Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
The idea came to Jonathan, our founder, when his dog, Mojo, suffered an injury while running next to him on his bike, forcing him to come up with a quick solution to get him to a vet. This inspired him to revolutionize the way people can mobilize with their dogs. His "ah-ha" moment came afterwards while telling the story to family and thinking of how great it would be for daily biking and activities, not just when injured and in an emergency. After a little market research we realized it was a great product to sell. We started making them here in Dallas for friends. Once we grew more into the Dallas market we started getting them made in Austin. Once we realized it was a great product and it had good potential we went to China.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
First sales were mainly to friends and then local events at dog parks. First sales online were due to word of mouth from our initial Dallas customers. Shopify generates about 90% of our sales. We get most traffic from Google search and Facebook.
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 use ShipWire for fulfillment. It's great because the integration with Shopify is very easy to use. Shipping for us takes almost no time at all.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
I would highly suggest retargeting campaigns and setting up a good tracking system such as Google Analytics that way you can see what's working and what isn't.