began building its own site.

The way www.acfactoryoutlet.com took shape is another testament to the Internet age.

Rather than hire a local designer, Korkmaz posted the project on www.odesk.com, a service that allows professionals from around the globe to compete for projects. The result? The company worked with a Web designer in India and a graphic designer in Uruguay and ended up spending about $1,800 on the project, rather than the tens of thousands it might have cost to build locally.

Despite having its own site, the company still uses eBay, mainly because of its cut-rate advertising, Korkmaz said. The auction giant won't allow vendors to post links to their home pages, but many savvy shoppers see the AC Factory logo on the site and track them down online.

"eBay spends millions on marketing [itself]," said Korkmaz. "It really helps us get the word out."

AC Factory also spends more than $500 a month on Google and Yahoo! ads and aggressively markets itself on shopping comparison websites such as Froogle.com, Shopping.com and Pricegrabber.com.

While marketing helps pull in traffic, what helps nail down sales online -- just like in the real world -- is customer service, Korkmaz said. The company offers equipment information in several different languages and has a 24-hour online help service.

The company has big plans. Korkmaz is currently bidding on a high-profile domain name that he thinks could help turn the firm into the global go-to site for ACs. While he's keeping the plans under wraps, he said the site will give customers a "hassle-free'' system to shop for and install ACs.

"I think we can become like the Dell [Computer] of the air-conditioning world," he said. And this time, nobody is telling him it's impossible.

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