Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
In 2000, nephew Les and uncle Perly began a new adventure together creating environmentally friendly, organic soy wax candles. Their small business grew and they were given opportunities to work with great companies such as Kiss My Face Cosmetics, Ritz Carlton Hotels, Old Navy and David’s Teas. This experience gave Les and Perly the idea to launch their own line of body care products, Nova Scotia Fisherman. Their passion is to produce quality natural skin care products that are safe for their family and friends. They are inspired by their environment and community which is why they donate a portion of each sale to the Nature Conservancy of Canada and continuing to produce quality jobs in rural Nova Scotia.
We hand make and distribute everything in our manufacturing plant in New Minus Nova Scotia, this allows us to have quality control and ensure everything is delivered the way we want it to be. It also ensures we are able to keep these quality jobs in Nova Scotia.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Our initial sales where through word of mouth and also through the help of the connections we made through our previous soy candle-making company. Our online Shopify store has helped us greatly to expand our market.
Currently we have many channels to generate traffic and sales for our website but our social media sites are definitely the most effective for this. Our Instagram account tends to drive many to our website.
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?
We love that Shopify tracks our sales and tracks how people found our website. We also use the Store Mapper app which is a great source to send customers to for them to find a store near them, and it also helps to support the independent stores that carry our product. We also recently downloaded the Bold Customer Pricing App and are setting up a Wholesale section our website to make it easy for independent stores to place their orders. We love Shopify. Not only do you have many apps that help make our job easier, but your customer service has been incredible and we are very grateful.
Shipping and fulfillment is handled internally. We distribute through our manufacturing plant in New Minus Nova Scotia.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
We found having great product photos are helpful to get positive responses. We also found that Shopify has a great way to tracking people who "abandoned shop" and we were able to contact them and offer them deals to get them to try our product. For our product specifically, once people try it they always come back for more so to be able to offer customers the opportunity to just try it is always worth our while.