Building a business from ZERO to HERO is not easy, it requires a huge investment in time and money, in today’s article we are interviewed Marta SIROVA, the founder and C.E.O of Top Start Original to tell us about how she was able to build a successful online Children’s clothing brand in less than one year.
Hey Marta ! Introduce your business and tell us about your first beginning
First of all, I would like to thank Paulina Clarke. When I moved with my family from the Czech Republic to the UK in 2019, I started an ESOL course in St.Albans, where I met this amazing lector teacher, who helped me out correcting my English grammar and spelling ( YES, I was determined and I decided to sell kids clothes in the UK with my beginner´s English)
I started the kids clothing store in March 2020 and finished the final graphic design in October 2020, I decided to branded it and give it and original name – Top Star Original
As many beginners in eCommerce, I thought that it was just about uploading products, writing description, setting the prices,… and I could sit back and start seeing the orders coming in. Well ! I was wrong, and I couldn’t even image that I have to spend 12-15 hours/day in front of computer managing the business.
At the early beginning, I was doing everything myself, from setting up the store, managing inventory, messaging and chatting with prospects and customers, dealing with the company papers, suppliers, … It was a real hassle and I that time I know ho difficult was to start and online business and more important, make it a success
What were the most difficult things for you ?
The idea of Starting an online store > Facebooks ads > sales…. has disappeared and I know that eCommerce was more complicated than I thought, so I started educating myself and dinging more into some technical areas of eCommerce, and especially the SEO.
I realized, that I shouldn’t write keywords randomly, but I should rather do a keyword research to bring organic traffic through search engines, I also know that I should structure my paragraph with special headings (H1, H2, H3,…)
I watched lot of Youtube videos, joined many Facebook groups, read a lot of articles and tried a lot of applications and programs, but it was such a huge amount of information. I didn’t know where to start, what is the priority when everything is so important? I was completely lost with the ocean of information and I needed guidance.
So ! When and how was the successful turnaround ?
I want to thank a few people with whom I had (and still have) the honor to work with, and who guided me to right way to success :
Marouane RHAFLI
I had the pleasure to meet Marouane RHAFLI at the Facebook groups Shopify for beginners and Shopify Geeks, he was the one that analyzed and reviewed my website, he explained to me all the technical issues aspects of my website, he told me that it will cost hundreds or even thousands to fix the technical issues on my current theme and pointed me out to his theme Plak, that has everything built-in for my business, such as the fully dynamic filter sidebar, inventory level on product page, professional blog template, … and more important, I don’t need to hire a developer to fix the technical SEO & speed issues as the theme has everything built-in.
Now that I have a premium professional theme, I need to get in touch with an SEO specialist to do keyword research so I can get on top of Google research and increase my organic traffic and my sales by consequence, here is when I get in touch with Dan Barrett
Dan Barrett
Dan’s approach is amazing. He has 15+ years of experience in E-commerce, through his SEO Academy, I could better know the aspect of Search Engines Optimization, his explanations are extremely easy that even a 12 years old child could understand.
Following his guidance, with a powerful theme and good products, I started seeing some free organic traffic coming in and I started making some sales.
How happy are you and your customers now ?
I am extremely happy now with all what I have done in such a tiny time (Less than a year), and more important, my customers always send me the photos of their children wearing what they have bought from my store that I post on my business Instagram, I can’t be happier more than that.
What the advice you can give to beginner in eCommerce
Ecommerce isn’t just about creating an online store, uploading products, running paid ads and start earning money ! No ! It way more than that, being an online entrepreneur requires lot of determination, hard work, knowledge and consistent knowledge to improve itself first, improve its mindset and improve its business by consequence.
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