What’s the best way to breathe some freshness into your home? A brightly coloured pineapple cushion, of course. Or a stunning blue and white floral tablecloth. The Brown Trading Co has heaps of inspiring ideas to put some zing into your home decor. Owner Keren Brown talks about her fabulous online store here.
Who?
Keren Brown
What is the name of your online store?
The Brown Trading Co
What do you sell in your store?
Gorgeous textiles for the home – cushions, fabric, tablecloths, tea towels, napkins, quilts.
How did the idea for your store come about?
We started off almost five years ago with another product and the business evolved from there. Three years ago we started The Brown Trading Co and knew we wanted to design and manufacture our own beautiful textile collections.
What is your career background?
My brother (and business partner) and I have what you would call an eclectic background. Our family has been in retail for over 40 years. I am a primary school teacher by profession, but I also had a long career in PR and marketing. My brother is a butcher by trade and has owned several retail businesses over the years. So I guess it’s the teacher and the butcher!
Who is your key customer?
Our key customers are essentially females who love homewares, design, fashion and beautiful things. She’s usually aged between 25 and 50 and loves all things do with home and design.
How do you make it easy for your online customers to buy from you?
We custom built a new website about six months ago to ensure that it was user friendly and customer focused. All of our products in each category can be viewed and purchased on the one page without having to click back and forward. We also provide beautiful lifestyle images so that our customer can see our product in use. Purchases can be easily made online with credit card or Paypal.
Do you sell in person or in a physical store as well?
We are a wholesaler as well so you will find our products in over 200 beautiful boutiques, interiors and homewares stores Australia wide which are listed on our website. We do not have an outlet as such so sell direct to the public through our website.
List your current most popular products.
Everyone is pineapple-crazy right now. We have our pineapple design in yellow and it will be coming soon navy in cushions, napkins and fabric.
And of course, because we are coming into Christmas, tablecloths are always very popular
What’s next for your online store?
We have huge plans for 2013, so it’s very exciting. We are adding lots of new product categories which are currently in development stage and we hope to add those in February 2013, as well as gorgeous new designs. We are also launching a stunning new high end silk cushion range pre-Christmas which we are very excited about.
Styling You’s top 3
1. Nalini table cloth, $99.95 |2. Cushion, $29.95 |3. Kala blue tea towel, $14.95
Have you found a great online store recently? Did it offer great products or service? Leave a comment below and let us all know about it.
PS. If you have an online business that Styling You readers need to know about and buy from, check out the Christmas banner advertising specials I’ve just launched. Buy two months and receive one month free.
