013: Plums Lingerie’s Katherine Salt discusses the power of luxury product, pinterest, and boutique bricks and clicks retail

Katherine Salt runs the Boutique Bricks and Clicks eCommerce business Plums Lingerie. Selling a select luxury range of lingerie, swimwear and silk nightwear. The team of two run the shop and have built the online sales to 60 orders per month by concentrating on customer service and communication. She also discusses moving onto website number 2, and how to find the right Magento developer.

Click to tweet: Hear Plums Lingerie’s Katherine Salt discuss her boutique bricks and clicks eCommerce approach @eComMasterPlan podcast

About the business

• eCommerce Business Structure – Boutique Bricks and Clicks
• Product Range Scale – fairly niche – 6 luxury lingerie brands
• 60 online orders per month
• Based on Jersey in the UK, sell globally
• 2 people in the business, plus lots of freelance help
• At time of recording was on a Zencart site built by Pace Retail
• With a Magento site about to go live with Pinpoint Designs (which is now live)
• Key widgets in the new website will include:
  • Setting up Skype fittings with customers
  • Abandoned Basket Emails
  • Reducing the checkout from 4 to 1 page

Listen to hear how Katherine makes the most of social media to attract a global audience, the power of chosing the right products, and filtering customer feedback to make the right decisions.

Top Tips for anyone looking for a Magento site builder:

It’s 4th time lucky for Katherine with her new Magento site, so what are her tips to help all of us find the right site builder first time?

1. Don’t go for too cheap an option
2. Speak to their previous clients
3. Look at their existing projects
4. Use the Magento developer rankings to find someone with a good pedigree

Listen to hear our discussion about the highs and lows of building a new site.

Most Awesome Thing Right Now

The huge opportunities we have:

• New website
• Better customer service
• Social Media opportunities to go international

Listen to hear us discuss the relative conversion rates of Pinterest and Facebook AND the importance of finding the right social media channel for your customers.

On the Radar for the Coming Months

• The site launch!
• Followed by a new Adwords and Remarketing campaign
• Plus SEO push – including reviving the blog

eCommerce Book Top Tip

• UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging by Scott Stratten

eCommerce Traffic Top Tip

• Adwords Keywords – key traffic source, focusing on the brands and being very specific with the keywords

Tool Top Tip

• Upwork.com – using it to find and manage freelancers. Saves a huge amount of time. Using it to hire:
  • Copywriters
  • Someone to update the product database
  • Add product descriptions to the website

Start Up Top Tip

• Pick your product very carefully. Keep it simple, you don’t need 100s of lines, avoid lots of sizing!

If your business didn’t exist, which eCommerce Business Would you like to be Running?

• Shoes of Prey – Australian retailer of bespoke shoes, with amazing customer service (WARNING – this is a site you can easily lose hours on, so make sure you allow yourself the time to play!)

Interview Links

• PlumsLingerie.com
  • Number one bra = the Prima Donna Deauville
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Katherine’s Social Media Marketing Consultancy – MarketingMy.co.uk