Name of your website?Jolee Maternity
Your name?
Lee Ann Marshall
Your Location (city, etc)
Sault Ste Marie
What inspired you to launch your own website?
We live in a small community and it was very difficult to find suitable maternity wear for the office, a formal occasion or a night out on the town. My partner (Joanne) works for a local OBGYN and heard daily how difficult it was to find fashionable Maternity wear. With this in mind we thought developing a web site were Mother's-To-Be in communities such as ours had the same opportunity as those in a large city.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is our first website, Jolee Maternity. We went live the first week of February 2007.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We are a Mother and Daughter team.....Mom is Joanne(Jo)and I am Lee Ann (Lee), we put the name together and became Jolee Maternity!!
Please give us a short summary of your website?
We are working with 4 different designers at this time and hope to add more as time goes on. Our site offers a very classy selection of Maternity wear, specializing in formal maternity wear.....including Maternity wedding gowns.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
Although we offer many of the same designs as our competitors we offer Free shipping with minimum orders. Our research showed that one of the main concern of those shopping on line was shipping cost. Of course this cuts into our bottom line, but we felt it was important for our customer.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
As mention before we hope to add more designers over the next couple of months and try develop a great service a profitable business.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
It has become a full time job for me and the profits aren't their yet, but with more hard work we are hoping for success.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I am enjoying the process and the the new learning experience, I don't think we would change too much.....maybe purchase further advertising in a few key areas.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
No problem.....Just waiting for it to happen.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
We were a little surprised at the cost of some directory submissions.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Our biggest challenge has been finding designers that could deal with our start up capital limitations.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I think taking the time to submit links to other relevant sites has given up the most promotional success.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Although our views are increasing daily, our sales have not met our expectations.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
We have been live for 7 months and we will keep it up until we reach our goals.
What is your main objective?
Although this project started out as a business venture and of course we would like to see some profits some day soon, I believe our main objective is to provide a service that we feel is important to so many Mothers-To-Be living in small cities such as ours.
What is your website address?
Jolee Maternity