Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
We fell in love with 3D printing. It is an amazing technology, a hot market, and it helps people create. We built our own affordable machine from scratch so we could share it with the world and allow people to bring their ideas to life.
Overseas supplier. After launching a Kickstarter project that grossed $650,000 in 30 days and pre sold 1000+ machines, we decided to work with a contract manufacturer overseas to help us scale up production. We are also opening a branch in Mexico (close to our HQ) so we can diversify manufacturing for worldwide sales.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
We gained a ton of notoriety and press from our Kickstarter product launch and it allowed us to drive considerable traffic to our Shopify store post campaign. Now we have an array of marketing activities that drive traffic from social media advertising, contests, youtube inspirational videos, and more. We show people what 3D printers can do for the world! Facebook advertising and retargeting activities through Adroll are driving the most traffic and sales. Also, we sponsor youtube sensations and that drives some great traffic when videos are posted :)
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 the different integrations of apps for our store. We use yahoo insights to watch people browsing our store. We loved LiveChat for a while to help customers in the store on demand. Then we have multiple integrations that are advantageous and link to 3rd party applications we use to generate content, marketing activities, and shipping. We work with a fulfillment house called WorldTrans who is integrated into our Shopify store using an app called PackageBee by DropStream.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
Shopify is extremely intuitive so building your site is a ton of fun! We have been through many renditions of our site and recently launched a new store on Shopify as well. I would say, just make sure you follow the flow and experience for consumers on the site. Pay attention to what the average user would do and shape a site to help them navigate the experience you want them to have.