Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
Home decor is a fast growing multi-billion dollar segment, and people seem to be slowly getting over the hesitation of buying a furnishing item without touching it. Ecommerce is a process of evolution: The first time you buy something it's a small item, then slightly bigger, and later on you're ready to buy furniture and furnishings. We source our products from about 30 different suppliers, from a local shop selling driftwood items, to a few big-brand stores. We have recently started sourcing a few big items from overseas suppliers.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Word of mouth generates the most sales for us. In general, the distribution of traffic is 70% organic, 10% paid and 20% social. You need to decide on 20 keywords to concentrate on - blog it, popularize it on social media. Don't try to be a master of all, just concentrate on some.
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?
Lucky Orange is helpful, and we also use Mailchimp for communicating with customers, Cart Activity to know what all gets added to cart, and Zendesk for managing orders. We have our own warehouse which handles fulfillment as well as dropshipping.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
Find a small niche and go deep into it. Once you have mastered it then you can expand to complementary products. Always ask yourself what you bring to the table which no one else does. The moment you have that solved, everything else will follow.