230: Opening an E-Commerce Store with Jenna Gotch
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Summary:
Are you interested in opening an e-commerce store? In 2021, it's easier than ever and provides many benefits beyond another stream of income. Jenna Gotch, owner of Passionately Pets, shares what led her to launch her online store and what it's meant to her and her staff. She shares what it's like getting the items to sell, stocking them on site, and how she still can't believe people buy from her. She made a big decision to avoid drop shipping to maintain more control over the process and why branding at each stage of the process was so important to her. We also discuss recent staffing struggles, how she's overcoming them, and how she balances the desire to grow with the reality of slow hires.
Topics on this episode:
Finding her target client
Launching her e-commerce store
Connecting with community
Choosing a business model
Where to get products
Main take away? Opening an e-commerce store can be another way of answering questions and solving problems of clients while building relationships.
About our guest:
Jenna Gotch opened Passionately Pets in 2007 as a “passion” project (hence the name). She got experience in the industry doing pet sitting part time as supplemental income after college and fell in love with caring for animals. When her full-time marketing job demanded more of her time, she was forced to give up pet care. But the desire to be an integral part of pet’s lives never left her. So she took a chance and began Passionately Pets as a one woman in-home pet care company serving Northern Virginia. The business quickly expanded to include team members and office staff and has been continually growing each year, until the pandemic hit. The company quickly pivoted and took the opportunity in 2020 to create an ecommerce retail shop with unique Passionately Pets merchandise, which created an avenue to become more involved in our local community. Passionately Pets very proudly donates $1 from every item sold to local animal welfare and rescue organizations, employs 25+ staff members and participates in neighborhood markets and events.
Links:
Passionately Pet: www.passionatelypets.com
Check out her shop: www.passionatelypets.com/shop
Get in touch with Jenna: Jenna@passionatelypets.com
Shopify: https://www.shopify.com
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pet, people, business, pet sitter, services, clients, dog, treats, passionately, inventory, thought, literally, product, sell, started, shirts, built, run, purchase, swag
SPEAKERS
Collin Funkhouser, Jenna Gotch, Susan
Collin Funkhouser 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan. I'm Collin. And this is Pet Sitter confessional, and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter brought to you by time to pet and pet sitters International. Have you ever thought of opening your own e commerce Store? 2020 did a lot to the pet care industry and many of us look for new ways to run our businesses to provide multiple streams of income and look for ways to solve new problems that clients are facing. Today, we're really excited to have Jenna Gotch, owner of passionately pets on to talk about what was the prompt for her to start her e commerce Store, how it really wasn't as much work as she thought, and how it helped her focus on moving beyond just offering services, and instead making it more about relationships. So let's get started.
Jenna Gotch 01:06
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So, um, yeah, my name is Jenna Ghosh and I have been in the petsitting industry. Since 2002, I actually started before I opened my own business. So, um, I got a little taste of doing pet sitting on the side after college. I actually worked in marketing after college, and just like everybody else needed more money. And answered an ad that was like, Do you love dogs? Sounds like of course I do. So that was my entrance into the industry. Um, but yeah, in 2007, I started my own business, passionately pets. We are a pet sitting and dog walking company located in Alexandria, Virginia. So we do service, several cities in the Northern Virginia area. Um, and I don't know, I'm married, I have a dog, we live in Alexandria. And that's my little family.
Collin Funkhouser 02:22
Well, I love I love how your story is, you had a little bit of taste of it, of doing it for a little bit. And then in 20, in 2007, you made a big transition into doing this full time. So what what was that transition like for you into petsitting?
Jenna Gotch 02:38
Yeah, so let me tell you how I got started with my own company. So I worked as a pet sitter for several years, and I absolutely loved it, it was awesome, because I was renting and I couldn't have any pets of my own. And it like gave me that joy, without having to have a pet of my own. And my full time job got to demanding less, it had been a couple years, so I started making more money there. So I was like, Alright, I don't need this side gig anymore. And I quit. But I turned out to really just miss it, I would drive around town and be like, oh, there's Max's house, you know, he loves to play fetch in the yard. And oh, there's Fluffies house, and I would just miss them. So, um, this is funny, but a motivational speaker came into the office at my full time job and I believe that they were supposed to motivate us to work better as a team and like step it up and you know, be into you know, working there, but instead it motivated me to quit there and start passionately pet, um, I just, I missed hanging out with animals I missed, you know, not sitting at a desk all day. Um, and so I was lucky and I got a another full time job that happened to be remote, which allowed me to take time out of the day and start building my client base. And I started just myself and I, um, you know, added one midday client at a time back then Craigslist was like the big place where you advertise it and got your clients. And so yeah, I just built it one by one. And about a year and a half into it. I decided to make it my full time gig. So yeah, that's how passionately that's what's more.
Collin Funkhouser 04:49
Well, just this little stairsteps right that you're doing I'm like, okay, we can do this. We'll do this step we'll do this step always trying to get to to follow your passion, right because as you say, you said I know is passionately pets is there because it was a it was passion for you as a passion project. Where does that passion for for pets and for your business come from?
Jenna Gotch 05:10
Um, I think just as a kid we had we always had pets we had dogs, cats, guinea pigs, hamsters, ganas fish, you name it. And I just really enjoyed them. You know, I feel like every kid wants to be a veterinarian when they grow up. And I, I did really, really want to do that for a long time, until I got to college. And turned out that I did not have the smarts for biology and chemistry. And so I quickly changed course to, to business and got a degree in that instead. So, in hindsight, it seems like a natural progression of finding some other way to combine pet like, and my business degree together.
Collin Funkhouser 06:05
Yeah. So what how has it been translating your your business skills into your own personal business? What are some things that have helped you or that you've, you're glad that you've had, because of your past experiences,
Jenna Gotch 06:17
I, this is gonna be terrible to say, but I honestly think that it didn't help at all. Anyone could can start their own business like, there, it is a like, learn as you go, um, thing, at least it's been for me, um, maybe being in business school helps me you know, kind of outline and structure, what steps need to be taken. But it's so broad unless you know what you're actually trying to do. But you don't need a business degree to be a business owner, you just need to know what your end goal is, and figure out how to get there. So that's what I constantly do. And literally all the time, it's just problem solving. It's like this is either not working or can be done better. How do I make this easier? How do I create something that my customers want? Like? It's all answering a question or solving a problem? It's not really knowing how to do it upfront? Hmm.
Collin Funkhouser 07:27
I think that's really encouraging. Because I think your stories, a lot of us are going oh, well, I love pets. I want to work with them. And then there's this business side. And to hear somebody who goes, Yeah, I learned the business side, it doesn't really help you in running your business. Like,
Jenna Gotch 07:42
that's really thank you have to be organized and driven and be able to work independently. But as long as you have those, you know, skills, then you can put it in an in a package that works for you.
Collin Funkhouser 07:59
Yeah. So you're in Alexandria, Virginia, Northern Virginia, how would you describe the market for pet care there?
Jenna Gotch 08:06
Oh, my goodness, there are so many pets here. Literally everyone has one or five. And not only do they have pets, but they are their family members full stop, they will do anything for them. They are the people who are out there, bringing their pets with them to you know, everywhere they go putting them in little outfits, sparing no expense for them. Because they really are a part of their family.
Collin Funkhouser 08:36
Yeah, that's, that's, uh, you know, I know, that's a big shift in the industry to have that's kind of describing more and more of what it means to be a modern pet parent is how they view and that relationship between the pet so within that market, how would you describe your target client and who you're after and who you're serving?
Jenna Gotch 08:54
Yeah, so um, I definitely think that we have two different targets one for like the midday service and then one for the pet sitting service. So for middays we're targeting like a younger, um, client between 25 and 35. Um, you know, they're, they've started a career and they're starting to kind of like, build their family. And that family starts with a pet usually, um, so they could be single, or, you know, dating someone or newlyweds but they're usually, you know, have just gotten their first pet and they are, you know, they need help or they go to work. And then for vacation, um, it's a little bit older, and I think that's because the younger generations are bringing their pets with them literally everywhere. And it's easier to do that now. And the older generations are used to leaving them at home. So for vacation, you know, it's more like 40 and up people who travel a lot for work, they're, you know, homeowners, they're more established. So yeah, that's,
Collin Funkhouser 10:21
and that's a really good point that I don't think it's made often enough is when we usually get asked, Who's your ideal client we have, we have one track and we go, this is who I'm serving. But to then break it out to individual services, is really a great way to know exactly. Okay, this is solving this person person's problem in this way. And this is who this is solving this for. And I think that reminds it's okay to do that. We might be
Jenna Gotch 10:46
like, obviously, there's overlap, you know, but in general, I have found that most of our midday clients do not use us for petsitting. Because they take their dog with them.
Collin Funkhouser 10:58
And knowing where that overlap is or isn't right, and who you're searching for is really it. You know, that takes time? Was that something that you had in mind in the beginning of who those worked for? Or is that something you've kind of discovered over
Jenna Gotch 11:10
the years? Yeah, that's definitely more something that I've discovered then something that I aimed for. Like I said, I started with Craigslist ads, which I definitely think made it a younger market, because, you know, older people weren't using Craigslist. Um, but yeah, so that's just how it happened.
Collin Funkhouser 11:32
And so over the years, you've added a bunch of staff, you've grown and clientele and services, how is managing that growth been for you, as you've as you add an expanded in your companies become larger and larger?
Jenna Gotch 11:46
Yeah, so I'm definitely every year pre COVID, we, we grew in the number of visits that we were providing the number of staff members that we had, and the number of clients that we had, and it all kind of happened organically. Um, I feel like it is incredibly difficult to manage, because in this service industry where we need to go into people's homes, there is always this balancing act of having enough staff for this potential new clients and extra visits that you might get, but also having enough work for these new staff members to handle. And it's hard to find people who are willing to wait until the work comes. You know, other people just want to want a full route when they start. Um, and yeah, it's it's definitely a balancing act. And I think because it's been happening, it's just been happening. i It's not something that I that I thought and I was like, oh, you know what, this year, I only have five employees next year, I would really like to have 10. It was more just, Oh, there's more visits than the current staff that I have right now today can handle let's hire someone. And so that happens literally all the time. And I have learned to always be hiring and if someone is willing to work with whatever the workload is that I have, at that moment, hire them, bring them on, do it. Don't wait until you know you're until I'm doing all of the visits and I couldn't possibly take one more you know to start looking for help.
Collin Funkhouser 13:40
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Susan 13:44
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Collin Funkhouser 14:01
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Jenna Gotch 14:27
Yeah, yeah, I am. I mean, we have standards and we have our hiring process that we go through and it's pretty extensive. And I found that it it weeds out, you know, the people who aren't that interested or thought that it was just playing with hobbies. And so if we get to the end, it's like, Alright, you're hired. Do you know, like, oh, I have a full route for you. I only have half a route. You know what we have one dog for you today but like give us a month it'll be full, you know?
Collin Funkhouser 15:01
So how is how is hiring been for you recently? And how is it different than in times past?
Jenna Gotch 15:08
Oh, COVID has ruined everything, you know, um, staffing has always been the most difficult parts of this business for me. Um, and I know, that's a common, you know, thread. And a lot of that is just our business model is different, we need someone to go into someone's home and do this specific job, we're not all just standing in the same room, and if one doesn't show, the, you know, the other three, just pick up the load, it doesn't work like that. Um, and with COVID, um, I, I was very lucky to be able to keep all of my staff, I won't say that they all had the same amount of workload as previously, but I did not have to lay off anyone, and I'm really proud of that, and I, you know, took advantage of PPP, and like, whatever came my way so that I could continue to pay them. And that was really important to me that my, my team is like, my family, and I wanted to make sure that I, you know, was supporting them. Um, so that was very lucky. Um, but it's been a year and a half. Now, you know, people move on people's class schedules have changed, people graduated, you know, people have found full time jobs, things like that. So we have definitely lost more staff members than we have been able to find to bring on. I don't know what is going on in the world today. But I know everyone is having this problem. And it's really unfortunate, because we have so much work for them. And we have no one who wants to work. People are, you know, they apply and literally an hour later, we're trying to schedule a phone interview with them, and they don't respond. And it's like, you just applied like, we're, it's not like we waited a week, you know, you haven't found something else in the last 20 minutes. So it's been incredibly frustrating. And it's actually become really difficult lately, because people have started to go back to work, especially post Labor Day. And we, for the first time ever are turning away existing clients. We have previously, you know, around Christmas, you know, put a stop take taking new clients, but, um, yeah, we, we've had to tell current clients, like, hey, we don't have anyone for that weekend, or, you know, to take on your midday route or whatever. And it actually breaks my heart, because I'm like, but they're our client behind the hell, like, that's part of our family, we're supposed to help them. But we don't have the manpower and we are constantly looking. And if anyone wants to be a pet sitter, you know, who isn't already one, I don't know who is listening, but just in case. We are hiring.
Collin Funkhouser 18:19
What's the how do you manage that? Because I, you know, I can hear that, that it is very frustrating to you, and you're like wanting to do this work and keep moving forward and keep growing? And not being able to? How do you just personally handle that kind of dissonance of what's going on?
Jenna Gotch 18:37
One day at a time, the best I can. Um, yeah, it involves a lot of deep breaths. Um, but honestly, I feel like it's just all about being transparent and giving that communication and just making sure that, you know, if, if we don't have someone to help, that we just communicate that as soon as possible so that they can, you know, use somebody else and we definitely recommend other companies in our area. So hey, you know, we really like these three companies, like try them. Because I want them to be able to go on that trip, or, you know, not worry about their dog while they're at work. Um, but yeah, it's been, it's been really difficult.
Collin Funkhouser 19:25
It has and it's not really showing any real sign of changing anytime soon, unfortunately. And so it is this kind of what is our expectations for the way our companies used to grow and how they grew before versus what we're able to do? Moving forward. So have you changed anything about your job descriptions or what that job does to try and attract different people or, or how are you adapting to that?
Jenna Gotch 19:51
Like we have not been maybe I need to think about um, yeah, no, we have not changed The descriptions, the thing that I'm toying with changing is, you know, do we need to start offering more money. In Virginia, a big issue is the minimum wage is on the rise, which is fantastic. I think it should. And we have always, you know, compensated more than minimum wage. But what I, I could be imagining this, but in my head, um, pet sitting and dog walking used to always pay so much more than minimum wage, that it made it a very desirable position, in addition to the flexible schedules, and, you know, being out and about and seeing the animals, but it was good pay, if everyone, for every, you know, job, minimum wage type job increases the difference between what, you know, what was really good pay is now, maybe just a little bit more than they used to get. And so I am thinking about raising our compensation, but that also comes with raising our prices, which I don't know, if, you know, our market can bear right now. And so I'm wrestling with that.
Collin Funkhouser 21:17
Yeah, that is, that is an eternal question, right? Of how do we how do we make sure that we're paying appropriately and providing them a standard of living, versus what the market will bear for our, for our services, right, and that's one of those things where we get caught between of, of making making that work, and it's yet yet another balancing act that we get to walk?
Jenna Gotch 21:37
Yes, I am, I have it on my to do list to figure this out for passionately pets for the new year. Which means that I have to do it, kind of by the end of October, so that we can, you know, make the appropriate announcements to our customers and, and everything like that. So it's on my to do list, but I don't have a solution yet.
Collin Funkhouser 21:58
Well, so how have how have previous price increases gone for you? And what was that process like and raising prices previously?
Jenna Gotch 22:07
Yeah, so we try and raise our prices every other year. Um, and I feel that, that everyone should do that, you know, standard of living goes up, and, you know, everything becomes more expensive. And we should also, you know, become more expensive in order to cover all of that, um, honestly, like, we just notify all of our clients, at least a month in advance and let them know what it's going to change to. And most people understand it, there's a handful, who then can afford it, which is unfortunate. And we may end up losing them because of it. But you know, it's like one client versus, you know, the 500 that we have, and it's just a necessary part of doing business. And it's scary. It's incredibly nerve racking every single time. But I also have found that if you're just like, Okay, well, it's it's the every other year, and this is what we do. Um, you know, it sets expectations. And, you know, everyone's usually okay with it.
Collin Funkhouser 23:27
Yeah. Well, it sets expectations for yourself, too, because you just mentioned, it's really scary. I mean, every time Megan and I have raised prices, I've like, click the button with my eyes closed, turning away from the computer, send out the announcement. And I'm like, here it goes. It's all it's all over. And always been fine. But it's every time and so to have this on a schedule of whether I'm ready or not, this is what we're doing. And that's just what the business does. And that's another reason why having policies and procedures in your business is so important, not just so that other people know what's going on, but so that you know, what's going on.
Jenna Gotch 23:58
And we were supposed to raise it for 2021. But because of COVID We didn't and so now I'm all like Oh, well, you got an extra year in there.
Collin Funkhouser 24:10
Yeah, well, I mean, COVID threw everything off. And I know it was a it was a pivotal year for you, especially with a lot going on. So I'd love for you to tell us how how 2020 was for your business. I know you describe a little bit about the employees and stuff but business and operationally you know, how did you guys pivot and change?
Jenna Gotch 24:30
Yeah, so um, as with most pet sitting and dog walking companies COVID hit and we went down to doing 10% of our normal service which is absolutely crazy. Um, we were very lucky to have quite a few clients continue to pay for things that they weren't getting and you know, tip our staff and help us get through it which was amazing. Um, but before COVID hit, I had been toying for several years about starting a merchandise line for passionately peds. And I, the motivation, the inspiration came from visiting breweries, my husband and I really like going to different craft breweries together and you know, trying all the different beers, but you go to a brewery, and then you you get the swag, you know, and I not only do I like getting swag shirts, you know, hats, whatever from breweries that I like their product. I also, as we started going to more like notice when other people were wearing the swag that I knew what the logos were, I knew what the sayings meant. And I really liked that. And I wanted to kind of create that for the petsitting world. And I wanted to have like swag that any pet sitter or dog walker dog owner pet owner could have and like another pet owner, dog walker would get and be like, Oh my god, I love your shirt. That's awesome. Um, so when COVID hit, it really gave us the time to spend on creating a merchandise line. So we opened up an E commerce shop. And we started with a couple different shirt designs, we have like a standard love design that we literally put on everything. Um, and we got dog collars, leashes, magnets, glassware, um, you name it, we probably have it. And then with having the merchandise and having the online store, I was able to participate in outdoor markets that happened all throughout COVID. And I think that it was super helpful to stay in front of my clients like everyone, you know, all of the pet owners in the area. Now, remember passionately pets, because they got they saw that shirt, and they thought it was really cute, or, uh, you know, their dog loves our treats, or whatever it is. Um, so it stopped being all about the services and started more being about being a part of the relationship between the pet owner and the pet. And it's definitely been a lot of work. Which I didn't expect it to be, but here we are. And, but also, like really rewarding, I've been able to meet a ton of people and their pets and create a relationship with them. And a huge part of starting the retail side was we wanted to give back to our community and help pets in need in our area. And there really wasn't room in the service side funds to do that. And the retail side I can set the prices to be whatever I want, right? So we build it in that $1 From every item that is purchased gets donated to whoever our fundraising partner is at the time. And and you know, our community and our clients really appreciate that and and really like that and support it and it helps them to decide like oh, I want to support that charity. Sure I'll buy this bag of treats.
Collin Funkhouser 29:05
You know, it sounds like you had always mentioned this was something that was always on your brain. Did you ever envision when you first started that you'd be a pet sitter and running an operating a retail store as well? And did that fit in with where you thought the business would go? I really didn't.
Jenna Gotch 29:21
Yeah, this is all news to me. And I just go with the flow. I'm like, Oh, we started this thing. And you know what, um, it didn't go as I thought, you know, we started with with the merch and the swag and then quickly learned that people really just wanted toys and treats, you know, so then we added toys to the store and treats the store and in the end of April, we started making our own trees. So we are constantly you know, morphing into just whatever it's Seems like people want. And like I said, it's all about like answering a question solving a problem. I don't I don't have big plans. But I did, I just like continually will try and problem solve, and it leads me to whatever the next step is. And this is just the next step. And now we are weekly at a farmers market, we're constantly doing big events, we partner with, you know, bars and do yappy hours with them. And we've done events before but when it was only services, it seemed like, you know, everyone who was attendance wasn't in our service area, or, you know, like, we would have to buy all these treats in order to like, give them away, and people were happy that we were there. And they had a good event, but they didn't remember who we were. And we didn't make a connection with them. And now we're making that connection. And it's, it's showing up on the services side.
Collin Funkhouser 31:10
Yeah, that's a really interesting point, we just participated in a local park in the park for us as well. And we showed up with our table and the purchased treats and all these little things that we had. And it did feel vault, it felt to us felt very flat, at least this year, where people just weren't quite connecting or understanding what we were because we were the only really, there was like a trainer there. But we were the only other service oriented people there. And I can definitely see how people may be concerned business owners may be concerned, I'm going to be branching off into many different directions. But the way you view it going, No, this is actually supporting my services side.
Jenna Gotch 31:48
It's really built a bridge between the two. And and I think that bridge is connecting the community to passionately pets.
Collin Funkhouser 31:57
So I'd like to talk a little bit more about the maybe the nuts and bolts of setting this up. Because I know when I think of setting up an e commerce Store, I get a little overwhelmed with the thought of it. And you may be saying, Oh, yes, you should be at least meeting expectations. Do you run it on a specific site? Or is everything custom for your website? Or how did you go about just like that initial step of
Jenna Gotch 32:23
Yeah, so I'm so I'm joking, creating the site is actually not that difficult. There are lots of services out there that make it easy for people. Um, I chose not to have it as a part of my website, only because I wanted to be able to add a product, change the inventory, change your price, all of that, and I don't know, code, I can't, I can't go into the backend and like make those changes. So I decided to, to use one of the services. And so our shop is run off of Shopify, there are tons of others out there, but they, they pretty much have a template and you you decide like, Hey, this is the format I want my store to come up in. And then you you fill in the blanks, and they make it super easy for you to add the product. You know, they asked you all of the questions that you know, at first, I didn't know like things about how do I want to ship it? And how do I want to charge tax and then I was like, oh, I should probably register for that. Because, um, you know, are on the service side, there's no tax. But on the retail side there is. Um, so it kind of walks you through all of it and makes it really easy.
Collin Funkhouser 33:52
sound like it was a really just simple process, though, kind of walking you through, as you said, each step of things that you needed to know, to have something that you could be posted out there and have people start buying that day. Really it sounds like
Jenna Gotch 34:04
yes, absolutely. As soon as you decide that your site is live, somebody can go in and make a purchase. And they you know, take care of the credit card processing for you as well. So if you don't need to do that extra, I did need to decide how I was going to accept payment while I was like at a market. Um, I decided again to stick with Shopify just because I thought it would be easier to keep everything all in one connected system. But there again, tons of options. Everyone actually thinks when they pay that my Little Reader is square and then they're like, oh, yeah, you can email me the receipt. And then when I asked them for the email address, they're like, isn't it square? I'm like, No. I'm like, I need your info. So if you don't want to be asked that all the time, maybe squares is the way to go. But, but for me it works that they're all connected. You know, I get one bill. And that's it.
Collin Funkhouser 35:08
Nice. Do you remember your first sale? What was that experience? Like whenever you first got that notification that you had sold something,
Jenna Gotch 35:15
oh my God, those are my favorite emails. So it emails me every time I get an order. And I am like a little kid in a candy store literally every single time. I will even be at the event. I'm the one processing the sales, but then I look at my email and I'm like, Oh, look. So yeah, right now, it still happens every single time I get a sale it I'm super excited. Um, the first one, of course, was like, Oh, my God, someone actually wants what I have, you know, like, I create it, you create this thing, and you have this vision, and you have no idea if somebody else actually wants it. So yeah, that first sale was just like, oh, so I have I've made something that someone actually want. Like, that's awesome.
Collin Funkhouser 36:09
I'm sure it is to realize that like, again, like, I know, you have that same kind of that same experience whenever you're offering the pet sitting and dog walking services, but to have something that's created on a physical object, and have someone go, Oh, I'll buy that through an online store. It does. I can imagine feel very much like, oh, wow, this is weird and amazing. Yeah, yeah.
Jenna Gotch 36:29
At the same time, mostly amazing, though.
Collin Funkhouser 36:34
So that you mentioned that you make your own dog treats now, but you sell a lot more than just dog treats. Where do you get your products? And how does that end of this work?
Jenna Gotch 36:46
Yeah, so um, so we have things that we create that are branded. So we have a whole apparel line, we have collars, leashes, glassware, magnet stickers, and honestly, each of those are purchased from a different vendor. Much like, if you were, you know, just getting something with your logo, any promotional product, you know, just like whoever like makes the cheapest one is kind of the one that we, you know, use at the moment. Um, our shirts, we actually originally had gotten them to have inventory in it like actually in my office like in hand. And you really have to order a lot of each product in order for the costs have come down far enough that it's at a price point that the customer will want it. So I had a lot of shirts, and they really weren't selling as quickly as I had hoped. And so when we came up with other designs, I have now switched to print on demand for our apparel. And I use Printful for that, and it's been great, I haven't had any, like complaints about it. Um, so somebody will order something off of my site, and the order automatically goes to Printful and they make the shirt and send it to the customer directly. So I don't even have to do anything. Um, and I just want to take a step back for a minute and let people know that when you do have an E commerce shop, you have two ways that you can run your store so you can be inventory based, which I have chosen to do. Or you can do drop shipping, where you purchase products. You list products from someone else on your site. When you get the order you tell the other people hey, I need you to send this to my customer and they take care of it for you. So you don't actually have any inventory on hand. The reason I decided to go with inventory based was because when you drop ship it comes from the drop shipper. It does not say that it comes from passionately pets. And I didn't like that disconnect. I also quickly discovered that maybe I wanted some items from company A and some items from Company B. And if someone ordered something from a and b they would end up getting two different boxes at two different complete times. If they ordered any passionately peds merchandise now it's three shipments. So it was a whole hot mess in my mind and I was like you know what, no, I'm gonna go inventory but the easier option is to go drop shipping if you don't care what the box says. And when you know your customer gets it and whether or not it's in one box or five
Collin Funkhouser 40:01
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Jenna Gotch 41:17
Yeah, so um, I keep everything in my tiny little office, I got very lucky that the house that we bought a couple years ago, had this room that literally had all of these bookshelves on two of the walls. And when we moved in, I was like, well, that's my office. But I have no idea what I'm going to put on all of these shelves. And then here we are, and it is literally stuffed full of just our merchandise. So I don't know what I would do if I didn't have these shelves. But yeah, so I place these orders at wholesale sites or directly with whoever makes the product depending on how they end up selling their product. And when I get it, I if it's a new product, I have to add that item to my store. And if it's an existing product, I just need to adjust the number in inventory. So I'm in charge of keeping track of the inventory. And I do it just when I received the shipment, and I'm going through the box to make sure it's all in there. You know, I have the Shopify website open and I adjust the inventory on hand. Yeah. And then it takes care of tracking when somebody purchases it, it, you know, reduces the inventory for me
Collin Funkhouser 42:38
what's really nice, at least it's not insanely complicated. I guess. It just takes some getting used to that process and making part of that of your new workflow, I guess.
Jenna Gotch 42:47
Yeah, so it's just time consuming. Honestly, it's not that bad if you have the same amount like the same products all the time. Um, but I've discovered that you know, if I'm going to do events, and you know, the same people might follow me from event to event like maybe they come to one of my events once a month. Well if I have the same exact toys, every single event, they're gonna stop buying because they already have that right. So so I need to keep it interesting get you know, holiday themed items, etc. And it's it's the adding the new items to the store that takes a long time, like creating the description and adding the photos and like having all of that and make it look pretty in the store online. Takes a lot of time. Yeah, adjusting the inventory of something that's already in the shop is very easy.
Collin Funkhouser 43:44
What are some of your top sellers or maybe some things that you're surprised at how well they do?
Jenna Gotch 43:50
That's an interesting question, because it is not consistent at all. It it's so funny because I will go to the same farmers market and be like, I need 10 Tuna and cheese treats because we ran out last time and I will bring extra and then that'll be the week where people only want the apple cinnamon. I don't believe but I didn't bring enough now I'm out of those and like it literally changes all the time. Um, I I am surprised that like that our apparel doesn't sell more. We get a lot of compliments on all of the shirts and like oh, that's so cute. Oh, that's so cute. Oh, that's so cute. But then no, like, you know, not many people buy it. But then all of a sudden there'll be one day and we'll sell five and that day and I'm like, Oh, I okay now so it's always surprising. Um, I think that the toys Um, first of all, selling in person is way more successful than just having a store. It's there it's available, but getting somebody to actually add stuff to their cart and purchase it is really hard. When you're not in front of them. selling at a market at an event is way easier. And having all of the colorful, different fun design toys, gets them to come over. They will be you know, sitting at their table drinking their beer, and I will hear them being like, oh my god, do you see that avocado oh my god, there's, you know, a white paw, you know, Variety Pack, like, you see that? Oh my god, we totally need to get this. So like, they sit and talk about it for a good like hour before they get up and come over. But that's like the attention grabber. And then people really do like our treats. They're all homemade. They're human grade ingredients. We we have like, samples for the pets to have, like, while we're there. And you know, honestly, I love when somebody you know, comes back and is like, you know, hey, my dog loves this treat, you know, like, we need more? Like, that's the biggest compliment ever.
Collin Funkhouser 46:20
So are you the ones making the treats? Are you off sourcing that to somebody to make the white label or whatever.
Jenna Gotch 46:26
Um, so, uh, we outsource it, but they are being like, homemade. Like, they're not they're not at a factory, like someone is in their kitchen, you know, like rolling them out and mixing the dough in a standard, you know, hand mixer. Yeah, okay. No, I
Collin Funkhouser 46:46
was just curious, because I know there are different ways to go.
Jenna Gotch 46:49
Personally do it. Okay. I don't have time for that I would love to do but
Collin Funkhouser 46:58
yeah, we just got actually at that park in the park. And it got connected with somebody who we had never heard of who does exactly that where they make them in their home. And it was like, I need to talk to you immediately and start picking your brain on this stuff. So that's, that's interesting that,
Jenna Gotch 47:13
yeah, the easiest thing to do is to find someone who's already doing it, and then ask them if they're willing to private label.
Collin Funkhouser 47:20
Okay. Yeah, that's a really good tip. Because I think we're always looking for those kinds of things and building those relationships and partnerships to with people in our area as well. Yeah, absolutely. Now, one thing that I noticed is, you know, you've, you've built a pet sitting company, you've built an e commerce Store, and I think, who gets to model the clothing for a lot of this site for a lot of the photos on?
Jenna Gotch 47:44
Usually, it's me. Um, no, we, we try and, um, you know, kind of get our staff to wear it, and then take pictures, taking pictures and like, making videos is like, the thing that I should be, that's the top thing that I should be doing more of, but I find it difficult to find the time. So yeah, so most of the time, it's me. And then sometimes, you know, it'll be like a stock photo or something. If it's, you know, just with a toy. We also try and take a lot of pictures of people like shopping at our, you know, stand or, you know, if a client takes a picture of their dog, you know, wearing this dog centered sweater that we sell, like, alright, that's going on our, you know, social media, like we're using that.
Collin Funkhouser 48:46
Yeah, I think just taking those opportunities and using what you can and I think that's one of the things I love most about your journey through and into E commerce is that it's not it's it's a lot of unknowns, but they're not unsurmountable. And you can get through it just by trying different things, and just just starting, but if someone's listening, and maybe they're still a little overwhelmed, or they don't know where to start, maybe they're just interested in starting an e commerce Store. What kind of advice would you give them?
Jenna Gotch 49:16
So my husband actually gave me this bit of advice, which was don't save items for a future event. And it blew my mind because I would be like, Oh, today I'm have the farmers market. But tomorrow, we have Wags and whiskers and I want to make sure that I have this, you know this type of treat because it's our biggest seller, and my husband was like if you sell it all today and have none for tomorrow, that's better than if you didn't bring it today. You bring it tomorrow and you don't sell them there. So So that's was like the little tidbit that blew my mind of like, you know what, you're right, you can't you can't save things for the future. And just do the best with what you with what you can, right. And I have also discovered at the beginning, I wanted like more more and more, I felt like I never had enough inventory or enough choices, or could like wanted to bring everything to an event just because I have it. And I have realized that people will buy from the choices that you give them. So just because you didn't bring that one thing, they don't know you ever had it in the first place. So they will they will choose from, from the choices that you provide them. So I have since like dialed back on ordering more toys and be like, and I panic a little bit like oh my god, we ran out of the white ball. Everyone loves the white paw, we need more white paw, but then I'm like, You know what, I have other stuff right now. Like, I don't really have room for it. And it's taken me a while to get there. Um, so yeah, all of my advice is about inventory. Because it's like been the bane of my existence of like how to fit it all in this one room, because it's not allowed to be anywhere else in the house. Mostly because my dog would get into it if it was like, you know, just out and about, but also because, you know, my husband doesn't want to be looking at a pile of dog treats.
Collin Funkhouser 51:35
Well, it's also the biggest change in the kind of business that you're running, right, you're used to a service based business versus a physical item business is also the biggest shift that we have to change in our thinking about how we approach the problems that we're coming up and how we manage that. That's an entirely separate way of operating for us too.
Jenna Gotch 51:55
Yes, absolutely. 100%
Collin Funkhouser 51:59
Well, Jenna, I have really appreciated this conversation. And I really want to thank you so much for encouraging us to get started in something and and for the impact also that it's it's had for you and the connection that it brings to your community. But I know that there's a whole lot more there and people are gonna have a lot more questions. So if, if they want to, how can they get in touch with you and follow along with everything that you're going on? And check out your store too?
Jenna Gotch 52:24
Yeah, so um, check out our website, especially pets.com. If you want to go directly to the shop, especially pets.com/shop. Um, definitely follow us on social media, you can see what's going on on both sides, the service side as well as the store side, we are at passionately pets, on Instagram, as well as on Facebook. And if you have any questions for me, you can always shoot me an email at Jenna at passionately, pets.com.
Collin Funkhouser 52:56
Perfect, and I'll have links to all of that in the show notes. So people can click right to that and maybe pick your brain about getting hired to if they're in Northern Virginia, like,
Jenna Gotch 53:05
please. There's no link to it right on our website as well.
Collin Funkhouser 53:11
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jen, again, thank you so much. This has been a real pleasure, I really appreciate it.
Jenna Gotch 53:18
Thank you so much for having me, it's been great. My two big
Collin Funkhouser 53:21
takeaways from Jenna were two things that she said the first one that as she built out her ecommerce store, it stopped being about the services and became more about building relationships. We are a relationship industry. We build relationships with clients so that they in turn, trust us with the services that we are giving them. And anything that we can do to build that trust to build those relationships is something that we should at least be interested in pursuing. And that leads me to the second point, that it's all about answering questions and solving problems. And how as she pursued that, answering questions, solving problems, answering questions, solving problems, that led her into the e commerce Store. And she's built from there that underlying the foundation of everything that Jenna does. It's answering questions and solving problems. Yes, that means that it can be another source of revenue and income for our business. But it's a reminder that when we pursue customer service, and solving problems, the income and the revenue comes in on the back end, that when we pursue these things to help people. That's when we get a payout. That's when our business benefits the most. We want to thank our sponsors, time to pet and pet SIRs international for making today's show possible. And we really want to thank you for listening. Let us know if you have ever thought about starting an e commerce Store or maybe you did in the last year. We'd love to hear how that's gone for you and some of the lessons that you've learned or advice that you'd want to share with others. Send that feedback to feedback at petsitter confessional comm or tag us on social media post let us know how It's been in share your story. We'd love to hear it. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for all of your support. We'll be back again soon.
