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Karen McMasters
BareBabies.com |
Karen McMasters started Barebabies.com
(visit site) in February of 1999 with no business background
and very little computer experience. She had a dream, a goal
and the drive to make it happen.
Like most entrepreneurs,
Karen started off with a great story. “I started
selling my daughters old baby items on eBay. I was amazed
at how well everything sold. I ran out of things to sell,
so I started going to garage sales to find more baby
products to sell via eBay. It was incredible. Everything
kept selling and I needed more!”
Even though Karen had no
business experience at all, she had the online itch and
started exploring other options for selling online. “I
really like the baby resale business and I thought it
would be fun to try to open and online store and sell
new baby products.”
And BareBabies.com was born. Literally.
Karen was a single employee
when she first started, no venture capitol or angel investors
here. She got it started with hard work, dedication and
the vision to succeed. “We
started seeing orders almost immediately”, McMasters
recalls. “It really was pretty amazing.”
In 2001, Karen was attending
an online advertising meeting and met someone who had
recently had their Yahoo! Store Redesigned. “I’d been thinking about freshening
up our site, but I didn’t know where to go, who to
trust or even what to ask. The person I met at that meeting
has worked with Colorado Web Solutions and after looking
at his site, I knew I had found my new design firm.”
Karen proceeded to hire Colorado
Web Solutions to do a make over on her site. It was a
great success for her business. “They
(Colorado Web Solutions) have been great to work with.
Their work is really professional. We still receive compliments
daily about the look of our store and how easy it is to
navigate.”
“Working with Colorado Web Solutions was fantastic.
They are professional, kind and go above and beyond the
call of duty. You are always on the “Front Burner” when
working with Colorado Web Solutions. Trust me after 6 years
working with them, I wouldn’t ever want to change
our relationship.”
Seven years later, sporting 6 full time employees, BareBabies.com
is thriving. They are seeing an average of 350 orders a
week.
When asked about things she’s learned over the years
working with Yahoo! Stores, Karen was quick to point out
that “Yahoo! Cares. If there is a problem, they are
on it. Most of the time before you even know about it.
You are backed by the Yahoo! brand and they are the best.”
Looking back on the years
as a successful online retailer, we asked Karen what
she felt her greatest success story was. “I was a stay at home mom when I started my
business. I have been able to take my daughter to school
and pick her up every day for the past 6 years. I get to
attend all of her school events and activities. I really
have the best of both worlds.” A true success story.
BareBabies.com uses a few
third party tools as well on their site that are worth
mentioning. They use eWish for their baby registry and
Constant
Contact (managed by Colorado Web Solutions)
for their email campaigns. Colorado Web Solutions also
just added a full functioning Customer Reviews Module
to Karen’s site which will allow her customers
to share reviews and ratings with other visitors. It’s
a dynamic module that is managed by Karen (approving reviews,
etc) that automatically publishes all the approved reviews
to the correct product instantly. Karen hopes that this
new added feature will create even more of a draw to her
already successful store.
When wrapping up our interview
with Karen, she enthusiastically added, “I highly recommend Yahoo! Web Hosting and
Colorado Web Solutions. I wouldn’t be where I am
today without them. Thank you Yahoo! and CWS! I am truly
blessed.”
Thank you Karen. We’ve
enjoyed every moment working with you as well.
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