Introduce your business and tell us your story: How did you decide on what to sell, and how did you source your products?
For over 40 years, Real Good Toys has been designing and engineering the world's best and easiest to assemble miniature homes. Our commitment to our customer is to place the highest level of quality possible into every price range and every wooden dollhouse kit. Although we do import some of our dollhouse kits now, we've been manufacturing the majority of our dollhouse kits in Vermont since the beginning. We take pride in our Vermont-made products and enjoy selling quality products.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
When we decided to start selling retail, we spread the word via email and Facebook. As we had been a wholesale supplier for many years, the retail side of our business was a whole new adventure! Facebook and Pinterest offer a high percentage of our referrals but much of our traffic is generated through search engines. All of our SEO work has definitely paid off.
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?
The majority of our apps in use were custom designed by Union Street Media. We also use ShopConnection for our social media buttons. We hope to update our website in early 2016 and look forward to using all the new technology. We fulfill all of our orders in house, from receipt of the order to packaging to shipping. It's very important to everyone at Real Good Toys, to ensure each order is handled properly, as customer satisfaction is paramount to our business.
What are your top recommendations for new store owners?
Always make sure your site is up-to-date and let your customers know how special they are. It's the small things that make the biggest impact. Our customer's really enjoy coming to our site, seeing new items and reading our blog. We try to keep it fresh and fun!