Good Fibers: Environmentally Friendly and Luxurious Textiles
GoodFibers.com sells environmentally friendly and luxurious towels, linens, robes, blankets and more.
Fibers That Feel and Do Good
A few years ago, Barb Bertsch was anticipating a lot more expenses as she looked ahead to sending off her two children to college. “When my oldest son was a junior in high school I kept looking at expenses I saw coming up—college, cars, and all that,” Barb says. “I realized our income wasn’t going to change much because we really we liked our jobs, but we needed to do something to address the upcoming expenses.”
It was, and is, very important to her to have her children go through college and graduate without debt. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Barb and her husband kept their day jobs while Barb went through a few weeks of an online training course to help her develop an ecommerce business.
Ecommerce was appealing because Barb felt that selling a product through a website was something she could do on the side, while still maintaining a career she enjoyed, and her whole family could help. This was before the economy effectively collapsed as it has in the past couple of years, but her kids still had difficulty finding part-time jobs to work around a full-time college schedule. “I felt that an ecommerce business would give them a job and experience and learning about customer service,” she says, “and selling online was a business everyone in the family could be a part of and work on together.”
Barb signed up for an online training course and received coaching on what she needed accomplish to get started and how the basics of ecommerce worked. “The coaching I got stressed that you need to pick something that you will enjoy writing about,” Barb says. “I wanted a product with a shelf life, one that would last a while. Nice linens are a creature comfort I have always liked.” Barb began researching linens and fibers and found bamboo and organic cotton fibers ideal because of their level of quality and comfort, and how environmentally sustainable the materials were. “Everything is becoming more earth conscience,” she notes.
Barb started out with a website built with Magellan software, but it was plagued by technical problems. She had received coaching on the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research, and getting listed in directories through her online course, and when she couldn’t do anything about the site’s technical problems, she spent her time learning about those issues. “While it was certainly frustrating at the time, in hindsight it was actually a good thing, because I think my business benefitted from the directory submissions I did and the keyword research I did,” Barb recalls. “I went into this thinking that failure is not an option!”
Her first website launched on January 1, 2009. It took three months before she got her first order, and that was “discouraging,” she says. But after six months, she began to get orders on a more regular basis. Customers had to go through a cumbersome ordering system: first, they had to decide which towel they wanted, then choose the color, then choose the size, then add the towel to the cart, and then go back to the product page. “Because it was clunky, I don’t think people bought as much,” she says. And she still struggled with technical issues, so she began to look at other options. “I was frustrated and I was putting in too much work to have the tech issues holding me up,” she says. Because Barb lives in the same area as HEROweb’s owners, Michael and Staci, they were acquainted. Barb says she knew that Michael and Staci did “website work” but didn’t really know what. She called them up and said, “Talk to me!”
The site that HEROweb developed for Barb went live in March of 2010. “I was really happy with that transition,” Barb notes. “I’m so much happier with the front end of my site and several of the design features that Kathy [HEROweb’s lead designer] put into it have helped my sales.” Good Fibers customers can choose from bamboo and cotton bath towels, bamboo and terry robes, blankets, bedding, kitchen towels and more, and they can now pick the size, color, and quantity at the same time.
For Barb, her online business hasn’t made them wealthy, but that was never the goal. “It’s paying for school expenses, and I really feel like the business now has a lot more room to grow,” she says. “We’ve grown every year, and we get repeat customers, so that’s good! We’re looking ahead at future possibilities and continuing to expand our business as we move forward.”
A few years ago, Barb Bertsch was anticipating a lot more expenses as she looked ahead to sending off her two children to college. “When my oldest son was a junior in high school I kept looking at expenses I saw coming up—college, cars, and all that,” Barb says. “I realized our income wasn’t going to change much because we really we liked our jobs, but we needed to do something to address the upcoming expenses.”
It was, and is, very important to her to have her children go through college and graduate without debt. So she decided to take matters into her own hands. Barb and her husband kept their day jobs while Barb went through a few weeks of an online training course to help her develop an ecommerce business.
Ecommerce was appealing because Barb felt that selling a product through a website was something she could do on the side, while still maintaining a career she enjoyed, and her whole family could help. This was before the economy effectively collapsed as it has in the past couple of years, but her kids still had difficulty finding part-time jobs to work around a full-time college schedule. “I felt that an ecommerce business would give them a job and experience and learning about customer service,” she says, “and selling online was a business everyone in the family could be a part of and work on together.”
Barb signed up for an online training course and received coaching on what she needed accomplish to get started and how the basics of ecommerce worked. “The coaching I got stressed that you need to pick something that you will enjoy writing about,” Barb says. “I wanted a product with a shelf life, one that would last a while. Nice linens are a creature comfort I have always liked.” Barb began researching linens and fibers and found bamboo and organic cotton fibers ideal because of their level of quality and comfort, and how environmentally sustainable the materials were. “Everything is becoming more earth conscience,” she notes.
Barb started out with a website built with Magellan software, but it was plagued by technical problems. She had received coaching on the importance of search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research, and getting listed in directories through her online course, and when she couldn’t do anything about the site’s technical problems, she spent her time learning about those issues. “While it was certainly frustrating at the time, in hindsight it was actually a good thing, because I think my business benefitted from the directory submissions I did and the keyword research I did,” Barb recalls. “I went into this thinking that failure is not an option!”
Her first website launched on January 1, 2009. It took three months before she got her first order, and that was “discouraging,” she says. But after six months, she began to get orders on a more regular basis. Customers had to go through a cumbersome ordering system: first, they had to decide which towel they wanted, then choose the color, then choose the size, then add the towel to the cart, and then go back to the product page. “Because it was clunky, I don’t think people bought as much,” she says. And she still struggled with technical issues, so she began to look at other options. “I was frustrated and I was putting in too much work to have the tech issues holding me up,” she says. Because Barb lives in the same area as HEROweb’s owners, Michael and Staci, they were acquainted. Barb says she knew that Michael and Staci did “website work” but didn’t really know what. She called them up and said, “Talk to me!”
The site that HEROweb developed for Barb went live in March of 2010. “I was really happy with that transition,” Barb notes. “I’m so much happier with the front end of my site and several of the design features that Kathy [HEROweb’s lead designer] put into it have helped my sales.” Good Fibers customers can choose from bamboo and cotton bath towels, bamboo and terry robes, blankets, bedding, kitchen towels and more, and they can now pick the size, color, and quantity at the same time.
For Barb, her online business hasn’t made them wealthy, but that was never the goal. “It’s paying for school expenses, and I really feel like the business now has a lot more room to grow,” she says. “We’ve grown every year, and we get repeat customers, so that’s good! We’re looking ahead at future possibilities and continuing to expand our business as we move forward.”
