Name of your website?My Plus Size Teen
Your name?
Nancy Sutton Smith
Your Location (city, etc)
Sioux Falls
Please give us a short summary of your website?
My Plus Size Teen is a website that puts the best plus size teen fashions all in one place. As one of the creators says, "My Plus Size Teen is for girls who aren't a size 4 and love style and who just don't fit the mold." My Plus Size Teen offers the best of Torrid, Hot Topic, The Avenue, Alight, Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Skechers, Shoes.com and all the leading plus size clothing and shoe manufacturers.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Plus Size teens have a hard time finding clothes! Malls don't carry plus size teen clothing and only focus on plus size womens styles which are too old for teens. Finally the internet has opened a new world for plus size teen clothing, but again, it's hard to find and the majority of websites cater to plus size women, not to plus size teens. It was time that a website was devoted exclusively to plus size teen fashions.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first website is devoted to Cyber High Schools (www.cyberhighschools.com) which are interestingly enough, also very difficult to find on the internet. Cyber High Schools are relatively new and offer a free, public education to high school students in the United States. They are difficult to find because each state deals differently with their online school or distance education program. Before my website, you had to go to each state's Department of Education website to see whether or not your state even offered it and if they did, they buried it because school districts aren't fond of distance education. Cyber High School's puts all that information in one place.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
My Plus Size Teen was an easy name because I have a plus size teen who has struggled to find clothing for all her teenage years. Finding a plus size swimsuit 10 years ago was like going on a scavenger hunt and we often left the dressing room in tears, and without a suit. Now my teen helps build this website and picks out what she knows other teens will love.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
There isn't another plus size website devoted exclusively to teens. There are plus size women's websites that have a teen section, but none of them devote their full time to teen fashions and issues.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
My daughter and I will continue to develop My Plus Size Teen until it is THE place for plus size teens to visit and trust that they are getting the latest fashions at the best prices. We would also like to get the attention of manufacturers who are still trying to pass off plus size women's fashions as teen friendly. One size doesn't fit all in the plus size world and the fashion world needs to recognize that plus size teens have been shortchanged for a long time.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
So far, we are still getting the word out about My Plus Size Teen so it isn't yet as profitable as we hope it will be someday. But in the meantime, my daughter gets to "virtually shop" as she picks out the best fashions for our website, so she thinks it's time well spent!
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We are planning a forum soon so teens can communicate about their own plus size finds so that's definitely one area we would love to change immediately with unlimited money. We would also like to include a lot of teen issue pages and design them to be interactive, which would require a software upgrade from what we use now.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes, because we have a network engineer friend on call to put in our own server/s if we need it!
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
I'd say the getting the best forum software has been the biggest headache, because our website host has a "restrictive" PHP policy and we still haven't worked that out yet. The technical demands are sometimes challenging as the site grows and develops.
What has been your biggest challenge?
So far, getting to plus size teens! We are careful how and where we publicize our site because we don't want to hurt feelings. Buying plus size clothing is sometimes an embarassing task and plus size teens don't want other teens online to know that's what they have to buy. That's why I rely on my daughter for the website's "verbage" because she knows how to communicate with other teens.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Not even a contest...Kaboodle! Kaboodle let's us build a Kaboodle site for Plus Size Teen fashions and then promote individual items. It is an amazing website traffic generator and one of the easiest and best ways to get the word out about our products and My Plus Size Teen!
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I think the challenge for this website comes from offering a plus size product that teenagers wish they didn't need. They don't want to be plus size but they still want to dress fashionably. Many of the plus size companies advertise youthful styles but don't deliver, so our challenge is to find the best looking teen styles among the plus size women's clothing.
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 hope to become THE plus size outlet for teenagers. So we are in it for the long haul, especially since we believe the manufacturers have just begun to cater to this market. We hope in a few years the choices for plus size teens will be much greater than they are now, so even without profit we will work on it for a long time.
Why is this website important to the public?
Plus size teenagers need a private place to go to look at plus size fashions that appeal to them. They don't need to weed through the "old lady" websites or stores trying to find that one tshirt or one youthful looking skirt. They need a website where everything they want is on every page. My Plus Size Teen is delivers that everyday no matter what their style!
What is your website address?
My Plus Size Teen
