Name of your website?Champagne Baby
Your name?
Patsy Champagne
Your Location (city, etc)
Lees Summit
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Our website focuses on gifts for new mothers. Specifically, we want to provide qualit, practical, affordable gifts for babies and baby showers. We currently carry handmade diaper bags, baby aspen, baby bouquets, and diaper cakes.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Shortly after having my first child, I found myself looking for a way to keep our income up, without having to go back to work full-time. Hence, Champagne Baby was born.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is our first attempt at launching a website. We launched in June of 2008.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I went with my maiden name, which just happens to be Champagne. Considering what we sell, we thought Champagne Baby just made sense.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Although there are many great "mommy hosted" websites out there, we are really focusing on providing a one stop shop for baby gifts. We have several practical lines (diaper bags, diaper cakes, functional bundles) as well as our Baby Aspen line, in case you just want to give the cutest gift ever!
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Our goal is to continue to increase our product offerings as well as increase our site content for new mothers and baby shower planning. Believe it or not, sometimes it is really tough to sift through all of the hype on baby products. We plan on keeping the site and hope it will provide a steady income for me to raise my daughter without daycare and a full-time job.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
So far, our success has been limited but fullfilling. We hope that "P-Diddy" is wrong and that mo' money doesn't bring mo' problems.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We would increase our product offerings and marketing dollars. In addition to this we would focus even more on our content for new parents.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
I believe that with the assistance of my husband (who is a business proffessional), we could hire the right people fairly quickly.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Inventory and simple startup costs have been alot more than expected. Getting ranked on google has also been quite a bit tougher than we expected.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Balancing business, marriage, and baby.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Friends and family. We also made up flyers and handed them out to all of the local businesses.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It was much more complicated to put together a quality website than expected. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, but its alot better than we could have settled for. Because of that, it's also taken alot more effort.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
We plan on keeping it going forever. Now that the infrastructure is in place, our time is the main concern. Obviously, if things don't go well, then I will have to get a full-time job, which will make it more of a side business; however, it's part of our family now, so....
What is your website address?
Champagne Baby
