095: Bisjoux Rose’s Rebecca Clements – Launching, Selling, Buying and the power of influencer marketing for launch

Rebecca Clements was the owner and creative director of Crafty Pie an online only store selling modern wedding stationery and gifts. The business launched in 2012 and Rebecca grew it to a six-figure turnover before selling in late 2016. She’s also just bought BisjouxRose which will launch before this show goes live!

About the businesses

Crafty Pie:

• eCommerce Business Structure – Online Only
• Product Range Scale – niche
• Based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Primarily sells in the US, but also has international customers
• Primarily run alone, but some proofing outsourced to a VA
• Platforms are WooCommerce, Etsy, and Zazzle
• Plugins:
  • Gravity forms
  • shipping calculator,
  • SumoMe

Listen to learn about Rebecca’s setup for customization, and the difficulties and dangers of instant previews for customers.

BisjouxRose:

• eCommerce Business Structure – Online Only
• Product Range Scale – niche
• Based in the US but will ship worldwide
• Initially just Rebecca, but plans a-foot to outsource copywriting and more
• On Shopify
• Plugins: SumoMe, hopefully a reward system plugin in the future

Getting Into eCommerce

While living in England, Rebecca helped run an online record store by handling order fulfillment and inventory. In 2012, she learned graphic design. She designed her own “save the date” cards for a previous marriage, and decided she’d like to design wedding stationery. She put some designs together and listed them on Etsy. Rebecca had also gone back to school for web design and development, and the Etsy store was doing well, so she designed an online store on her own site.

Growing Crafty Pie

Content marketing was huge for Crafty Pie. Rebecca ran a blog that offered freebies, which drove traffic to the site. She also optimized her product listings for search engine optimization. Pinterest was a second source of traffic. People could get to her site from her blog, see a freebie, pin it to remember for later, and the repins would drive more traffic. She also had boards on Pinterest specific to Crafty Pie.

Listen to learn more about Pinterest marketing.

Selling Crafty Pie

Rebecca was becoming burned out on the wedding industry when a competitor approached her about selling Crafty Pie. It was perfect timing. She wanted to do something else, and since she already had a willing buyer, the sale was a simple process. After selling, she took some time to figure out what she wanted to do.

Bisjoux Rose

The opportunity for Bisjoux Rose came from a Facebook group for eCommerce entrepreneurs.

Bisjoux Rose is a curated marketplace of independent jewelry designers.

Influencer Marketing

Rebecca plans to do social media marketing and influencer marketing until the SEO starts kicking in. Influence marketing involves reaching out to instagrammers, fashion bloggers, and Youtubers who already have big followings and having them create content and lifestyle photos to promote the jewelry to their followers.

Listen to learn more about influencer marketing.

eCommerce Book Top Tip

• The $100 Startup by Chris Guillabeau
• The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani

eCommerce Traffic Top Tip

• Email marketing

Listen to learn why having an email list is important, even in the age of social media.

Tool Top Tip

• Asana
• Zapier
• Buffer

Listen to learn about connecting Asana and Zapier.

Start Up Top Tip

Do product research, then just get started. You don’t have to spend a bunch of money upfront on inventory. You can start with dropshipping and see how it goes from there.

Interview Links

• Bisjoux Rose
• Bex Creative