E-Commerce Development for a Women-Owned Business

Project Overview

How a Scrappy Leather-Maker Went From Less Than Ten Sales to Acquisition Within a Couple of Years

Regina Bauman is a woman who knows her craft. She grew up Amish, in a small community, with her cousin, Meg Delagrange. Regina’s upbringing taught her the value of simplicity and quality over mass-produced products.

Urban Southern was Bauman’s “baby” and she had been working on leather totes and accessories, trying to gain traction but it was a slog.

Regina brought her cousin, Meg (aka the Megasus), to help her get the marketing up-to-scratch, which at that point was just word of mouth from happy customers. Meg knew they needed to establish the brand online. That’s when she reached out to a friend.

Urban Southern hadn’t made more than a few sales in their own proprietary e-commerce platform and they needed something that was reliable and easy-to-use.

With Black Friday six-weeks out, Meg reached out to DigiSavvy to do the heavy-lifting on a compressed timeline. No problem, said Alex Vasquez. If Urban Southern was going to get its legs, it needed to happen soon and it needed a pair of steady hands to help them get where they were trying to grow. That’s where DigiSavvy stepped in.

The Challenge

Regina had only made a handful full of sales using their proprietary e-commerce platform, and their freelancer had gone missing, which sadly is a thing that’s prevalent in the digital space. Urban Southern needed a steady figure to guide them through the process, who would be there every step of the way, and they needed a stable platform that could handle a crush of holiday shoppers and allow them to promote their product to the world.

With a big sales day target looming, DigiSavvy got to work and helped Meg and Regina plan by quickly discovering all functionality they needed.

Meg was also a talented designer and had mockups ready to go, so DigiSavvy needed to nail down the technical requirements, start on development, and get everything configured in a few short works. Wipes sweat from brow. No problem!

The Solution

Website + E-Commerce Build

DigiSavvy got to work and built a robust, easy-to-use platform consisting of WordPress + WooCommerce. We built the theme from the ground up but provided page builder functionality so that Meg could create beautiful landing pages with ease.

DigiSavvy also leveraged secure and stable hosting from Pantheon, for which DigiSavvy is an Agency Platinum-level Partner. The hosting and website platform allowed Regina and Meg to focus on making quality products and also utilizing their new e-comm solution as the base of their marketing and promotional efforts.

Regina had renewed confidence to plot the course ahead and do the work she needed to do, and Meg got to work on creating email marketing campaigns, running their social media, and more. Their new solution took them from a one-woman side hustle to a legitimate business nearly overnight.

E-Mail Marketing and Promoting a Sale

We worked with Urban Southern on getting more interactivity from their audience. They had a large list of interested customers already. We came up with a plan to help.

We warmed their email lists with mentions of their upcoming holiday sale. We mixed the email marketing messaging with social media posts on their Instagram profile to help cross-promote their content and to invite more users to sign up for their newsletter and incentivized it with a one-time 10% discount.

The Results

The success of this project was evidenced in the Black Friday sales weekend. Previously, Regina had made just shy of ten sales on her previous platform. That weekend? Urban Southern crushed their previous sales by drawing in just over TEN THOUSAND dollars, spread across nearly 200 sales.

Their biggest complaint, you ask? Having to pack and ship all that product that had been sitting around, gathering dust. Not a bad problem to have!

Their new e-commerce platform allowed them to act quickly, effectively adding new landing pages to market their products and promotions. They continued to squeeze every bit of value they could from their website.

Eventually, Urban Southern found themselves featured in Fox Business, and just over two years after their relaunch, they sold over 200,000 in merchandise in ONE MONTH during the Christmas Holiday Shopping Season.

Shortly after that, Regina caught the attention of a savvy entrepreneur, and her business was acquired. It was a whirlwind journey taking just over two years.

DigiSavvy develops robust solutions that work and does what they’re supposed to, delivering outsized value to our clients.

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“Our experience with DigiSavvy was always positive over the years we worked with them. They always delivered as promised, on time and were always there immediately for tech support and troubleshooting when needed.”

Regina Bauman Founder, Urban Southern