Parents like to shop for their children and Suzi Heaton makes it easier to do with her new online store, Maddy Rose Boutique.
Started on September 11th of last year, Suzi created a fun online boutique where parents can find unique, high quality items for their children. By being online, she’s able to help parents by eliminating the need to drive anywhere to find these items. The boutique experience can be found at home.
I recently got the opportunity to talk to Suzi about her business, and her experiences as well as the start up process she’s gone through to get to where she is now:
What was your inspiration for The Maddy Rose Boutique?
First and foremost, I am a mother. After spending many years and countless hours working outside of the home, I realized it was time to put my family first and give them the quality time they deserve from Mom. With that said, I have always been inspired by the joys of pregnancy, parenthood, and all of the fun things that come with both! One element that I feel is a fun highlight to starting a family is shopping for specialty items for a new baby or young child. I wanted to offer parents products that would enhance this joyous time in their lives by offering fun products they could be excited about.
What type of previous experience or education did you have that you can put to use now as a business owner?
As a teenager in high school, I worked in the housewares department at Sears in our local shopping mall. I remained with the company for several years, which helped me obtain the strong customer service skills that are needed to encourage my “friends” to continue shopping at Maddy Rose Boutique. I do have a BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resources Administration. My education has helped me interact confidently with designers, “friends,” and the media. Additionally, I possess the basic accounting skills that are needed to financially manage a business from home. My major in college placed a lot of emphasis on studying diversity, which I feel is another key component to working with the public.
What process did you need to go through before you could get started?
Opening my business was incredibly simple. Through the state of Pennsylvania, I obtained my business licence and reseller’s identification. This was done online in one day. I paid a small fee to purchase the domain name, www.maddyroseboutique.com, as well as an initial set-up fee for web hosting through Merchant Moms. I then paid another work-at-home mom to design my website, and voila, I was ready to begin adding products to my website!
Did you need to invest much money to get started?
Not at all. My fees through the state of Pennsylvania were very reasonable. Additionally, the hosting services offered at Merchant Moms are incredibly feasible - I may not have been able to open my boutique had their prices not been so affordable. Finally, the cost of my website design was less than $100. All of the products I offer at Maddy Rose Boutique are drop-shipped, which means I simply contact the product’s designer when an order is placed, pay them for the product, and they then ship the product to my customer. I did not pay any start-up fees for my products and I do not store inventory in my home, so I have not spent any money carrying overhead, which is another incredible benefit to hosting my boutique online.
What have you learned since you started that you wish you’d known before?
I definitely wish I had known how to advertise my boutique properly when it opened. Initially, I thought I would just open an online boutique and customers would magically appear! That leads to my next lesson learned, which is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I had no idea I had to write good content for my site and use strong keywords that would enable Google and other popular search engines to crawl my website and allow customers to find me easily.
How do you manage your time to run your boutique and your family?
I gave up sleep! I work on my boutique when my children are at school, and then I take a break when they come home. Once the kids come home from school, I switch into Mommy mode and do homework, make dinner, get the kids bathed, do chores, etc. Once the kids go to bed, I get back on the computer to continue working. One common misbelief is that business owners who work from home work less hours in the day than those who work in an office, but I’ve found the reality is quite the contrary. If I’m in bed by midnight, I’m in good shape that day!
Have you been able to take any experiences as a mom and use that in
business?
Definitely! When a “friend” purchases an item for a child, I put myself in their shoes. I want my customers to be as happy with their purchase as I would expect to be if I were making the purchase for my own child. Additionally, my mother’s intuition kicks in when I’m considering offering a new product line at the boutique. For instance, I evaluate the products’ safety, and for clothing, I inspect designs for comfort and wearability. If I wouldn’t purchase an item for my own child, I would certainly never offer it for somebody else’s.
Do you have any advice that you’d like to share with other moms interested
in starting their own online store?
Do I ever! To make this easier to follow, I’m going to give you a numbered list:
1. Determine what products you are really passionate about. If you don’t love what you are offering, you’re less likely to put your best effort forth in operating a successful business and provide exceptional customer service. Ultimately, this will reflect upon your customers.
2. Once you have decided what you would like to sell, join a web hosting community that not only offers internet hosting, but great customer service and a support system for you to interact with other work-at-home moms. I truly believe Merchant Moms is the best forum for this.
3. Promote your business every chance you get. This means carrying business cards everywhere with you, taking the initiative to promote your business to the press, starting an email marketing campaign, etc. This can require creativity, but you’ll enjoy the benefits of your efforts by increased sales.
4. If you can afford to do so, take some college courses in entrepreneurship. While this may sound like a hassle, it can be very beneficial.
5. Most importantly, believe in yourself! If I ever listened to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who told me my business would fail, I would have never started it. It’s incredibly rewarding to have the last laugh in that instance!
Dana Keith on May 8th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Such a productive idea, it’s make it more easier to people to shop online.. It helps consumers to have less time in doing so, rather than to get out and go to some department stores.