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Weekly UpdatesDebbie Augustine is an entrepreneur with an award-winning, 40-person advertising and marketing agency, Augustine & Associates. Her husband's her COO, and they juggle that responsibility with 2-year-old twin girls.
But that's not the topic of today's story.
Somehow, Augustine has managed to sandwich in a sideline e-commerce business called Sendapantrygram.com. The nice but slightly naughty site offers up red, lacy panties accompanied by a sexy but discreet message. Augustine says it's the perfect gift for the perfect guy on Valentine's Day (only 26 shopping days left this year).
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The product gets rave reviews, both from the women who send them and the men who receive them, Augustine says. Sample messages are available online--along with the results they elicited.
But Augustine doesn't have to take customers' word for it. She sent her first Pantygram more than 20 years ago.
She explains, "I had a boyfriend who lived in New York, and I was always trying to think of clever things to do to make a connection. I just thought of a pair of panties and wrote a poem and tied it to the panties. He loved it."
Fast forward more than 20 years, to a conversation with that ex. "I was thinking about the starting the business, and I asked him if he remembered that gift. He said, 'Not only do I remember, I still have it.' And he sent me a copy of the note I had written him."
Tips to Build an Online Business
Here's Augustine's advice for anyone who wants to start an online business:
- Insist on search engine optimization.
- Align your offering with sites getting a lot of traffic, including some
that require payment.
- Get online and blog and have interesting dialogue around the offering.
- Find out what the online competition's like.
- Have legal papers drawn up.
- Include a marketing budget in your plans. "Have a budget going in
where you can hire a PR practitioner to help get the word out. Your
website's only as good as the people who know about it."
If you have any money left, work with companies that have a high level of traffic, such as radio stations. Augustine says it's not expensive. She says her marketing budget totals about $15,000. That doesn't include her in-house help, which she estimates at another $5,000.
With that kind of enthusiastic response, Augustine was sure she had a winner. She created a website, ordered inventory and found a fulfillment company to ship her wares. She shopped around for the best price point on the panties, and found it in China. She had to order 50,000 panties right out of the gate in 2006, but the price was right: $1 per pair. She concedes, "We've been working off that inventory since we started."
Costs for the company are particularly low, since her advertising and marketing agency does graphic and web design.
Sendapantygram has made $250,000 in sales since 2006, mostly for Valentine's Day gifts. Augustine is certain the site can do better, but with her full-time business and twin toddlers, she hasn't had the time she'd like to devote to it. "I'd like to offer other colors and do things around other holidays, birthdays and anniversaries," she says. Her message for St. Patrick's Day? Get lucky!
She's already kicked things up a notch: Sendapantygram just introduced a Spanish-language website aimed at the Hispanic market.
Augustine says sales last year suffered from a copycat competitor. "He ripped off my idea and outdid me on online advertising," she says. Eventually, she proved that she was first to market and the competitor had to pull down his site.
"We had hoped it would be something that would really take off. It hasn't quite made that boost," Augustine says. In the meantime, it provides a passive income--and a bit of fun.
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