Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Brenda Boehler, CEO of Bellacor (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What you’re talking about is often technically not so easy to do. There are lots of opportunities to push the envelope on really good visualization. Where do you see opportunities for new entrepreneurs to do interesting work bringing together new technologies in the space?

Brenda Boehler: I do believe that it comes down to balancing new technology with a genuine uniqueness and a genuine uniqueness around the product. I’d say this to my team. To compete on price isn’t really a great model, because there will always be someone that can beat you on price.

Where you should really compete is in unique products and the experience that you have with that customer. Look at everything that is >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Brenda Boehler, CEO of Bellacor (Part 3)

Brenda Boehler: When I look to where we want to take our business next, there are a number of new technologies that will greatly help people as they decorate their homes. There’re a number of concepts in other verticals that have not been implemented in our vertical yet. We have a website that has over 500,000 lighting and home furnishing products from 500 different manufacturers. We have a wide assortment.

There is one type of customer that just wants to come to that site to replace a broken light fixture. That involves an easy navigation, a solution, and a wide assortment. Another type of customer has a passion for decorating. The third type of customer is the one we are >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Brenda Boehler, CEO of Bellacor (Part 2)

Brenda Boehler: The opportunity exists in creating an experience for consumers to solve a problem online. We do that in many ways. Some online and some offline. I’ll speak about lighting specifically. If you’re a lighting retailer, it’s really important that you create really good content that makes it easy for consumers to understand scale and to understand lighting. We do that in a number of ways.

We do that through not only robust content on our product detail pages but also through buying guides within our blog so that people have the resources. We just help them become a problem solver for their home. The other thing that we invest in is training for our team members. There is an >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Brenda Boehler, CEO of Bellacor (Part 1)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as Bellacor. What do you do? What kind of customers do you serve?

Brenda Boehler: I’m the CEO of Bellacor and Bellacor Pro. We are the experts in an online space that has a passionate following in the lighting and home furnishing space. We are a pure play. We are a self-funded, organically-grown e-commerce company. We live in the lightning and home furnishings world. We’re an online retailer.

What I really wanted to share with you today is the trends that are going on in retailing in general and also within our home >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Alex McArthur, Chief Marketing Officer of Purple Mattress (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What other e-commerce trends do you see that are specific to your industry? If you look at most of the spaces, Amazon is creating havoc. If you a have a product that you can also buy from Amazon, the likelihood that you are going to be able to win is very low because they’re going to do Prime shipping and the best pricing possible. It’s very difficult to win against Amazon.

In your space, the logistics issue is slightly different. Logistically, it’s cumbersome. Is this something where you are also having to consider Amazon as a competitor?

Alex McArthur: The interesting thing is that for these larger items or something that’s not simple to ship online, there is a little more >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Alex McArthur, Chief Marketing Officer of Purple Mattress (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I have a couple of thoughts as I’m listening to you. Based on the brief that I’ve received, your company, in one year, has crossed $5 million in revenue.

Alex McArthur: We’ve crossed substantially more than that. We’ve done over nine figures this year.

Sramana Mitra: Tell me more. How much are you doing?

Alex McArthur: All of our competitors have raised substantial amounts of money. Due to this hypergrowth, we could grow >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Alex McArthur, Chief Marketing Officer of Purple Mattress (Part 1)

The special mattress e-commerce space is on a tear. We discuss the trends, the why and the how.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Purple Mattress.

Alex McArthur: I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Purple. Purple started January 22, 2016 and just went through an amazing growth phase. Fairly unexpected on our side is how fast it would grow. We sell mattresses and sheets, platforms, adjustable power base, and mattress protectors. Right now, we’re strongly focused on sleep. >>>

Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Brand: Big Barker CEO Eric Shannon (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: From a consumer’s point of view, it’s confusing. How do you convey that there’s something that is worth paying a premium for?

Eric Shannon: We just have a standard reply. We’re not going to reference any competitor directly here. All we can say is do your research, check their warranty, do they have any background in the pet industry? It’s the whole private-label thing, which I think is a scummy business to be in because you’re not really adding any value to the world whatsoever. This is going to be one of Amazon’s biggest problems going forward. You have 45 people all selling the same rubber spatula just with different brand >>>