One Year In Business!

I really cannot believe that I am typing out these words but today TotsTown Clothing turns one! I cannot believe how quickly this year has flown around, I really do feel like I blinked and here we are. Starting a baby clothing business is something that I have wanted to do for such a long time and I feel incredibly grateful to be able to say that we survived our first year in business.

I'll be honest and say that it has not always been easy, there were times when I felt like giving up, learning how to run a business from scratch is no easy feat so I definitely tip my hat to all of the people out there running their own businesses. It's an incredibly rewarding thing to do and the excitement that you feel when you get that little beep notification from Shopify to tell you that you have an order is second to none, but that is not to say that there aren't times when it's a hard slog. In an ideal world no small business owner would ever struggle, but the reality of that is no matter how great that would be, it is simply not true. When you've spent hours making social media content that just doesn't seem to hit the way you want, or when you've been baking under a ring light for an hour and your product photos aren't showing how nice the piece really is. Or of course the one dreaded thing that every small business hates, that time where there are no sales and it seems like there never will be again.

But we all keep going, and we push through those hard times because we are lucky enough to be pursuing our passions. And to me, that's what small businesses are all about, you don't create a small business because you think that within the first month you will be a millionaire, you start a small business because it is something that you truly have a passion for. And that is what it is for me, working on TotsTown Clothing is my passion. I love every part of it, from selecting the clothing pieces that we want to sell, setting prices, packaging orders and getting to work with one of my children at the same time is just brilliant. Getting feedback from amazing customers who are always so kind is undoubtedly one of the best parts about working on my little business. To know that people are happy with the products and happy with the service truly means the world. 

Of all of the major goals that I set for myself when setting up TotsTown Clothing one year ago I am proud to say that we have achieved them! The biggest goal was to have a website, a dedicated website that would allow customers to place orders without having to message us. Building a website from scratch was without a doubt a challenge, we worked on it as a family, learning about it as we went along. Before starting to work on the website I had no idea about things like alt text or domain names but it's fair to say those phrases soon became regular fixtures in meetings at TotsTown HQ! We launched the website in January 2021 and although we are still learning every day, I have to say that I am so proud of how far we have come! Another goal which may sound silly but it was actually our number one goal was to make sales. We never had a set number or target that we wanted to meet, our goal as a new business was just to make sales, to be able to reorder stock and order new pieces. I'll never forget getting our very first order, it's definitely a moment that will always stick with me. 

And so that's it for a round up of our first year in business! We are offering our customers a 20% off code until Sunday 7th November 2021 to celebrate our birthday with the code BDAY20 at checkout!