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Building a business from ZERO to HERO is not easy, it requires a huge investment of time and money, in today’s article we interviewed Marta SIROVA, the founder and CEO of Top Start Original for us tell how she was able to build a successful children’s clothing brand online in less than a year.
Hi Marta! Introduce us to your business and tell us about your first steps
First of all, I would like to thank Paulina Clarke. When I moved with my family from the Czech Republic to the UK in 2019, I started an ESOL course in St.Albans, where I met this amazing reading teacher, who helped me correct my English grammar and spelling (YES, I was determined and decided to sell children’s clothing in the UK with my beginner English)
I started the children’s clothing store in March 2020 and finished the final graphic design in October 2020, I decided to mark it and give it an original name – Top Star Original
Like many newbies to e-commerce, I thought it was just a matter of uploading products, writing a description, setting prices,… and I could sit back and start seeing orders coming in. Well ! I was wrong and couldn’t even imagine that I had to spend 12-15 hours a day in front of a computer to run the business.
In the beginning, I did everything myself, from setting up the store, managing inventory, messaging and chatting with prospects and customers, managing company paperwork, suppliers,… was a real headache and i know that hard time was to start an online business and more importantly make it a success.
What were the hardest things for you?
The idea of Start an Online Store > Facebook Ads > Sales…. disappeared and I know that e-commerce was more complicated than I thought, so I started to educate myself and take more interest in certain technical areas of e-commerce, and in particular SEO.
I realized that I should not write random keywords, but rather I should do keyword research to bring in organic traffic via search engines, I also know that I have to structure my paragraph with special headings (H1, H2, H3,…)
I watched a lot of Youtube videos, joined a lot of Facebook groups, read a lot of articles, and tried a lot of apps and programs, but that was a huge amount of information. I didn’t know where to start, what’s the priority when everything is so important? I was completely lost with the ocean of information and needed guidance.
So ! When and how was the turnaround successful?
I would like to thank this person with whom I had (and still have) the honor of working with and who guided me on the right path to success:
Marouane RHAFLI
I had the pleasure of meeting Marouane RHAFLI at the Shopify for Beginners and Shopify Geeks Facebook groups, he was the one who analyzed and reviewed my site, he explained to me all the technical aspects of my site, he told me that it’s going to cost hundreds or even thousands to fix the technical issues on my current theme and pointed me to his Plak theme which has everything integrated for my business like fully dynamic filter sidebar, inventory level on the product page, the professional blog template, … and most importantly, I don’t need to hire a developer to fix technical SEO and speed issues because the theme has everything built in.
Now that I have a premium professional theme, I need to get in touch with an SEO specialist to do some keyword research so that I can get the upper hand on Google search and increase my organic traffic and sales as a result.
Are you and your customers happy now?
I’m extremely happy now with everything I’ve done in such a short time (less than a year), and more importantly, my clients always send me pictures of their kids wearing what they bought in my store that I post on my business Instagram, I can’t be happier than that.
What advice do you give to eCommerce beginners?
E-commerce is not just about creating an online store, uploading products, showing paid ads and start making money! No ! Much more than that, being an online entrepreneur requires a lot of determination, hard work, knowledge and consistent knowledge to improve yourself first, improve your mindset and improve your business as a result.
