Industry Group: Fashion
Products: fashion, home décor, accessories
Channels: Social networks, Shopify, Email Marketing
Sales models: Combined Retail + Private Label
Founded year: 2019
Starting capital: ?
Revenue: $15,000/month
About navyBLEU
Hello, I am Erin Hornyak (46 years old) Founder of navyBLEU - online retail brand specializing in navy colors.
Source: shopnavybleu.com
NavyBLEU does business in a model that aggregates both retail and private labels. There are rows of other brands such as Draper James, Southern Tide, Joules, Sail to Sable, Persifor, Roller Rabbit, Lisi Lerch, Velvet, Mar Y Sol and navyBLEU's own design line! To date, I have about 210 regular customers.
Initially, NavyBLEU only sells clothes, and now, I have expanded to accessories, home decoration, gifts. As long as it's navy, I'll sell it.
Ideas born of personal preferences
10 years ago, I decided to spend all my time raising my children. In the last few years, I want to get back to my business. Everything comes very quickly and naturally because I have been attached for more than 9 years with the previous company of the family, now also managing the fashion retailer. It's also called experienced.
shopnavybleu.com
About 10 years ago, my family had a small company specializing in manufacturing and retail called Anna William, but now it's out of business. I remember that energetic time. Of course, there are also ups and downs, worries but mostly joy. I was lucky to work with my family, my mother, sister and sister-in-law.
Now when I return to business, I feel extremely excited by the feeling of the old years suddenly returning. I now manage a whole fashion brand for students, and I also want to spread my love to everyone.
I started loving navy early on, it was like a manifesto about my life. Navy is an extremely delicate, stylish and classy color. It's like anyone in a navy blue suit is beautiful. On a clear day, I suddenly came up with the idea of opening an all-Navy store for navy fanatics out there.
As soon as I came up with the idea, I immediately called my husband. He's very supportive. I quickly planned this business. I don't want to continue on the traditional retail trail anymore, because I used to open a shop in Boston. Perhaps e-commerce will be the more suitable choice for navyBLEU.
In the process of developing ideas and business plans, I received quite a lot of advice from friends and family. They introduce themselves to people who share the same ideas and visions.
Communication, marketing and sales
NavyBleu is a new retail brand, so the biggest obstacle before launching is convincing its sales partners here. I import several models including XS, S, M, L sizes for each product.
I handle everything from customer service, delivery, order completion, payment, to social media management and besides, I still perform well the role of a wife, a mother of 4 children. That's exhausting, but I'd love to.
Shopify
Shopify is easy to use, I didn't spend too much time learning and then Shopneefbleu.com website was born. When I launched navyBLEU, I didn't expect sales. I often think, surely only sell 1 product / week, can it be 20 / week? But amazingly, in the first few months, sales were pretty good.
Instagram and Influencer Marketing
With the help of social networks and WOM (word-of-mouth effects), the revenue stream began to show positive development signals. Hopefully things keep going like this and I'll have more customers every month.
I use Instagram and combine with a few influencers to share my lifestyle and love for navy. These Influencers will post about navyBLEU products and share their startup stories with their fan community. I also hired a PR company to communicate for the start-up story. The strategy of using Influencers is clearly performing, and in the future I will invest more in this strategy.
Here are some influencers sharing about navyBLEU
Source: starterstory.com
Source: starterstory.com
Source: starterstory.com
Google Ads and Facebook Ads don't seem to be suitable for navyBLEU. Perhaps I need advice from digital marketing experts. Currently NavyBleu focuses on Instagram, which is the first channel I choose and is very good for building content, which is also easy to attract the color-loving community.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is equally important. I send an email every 2 weeks through Constant Contact. In the coming time, I will continue to use this type of Marketing, especially to reach customers who do not use social networks.
I do not sell navyBLEU products on other retail brokers or websites because I have committed to partners in advance.
Focus on reinvesting
Currently, all revenue is used for reinvesting. I must always refresh the sales page as well as push new products. Each season, I invest in buying to sell enough within 6 months. This is the biggest risk step in the whole business, you will have to calculate how many goods to sell each week, the highest, the lowest to predict the import. The more you import goods, the cheaper the wholesale price and so the profit will be high. I used to ship my own goods.
I'm doing a few promotional pop-ups in Northeast during the holiday season and then plan to keep placing ads like this every month.
Software I used
Shopify: create a sales website and manage orders
Business lessons
I learned a lot when I was at Anna William. When growth is too fast and must expand, NavyBleu has to spend a large amount on fixed monthly expenses such as rent, machinery and marketing publications. This time, I did differently than last time, more cautiously, developed slowly. It's a good way to go slowly. Of course, I also like to grow rapidly, but if that's true, it's scary because I'm alone, to manage socks is a bit hard.
Do everything you're passionate about! There is no such thing as the perfect time to start trading, you have to be ready and take risks as soon as you start because trading is always the same.
Expanding relationships is also essential, having good relationships with friends, partners, suppliers, journalists ... will support you a lot.
I have read a sentence like this: If your dream does not panic you, it means that the dream is still too small and mediocre.
Nguồn: hub.ecomme
