Sales so far this year at Power Equipment Direct Inc., an online-only retailer of products like lawn mowers, electric power generators and pressure washers, have already surpassed 2009’s total, founder and CEO Jon Hoch tells Internet Retailer.

“Today, our year-to-date 2010 sales exceeded all of last year’s sales,” Hoch says. “We already exceeded last year’s total of $29.5 million, and still have most of September and the fourth quarter to go.”

Based in Bolingbrook, IL, Power Equipment Direct operates nine retail e-commerce sites: AirCompressorsDirect.com, ChainSawsDirect.com, ElectricGeneratorsDirect.com, LogSplittersDirect.com, MowersDirect.com, PressureWashersDirect.com, SnowBlowersDirect.com, SumpPumpsDirect.com and WaterPumpsDirect.com.

Hoch says the sales growth is partly due to the maturing of the five sites Power Equipment launched within the past two years for chain saws, mowers, water pumps, sump pumps and log splitters, and the company’s efforts to boost site traffic through its expansion of display and paid search ads, as well as better optimizing site content for natural search. In addition, last year the retailer introduced sales of snow blowers to customers in Canada. 

2010 will mark the eighth consecutive year of year-to-year sales growth, Hoch says.