How did the time get away from me since my last post? I can’t believe I've missed December and
January especially since there have been so many wonderful things happening. I’ll
have to try to squeeze it all in somehow without writing a novel!
December was a very busy month for us. Sales were much improved because of
Christmas. So I expected January’s sales
to be very minimal and to my surprise they were much better than I
expected. The Staples prize has allowed
us to advertise on Facebook and our number of new likes during January was
about 200 per day which has given us so much exposure to new people that the
sales during the month of January were up more than I would have thought. The best part was that almost all the sales
were new customers, so I’m so happy to welcome many new customers to our Downs
Designs’ family!
January gave me a little bad news, we didn't win the
Chase $250,000 grant. I was so hoping we
could have landed the grant but it wasn't in the cards. But something else happened by the end of
January that took away the disappointment.
Huffington Post did a story on Down Designs! OMG it was more valuable than money.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/24/downs-designs-karen-bowersox_n_4660060.html
They posted the story on Friday, January 24 and by Saturday out
website crashed. Our site couldn't handle all the traffic. By Sunday
morning Eric had successfully moved our site to a bigger server and new orders
started coming in. We posted a sale on
February 2 and that week we topped our best month in just eleven days. I’m still digging my way out of the stacks of
orders.
That weekend our Facebook page “likes” jumped up 4,000
people and the emails and comments on Facebook and Twitter were nearly
impossible to keep up with. News stories
and Blogs were writing all about Downs Designs.
Fox 8 came out and did a great story and ran it 5 or 6 times. Radio stations called me and I was
interviewed on several. I've had a few
Skype interviews and even an online paper in London, England interviewed me and
did a story. What an exciting time at
Downs Designs.
The next really exciting news is my NBZ Jeans. They are being delivered to us right
now. I expect our first order to arrive
in about 2 weeks. We got a sample of the
finished pants and I’m amazed! They look
and feel fantastic. So far they fit
everyone I've been able to put them on.
I only got two pair as samples, a size 38 waist and 40 waist. I’d post pictures but I want to wait until we
launch them.
I am seeking outside funding for this new brand and
preparing to find investors. NBZ has a
potential market of millions and millions of men who may need help with
dressing due to one disability or another or there may be men who just want a
comfortable, stylish pair of jeans … which will open up the market to so many
more.
We've also decided to market them on Amazon as well. We’ll market them as elastic waist jeans with
no buttons or zippers and there is not much else available so I think Amazon
may be an awesome outlet for us.
Well, I think I managed to cover all the updates without
writing a novel. I’ll be writing again much sooner! There will much more news to share once the
new jeans arrive!
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