We're the 'Pioneers in Sustainable Eyewear.' We produce handmade eyewear out of eco-friendly materials such as wood, skateboard decks and cotton-based acetate. We strive to produce unique eyewear frames (sunglasses & prescription) while staying focused on using natural and eco-friendly materials.
We grew up in the wood industry and that's what initially inspired us to launch our own company 3 years ago. Our grandfather started a sawmill in the 60s and we grew up working with the company. From that, Brooks decided to create a consumer wood product: sunglasses. We started by using contacts from our family's business to help source the product and find good partners to help produce high quality frames.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
We drove a lot of traffic to our product from social media. Before we even had the product ready to sell, we spent months getting customers informed and educated about Proof. When we launched our site in February of 2011 we got 6-7 sales that day. Today, we have a lot of direct traffic to our website as well as new customers from social media.
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 just switched over to Shopify and love it. We're using all of the sales tools which apply to getting the maximum amount of conversions once a customer is on the site: newsletter pop-up, abandoned shopping cart email, and discounted products as an option at checkout. We have a warehouse where all of our product ships out of and three full-time employees who work in that department.
What are your top recommendations for new ecommerce entrepreneurs?
Build a highly functional site that's easy to use. Don't worry about the look as much as the simplicity of the site.