ProStores Helps Organic Entrepreneur Spread Good Health
We now have a booming web store and tens of thousands of customers that stretch into households all over the world. ProStores has been an integral part of our success.
Stephanie Greenwood, Owner of Bubble & Bee Organic
Starting a Healthy Business
In 2005, Stephanie Greenwood had asthma. She started researching what was causing it and was surprised to find that the chemicals in personal care products were partly to blame. When she went looking for truly organic products, though, she was disappointed to find that some of the brands sold at health food stores also contained harmful additives.
So Stephanie decided to take things into her own hands. She started making her own bath and body products in the basement of her home, using natural ingredients like beeswax, cocoa butter and coconut oil.
Her friends and family eventually heard about her new venture. Soon she was making soaps, shampoos, lip balms and deodorants for all of them. Her products were in such high demand that in 2007 Stephanie decided to sell them at her local farmer’s market in Salt Lake City. She teamed up with her longtime friend and business partner Steve Thomas, who had marketing and design expertise, and Bubble & Bee Organic was born. A few months later, they launched their ProStores web store, which immediately took off, initially making $6,000 to $8,000 in sales a month. Since then, they’ve doubled their sales every year, and their products are now sold at Whole Foods--America’s grocery mecca for healthy living.
A Holistic Approach to eCommerce
The couple didn’t take their eCommerce decision lightly. They chose ProStores after doing a thorough comparison of several solutions. “ProStores looked like the best option for its ease of use, reasonable price, inventory control, marketing options, integration with QuickBooks, and search engine optimization,” says Stephanie. “We had never done anything online before, so having this easy system helped us over the hurdle of starting a web store. Without it, we would have had to pay a programmer thousands of dollars, and we still wouldn’t have had a back-end system.”
Stephanie particularly likes ProStores’ new Web Analytics Tool. “Now, with just a few simple clicks, we can easily monitor how many sales we've made for the day, week or month. We can then make split-second marketing decisions based on if we're meeting our goals. If we see on a Thursday that our weekly total is down, we can quickly put together a sale with a newsletter. If we see traffic is down, we know that it's time to post a new article to our blog.”
She also uses ProStores’ promotion codes. Stephanie utilizes the storewide sale option the most, but she was “glad when ProStores started offering category promotions. Now we can put a category on sale with just a few clicks.”
And she says ProStores search engine optimization features have helped them build amazing rankings. “That’s one of the big things that have kept us with ProStores. We're on the front page of Google search for ‘organic deodorant’, ‘organic shower gel’, and ‘organic body butter’. In Yahoo search we're on the front page for ‘organic soap’; we're number one for ‘organic deodorant.’”
Organic Growth
Since its humble beginnings, Bubble & Bee Organic has become a savvy, successful company. Most of its business still comes from its ProStores web store, but its products are carried in 60 retail outlets nationwide. Stephanie and Steve now employ up to five employees at a time. They make their products, run a small retail store, and house their offices and shipping department, all from a historic commercial space – a 150-year-old pioneer barn.
Since curing her own asthma (she hasn’t used her inhaler in over three years), Stephanie has helped other people live healthy. She has a popular blog called “Chemical of the Day,” which people refer to for information about ingredients to avoid. She and Bubble & Bee have also been featured on numerous news shows, including NBC’s Today.
The time, money and energy Stephanie saves using ProStores lets her focus on growing her business. She hopes that Bubble & Bee will someday be in every Whole Foods market across the nation. “We opened just three years ago, and we now have a booming web store and tens of thousands of customers that stretch into households all over the world. ProStores has been an integral part of our success.”
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