Bows Inspired by Bre and Polish & Shine Bow Finishing School
Run by:
Errica Swartwood
I was able to get an interview from Errica Swartwood. She has an online hair bow business and an online hair bow school. She informed me that 95 percent of her business in online.
She spends most of her time posting completed pictures of orders, updating orders, and then she has to post her pre recorded online instruction, which includes video, picture, and written tutorials. Once that is done there is an open chat room where she will answer questions and post different options for her products. On average she has to spend ten to fifteen hours a week making sure her customers have what hey need and making the new tutorials she will post at a later date. The customer gets access to the site and all the tutorials for their membership fee. All the supplies need to make and customize the bows are available on her site.
Errica has had Bows Inspired by Bre and Polish & Shine Bow Finishing School for over five years. They are both run through Facebook’s business pages. There are many pictures of her bows on Pinterest for people to take a look at. She has been able to reach a very broad group of people by setting up her business online. In her last hair bow school she had a student from the UK. She enjoys being able to interact with people from all over the world. The ability for people to like her page and share it has made her business much more successful. When she started she was selling her hair bows at auctions where she would only be able to reach a small target audience.
One of the challenges she has had to face has been trying to constantly monitor her site. If there is a customer who has an issue she wants to make sure that each an every issue is dealt with in a timely fashion. If someone has a problem and is not helped quickly they are able to post negative comments and good potentially harm her for future customers. The time zone differences seem to her biggest problem. She has had to explain to people before that there is only so much she is able to do when it comes to limiting a delay with her responses.
During the classes she finds it is hard for her to explain how to make corrections while the customer is participating in the online bow school. The main complaint is trying to fix the tying or making of the bow when she cannot physically touch the product. The cameras in the computers and tablets currently have improved a lot over the last five years, which has helped minimize the impact to her block of instruction.
Overall she is very pleased with her business being online and is looking forward to setting up her website for Bows Inspired by Bre. Like anything else the biggest hurdle is finding the time to sit down and dedicate your self to the task. Hopefully the site will be up and running in the near future with lots