Soaring Heart Natural Bed Company was founded in 1982 in Seattle with the mission to make the highest quality mattresses available. Using 2,000 year old techniques gleaned from Japanese futon making, we started handcrafting our mattresses from natural cotton and wool.
Forming partnerships with local wool ranchers, cotton growers in Texas, and carding mills out of northern California we ensured our materials were only of the highest quality. Over the years as our company has grown and our product offerings have expanded we've helped establish organic latex farms in Sri Lanka, worked with organic cotton coops, and have traveled to New Zealand to find the very best organic wool.
We now sell all-organic latex mattress, organic innnersping mattresses, as well as futons and Japanese Shikibutons, pillows and comforters - all of them organic and handcrafted with care, stitch by stitch, in our Seattle workshop.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Soaring Heart Natural Bed Company started as a brick and mortar store in Seattle, WA and we still have a store next to our workshop in the Emerald City. Three years ago, we decided to spread our message about what a mattress could be, should be.
Having only one showroom, we wanted customers from all over the country to be able to experience our products, so we decided we'd create a website that not only espoused the virtues of an organic mattress made from hand, but allowed clients to purchase online as well.
Our online business is growing every year and our products are spreading out over the 50 states. We're reaching an audience that we never were able to talk to before we created our website. We now have mattresses in NYC, Chicago, LA, Phoenix, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, and small towns all over the country.Having only one showroom, we wanted customers from all over the country to be able to experience our products, so we decided we'd create a website that not only espoused the virtues of an organic mattress made from hand, but allowed clients to purchase online as well.
Our online business is growing every year and our products are spreading out over the 50 states. We're reaching an audience that we never were able to talk to before we created our website. We now have mattresses in NYC, Chicago, LA, Phoenix, Boston, Philadelphia, Portland, and small towns all over the country.
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 our favorite aspects of Shopify is the app store. With the variety of apps available a huge amount of operations are open to us that weren't before. We use apps for SEO, data gathering, creating discounts and upsells, and allowing people to communicate with us and leave reviews.
Some of our favorites:
Chimpified
Meta-Tagger
Product Upsell
Product Discount
Shopify Facebook Store
As for shipping, we take care of the logistics ourselves. We have our own Logistics Department that warehouses and ships all of our products to our customers across America.
What are your top recommendations for new ecommerce entrepreneurs?
Patience. Test. Test again.
Things aren't all going to happen at once, sales will grow as your name grows, as your brand and company become more known. Don't expect customers to come rolling in as soon as you put your store online, you need to work for their trust and that takes time. Write a blog to give them information, have wonderful customer service, make their shopping experience easy, and sell great products. With time, a good business plan, and work sales will start to gain momentum.
Don't stop testing. Chang your banner, watch what happens. Add new photos and watch what happens. Test your copy, is it working? Change you meta descriptions to a new pitch, add a different call to action, make button blue that was green before. Test, test, test. Keep a log of what you are changing, what you are hoping to see, and what the outcomes are. This will help you more than you know.
The internet isn't static, people's tastes change, Google's algorithms are tweaked, your site should be changing with them!