Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
I traveled around the country selling psychedelic eyewear at major electronic dance music festivals. Throughout my experience in that I realized that there was a demand for high-end sunglasses at an affordable price. At this time I partnered up with my biggest competitor in the industry and aligned with a strategic partner in Los Angeles, California. Our strategic partner Chad Dime had 30+ years of family experience in the eyewear sector. Chad Dime our business partner opened up all of the doors overseas with his family connections. They have done over thirty years of great work with multiple factories and it allowed us to get the prices we needed and the terms we needed in order to succeed.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Social media has been our biggest weapon to success aligned with word of mouth. We took a very disruptive approach to the monopoly dominated eyewear industry and offered an extremely high quality product for a fraction of the cost. Majority of our products have the same quality standards of a pair of RayBans, some of our products have much higher quality standards. We offer our tier-one frames which are made of hand-made acetate and crafted with CR39 lenses at $40. We just introduced our tier-two frames which we sell at $75. These frames have details that you will find in a $300+ pair of glasses. We are generating 99% of our business through our website diffeyewear.com and can't afford to take on retailers at this point due to our rapid online growth. We have been sold out of multiple products for months now and people love the quality / price so much they are ordering months in advance of our promised delivery.
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
One of the major apps that we are using right now is our pre-order app that has been helping us to generate revenue before we receive our inventory. Another HUGE success that we have an entire Klaviyo email sequence set up along with an abandoned cart email. This has been huge for us and keeps customers coming back. We handle all shipping and fulfillment in house so that we an double and triple check the quality of the frames before they are sent out. We are striving to have the best customer services in the eyewear industry so having all of our product in house makes this easy.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
Instagram influencers are the biggest help to the success of our platform. Sending them product in exchange for posts is a huge way to get in front of millions of viewers for no cost (besides the product). Also, make sure to include the charity aspect to your brand. For us that is the most important part because we all truly love giving back. Customers also feel more inclined to make a purchase when they know it is for a good cause.