After 15 years in business, 11 of which were spent in Scarborough, the Ardith Keef Gift and Yarn Shop closed its doors at its Route 1 store at the end of January. But the closing of the store doesn’t mean the end of the business, the shop will remain open on the Internet.

The store, which donates all of its profits to help fund missionary projects around the world, including hospitals in Ecuador and Ethiopia and an orphanage in Siberia, has lost a significant amount of walk-in customers, said owner Ardith Keef.

The drop-off has been so large that Keef said it no longer made sense to keep the store open and to continue paying the $10,000 monthly overhead.

The store has had an online presence at www.ardithkeef.com for five years. The site has been very successful, and Keef said the Internet sales have actually been supporting the store.

The Web site was built by Keef’s husband Bill and has broken some of the rules of web design, including using a lot of black. However, since there are plenty of colors on the page to offset the black backgrounds the site is appealing to the eye, said Keef.

Running an Internet business is not that much different from working at a store, Keef said. The store’s employees still provide a high level of customer service and work to locate hard to find products for customers. About the only difference is that the Internet allows Keef to keep her store open 24 hours a day.

“It’s just as easy on the internet as it is with walk-in if you are a listener,” she said. “We have nice products and we price them well and we have excellent customer service.”

Keef has retained all of the store’s employees to work with the Internet business and one employee, who was Keef’s secretary for many years, has returned to the company.

Even though the Internet business is still running, Keef said she misses the store and said not having the store anymore makes her “feel like a limb is missing.”

However, this may be just a temporary feeling. There are plans now in works to reopen to a retail store within the next year or two, she said. But this time, Keef said the company would build its own store, preferably one containing a knitting room for customers.

Keef, along with members of the Anchor Missionary Fellowship church in Scarborough, where her husband is a minister, recently moved all the store’s merchandise from Scarborough to a newly constructed area at her Gorham home, which doubles as a missionary house and her law offices.

While the house does not have open hours because of local zoning, customers have stopped by the house after making an appointment.

“We have a number of customers who are following us around,” Keef said.

Meanwhile, other local businesses are employing the Internet for a variety of reasons and to varying degrees of success.

Jenny Thomas, the owner of Oak Hill Florist, has been in business for 16 years and started her website at www.oakhillflorist.com about three years ago. Thomas said the site has been successful, but people still like to visit the store to speak with a person before making an order.

“We’re finding a lot of people are using it just to get ideas and then call us,” she said.

Thomas started her site to remain competitive in the flower industry which is an industry is becoming increasingly complex.

“You need to have a presence 24 hours a day,” she said. “So many people are selling flowers these days, if you aren’t showing a store front open 24 hours a day, you are going to lose that business.”

Thomas said she is unsure about how much of her business is driven by the Internet, but said people frequently comment about seeing a particular arrangement on the net when the visit the store.

Unlike many florists’ sites, Thomas’ site provides customers with the store’s contact number and address so when someone calls they are speaking to the florist at her business and not an employee at a call center.

“I think going forward (the Web site) will be key, but again people like the personal touch of a flower shop,” Thomas said.

Another long time Scarborough business with a sizable Web presence is Admiral Fire and Safety, which has been operating for 26 years, and went on the Internet about two years ago.

According to Paula Anton, president of the company, the site has not generated a lot of sales for the company, estimating that Internet sales generate less than 5 percent of the company’s entire total. The items sold on the Internet are primarily gift-related items, she added.

Anton said a particular line of police uniforms is one of the company’s biggest Internet sales items because buyers can’t find these particular uniforms at local stores. Most of those orders are going to out-of-state buyers.

One reason for the slow Internet business is because the store mostly sells equipment to municipalities and those employed in public safety. However, Admiral does do a lot of phone orders, which Anton said works better for the purchase order system used by municipalities.

Crossroad Games has an active website, but it is primarily used as a message board for customers rather than an advertising and sales vehicle. The site advertises upcoming events and provides users a chance to post messages and talk about various games.

“It’s a chance for people to stay in contact with what we’re doing,” said storeowner Eric Leach.

Leach said he probably will offer some online sales in the future, but he expects it will be a small percentage of his total sales.

He said that there usually are 10 to 20 new posts a day and interest in the site is driven by the users who post messages.

“It keeps the excitement up and keeps people interested,” he said. “It definitely does make a difference.”

Last month, Ardith Keef decided to close her store on Route 1 and is going to keep running the business through her Web site at www.ardithkeef.com.