Welcome!
Welcome to this e-commerce business success story! In this profile, we interviewed Michelle Orrantia, the owner of Ollie Jay. Our hope is that you find this interview to be enlightening and inspiring as you seek to start and grow your very own online brand!
Interview with Michelle Orrantia
Thank you for joining us for this e-commerce business success story! We’d like to start by getting an understanding of your backstory. How did you come to own your business?
I launched Ollie Jay in 2019, at the time I was running a Dollhouse themed tea room for little girl birthday parties and I had been dreaming about creating a children’s clothing line to sell in the store. After I had my second daughter I was working more from home and started designing and dreaming up ideas and working with manufacturers and we launched when she was about 6 months old. Since then I’ve sold the tea room and exclusively work on building our clothing line!
Terrific! Now, this article is about profiling successful e-commerce businesses. So – can you share your top 3 keys to running a successful online brand?
Building relationships is always number one, and we do that by communicating with customers through our social media channels and a VIP facebook group.
Number two is having great quality pieces, because even if you have a great relationship with customers, if your collections aren’t of high quality they likely won’t turn into repeat customers.
The third thing is prioritizing your time – there are so many things to juggle as a business owner, you can’t take on everything. Choose what you can manage and dive deep into that, be consistent with it and you’ll see results.
Excellent. Now, I’m sure it hasn’t always been that easy. Can you tell a story about one challenge, setback, or mistake that you’ve had to overcome on the road to success? How can others learn from your mistakes?
The beginning is always the hardest! My first collection I launched without much strategy or distribution plans in place. I (very naively) thought if I make some posts on instagram and made a website, the sales would come pouring in. It took me nine months to sell out of the first collection, during which time I took a mastermind class for product based entrepreneurs and created a strategy, and implemented many steps into the launch process, including professional photography and multiple sales channels. Since then I’ve consistently grown 3-4x each quarter. If I could do it again, I would have joined the class and created my plan before I launched.
Thanks for that. Now – we want to know what’s next! What new initiatives are you rolling out at your business and what results are you hoping to see?
We are really excited about what’s coming up – we’re introducing quite a few new styles and options, including lounge wear and pajamas, as well as swim wear next year! We’ve consistently seen 3-4x growth each quarter and as we roll out new items we’re expecting to see that trend continue.
Sounds exciting! Any final words of advice for our readers?
Find a group or groups of like minded people who you can ask for advice, opinions and even vent to. Running a business can be difficult, but having a supportive community you can turn to when you’re stuck is so helpful!
Brilliant! We want to thank you for participating in today’s interview. Hopefully our readers agree that there is a lot to be learned from your brand’s story. What links can our readers use to follow along with your journey?
Ig: @olliejayofficial
Facebook VIP Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/olliejay
Website: www.olliejay.com
