What Actually Goes Into Owning an Online Boutique ft. Peasprout Founder, Courtney Garrett
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Listen in as Victoria catches up with her long time friend, Courtney Garrett, a dynamic entrepreneur with an inspiring journey of building two successful businesses. In this engaging chat, Victoria and Courtney take a behind-the-scenes look at Courtney’s most recent venture, Peasprout - an online children's boutique. They navigate through the realities of running an online boutique, especially in a post-COVID world, with Courtney generously sharing her lessons, mistakes, and victories. As a loyal customer herself, Victoria can vouch for the quality and service that Peasprout delivers.
The conversation also takes a look back to their humble beginnings and how they met in a mastermind group. They reminisce about the invaluable role it played as a catalyst for both of their respective businesses and the significance of having industry experts to freely share advice and guidance. Courtney opens up about her transition from a corporate job to a full-time photographer, leading to the creation of a six-figure photography business within two years.
Finally, they dive into the intricacies of launching and scaling an online business. From discussing the crucial stages of researching manufacturers and vendors to obtaining necessary licenses and formulating marketing strategies, they leave no stone unturned. They touch upon the challenges of juggling motherhood and entrepreneurship and how community and expert advice have been key in navigating these challenges. So tune in and join them on this entrepreneurial journey packed with real-life experiences, challenges, successes, and lessons.
A glimpse into how Victoria and Courtney met [04:57]
Years ago, Victoria hosted a mastermind group and Courtney had been one of the applicants that was accepted! Courtney shared that it was so helpful to her and encourages others trying to start a business and become an entrepreneur to try and get plugged into a mastermind with like minded people. Victoria hasn’t hosted a mastermind in a few years, but she believes that it definitely served as a catalyst for her and her business as well. When Courtney joined this mastermind, she was not an online boutique owner, but a photographer.
From six figure photography business to online children’s boutique owner [08:08 ]
Courtney began her entrepreneurial journey after leaving a corporate job to spend more time at home with her son. She bought a camera off of craigslist and taught herself how to use it, solely off of YouTube videos. She hustled and over time she grew her brand, invested in herself and her business, and exactly after one year of buying her camera she was able to quit her corporate job and take on photography full time. Within a year of doing photography full time, she had already doubled her corporate salary and within her second year she had grown to have a six figure photography business. She has now been a full time with Courtney Garrett Photography for seven years!
After Courtney’s daughter was born, she had this desire to create a business that allowed even more flexibility in time with her kids. Because photography is a career that is often worked on nights and weekends, it meant that Courtney spent a lot of time away from her family, when her family was together at home. Knowing that she has loved children her whole life and always wanting to be a mom, she was determined to make her dream of owning her own children’s brand a reality.
A look into starting a children’s brand [14:29]
The first thing Courtney and her husband did was start writing out potential names for their business. They doodled possible logo ideas, wrote down business ideas, and items they wanted to sell. After that they immediately contacted BrandWell to help them come up with a brand and website, while they continued to research more about e-commerce. They began to contact manufacturers and wholesale vendors, obtain various licenses, and create a marketing strategy.
Challenges of starting an online children’s boutique [18:14]
The biggest challenge at the beginning was ordering, inventory, and finding quality products. Courtney and her husband quickly realized that this endeavor was harder than they expected it to be. It’s super important to know exactly what your customers want, there is a lot of analysis that is involved, and they don’t always get it right.
Behind the scenes of evolving Peasprout [19:49]
When Courtney started working with Victoria on creating their brand suite, they had a specific product that they were going to bring to market, one that they had invented, but ended up not being the route they took when officially launching Peasprout. At the time, Courtney was inspired by having a new baby and being surrounded by all the baby products and she came up with this idea. It was a spin on a traditional product, but it was a baby’s multi-purpose toy. They invented the design for the toy and started reaching out to manufacturers, but quickly realized how difficult it was to find a manufacturer. It was the middle of the pandemic and logistics were really hard at the time. They looked into manufacturing in China and the US, but many locations were shutting down or it would be months before shipping. So the idea of building a brand around multiple vendors in the shop and having several different products was born.
Process of ordering inventory [22:28]
Ordering inventory has been one of their greatest challenges. It’s hard to keep up on inventory, especially in your first year. From the beginning, they were trying to order just one season ahead, due to the race to launch their store on time. Typically, you order an entire year ahead. Sometimes they place orders later or do product reorders and restocking, but it’s hard to gauge how much you need of things and what things are going to sell best. After the first few months of their shop being open, they took a deep dive into analytics and reporting to see what was selling best in their shop. Courtney admits that one of the biggest mistakes they made was taking a shot in the dark and ordering inventory without knowing exactly what was going to sell. Sometimes items don’t do as well as they hoped or they don’t meet the quality expectations and they have to donate them or give to friends.
Scaling Peasprout [27:25]
From the very beginning, both Courtney and her husband believe that they got their branding right and they have leveraged their branding to help Peasprout scale. Between the branding suite done by BrandWell, and Courtney’s creative background, they have been able to keep their brand cohesive across their social media, marketing, email campaigns, website, etc. Besides their branding, Courtney believes that they have identified their core audience, not necessarily from day one, but in the last few months they have really honed into taking notes on who their customers are and knowing their buying behavior. Lastly, Courtney gives the glory to God, who they keep at the forefront of every decision.
By taking their audience into consideration, along with their buying behavior, Courtney has been able to refine the numbers and types of products in their store to better align with their target audience’s needs. She is able to learn from research and seeing what people are adding to their cart, abandoning in their cart, and what they are purchasing. Currently, Courtney is working on a few of their own brand products, specifically for Peasprout, and they are really taking their audience into consideration throughout the creation process.
It’s a family business [33:37]
Courtney’s two children are often Peasprout’s models for photoshoots and try-on’s, and they absolutely love it. Her older son also is a huge help with the fulfillment of orders. He’ll occasionally put thank you notes in orders and put stickers on packages. He loves to be involved and he even had the idea of having a cake made to celebrate the launch of Peasprout. He loves having a family business. Courtney’s daughter loves to add Peasprout products to her closet, just as much as Courtney does. She gets excited every time they have new arrivals come in! Courtney’s kids are their biggest cheerleaders and both her and her husband are thankful they get to do this as a family.
Advice for scaling a business while having young children at home [35:34]
It takes a village. Courtney brings up the mastermind again, because having the community is so important. For them, it really is a family business, and it spans beyond Courtney, her husband, and their kids. They also receive help and support from other family members, especially with packaging and fulfillment. Courtney shares that for her, she finds that getting up early, before the kids, each morning has helped a ton. She gets her coffee and quiet time, she checks her emails, and she can make a plan for the day and prioritize her time before anyone else wakes up.
Leveraging branding within Peasprout [39:36]
Courtney shares that they leverage their branding in all of their marketing and all of their communication with their customers. She also thinks that the power of branding has also allowed them to make their small business more professional, which has truly instilled confidence in their customers to shop with them.
Key Quotes
“From the very beginning, the thing that we have done best is leveraging our brand, our logos, and my creative background as well, to keep things cohesive across our brand.”
Courtney Garrett
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