Kiara Thompson, Co-Owner and Director of Online Sales at Bead World, a Woman Owned Company
/
Kiara Thompson is a 24-year-old business owner in Scottsdale, Arizona. After realizing college would not teach her how to start and run a company, she left and tried her hand in real estate and started two separate companies while working at her dad's HVAC company. All avenues failed, and in a rock bottom moment, her mom and she realized her path was to join her company and create an online store to accompany her brick-and-mortar locations that sell beads and jewelry-making supplies. She built up sweat equity and now co-owns the company Bead World.
Can you tell our readers about your background?
Growing up with entrepreneur parents, I had always seen myself owning a business. I would often draw up business plans for companies from art studios to apparel brands. My first venture was selling hand-painted longboards and skateboards. I only sold a handful, but I had so much fun creating a product that people wanted to use. I was always involved in art in school and in my free time, I believe that it has helped me immensely with working in such a creative position.
What inspired you to start your business?
In 2004 Bead World started as a brick-and-mortar Bead Store in Phoenix, Arizona, and soon after opened a second location in Scottsdale, Arizona. At the beginning of 2013 Bead World’s ownership transferred to Karen Thompson. Since then, Karen has multiplied the variety, quantity, and quality of everything Bead World has to offer. We grew so much that in June of 2018, we moved our Scottsdale store to a larger location. Fast forward to June of 2019, Kiara Thompson, Karen’s Daughter, joined Bead World to help create our online store.
Where is your business based?
We have two in-store locations both based in Arizona, one in Phoenix and the other in Scottsdale. Our online business is based out of the basement in the Scottsdale store. Fortunately, beads don’t take up too much space!
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
The first step was drawing up a plan of the product categories and building the website using a platform called BigCommerce. I had taught myself how to use the platform in a previous business venture, so I had some experience with building a website. It took me about 3 months to get the website online with about 1,500 individual SKUs (as of June 2021, we are at about 11,000 SKUs). Fortunately, we had access to some product photographs from our suppliers that we were able to use when adding products online, as we did not hire a part-time photographer until we had just launched.
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
Roughly 30% of our traffic is from social media and 85% of that is from Pinterest. Whenever we promote on Pinterest, I always notice a spike in our site visitors. Our pins are primarily made up of our jewelry tutorials with trendy photos to engage our possible customers. Our Pinterest traffic since December 2019 has grown from roughly 80K impressions to over 500K per month.
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Our biggest challenge was in April 2020, when we had to close our brick-and-mortar stores for the entire month, with the online store being the only source of income. The website was still relatively new and prior to closing, we had completed about 130 orders total for the months of January, February, and March. In April, we did almost 400 online and phone orders. This forced to the creation of more efficient ways to store inventory and pull orders as well as shipping them. It was such a stressful yet wonderful experience where I grew in skill and confidence in my work. The closure helped people who would usually buy in-store feel more comfortable ordering online.
How do you stay focused?
If you know me well, you know I am a huge procrastinator. If I don’t do something that second, it might never get done. Something that has helped me stay focused and on track, is to not be afraid to multitask on many projects at once. My work never ends, I am always entering new products online, creating emails for marketing, advertising, writing copy, organizing, talking to new customers, among other things. It may sound counterintuitive but, I get a lot done by procrastinating the other things I need to get done. I don’t really like doing the same thing every single day, so this helps me keep energized and focused on my growth.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
We are best known for our high-quality gemstones for really great prices. We also differentiate ourselves by keeping up with popular trends and taking super fun and unique photos that we use in our tutorials and marketing.
Most jewelry makers enjoy feeling and seeing the beads in person. I don’t blame them, as I usually like to see and feel the items myself when I am creating my own jewelry. One thing I noticed with our competition was their inconsistent and pixelated photos. This was something I wanted to focus on to make us stand out from other online bead stores. While we are not perfect, we are overcoming this obstacle by taking the best possible photographs to post on Bead World’s website. We try to photograph our products as they would look in person. Our photographer Annie Richardson deserves an honorable mention for always coming up with new and fun ways to showcase our products. Often when I am looking over her photos, I find myself going and grabbing myself a strand of the gemstones she photographed so I can use it to make something for myself.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
My favorite marketing tactic we use is sending weekly emails containing a 40% off coupon. This brings in predictable orders and keeps customers happy and always coming back for more.
What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Don't be afraid to make a lot of mistakes in the beginning. The mistake you make when you are little will hurt a lot less than making the same mistake when you are bigger.
What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
My favorite mobile app is a tie between the BigCommerce and Google Analytics apps because they help me keep track of my progress without the need for my desktop. My favorite blog is vlogs. I enjoy watching other entrepreneurs on YouTube to see what is working for them so I can implement their ideas and tactics in my business. One of my favorite books that I have just recently re-read is: Anything You Want: 40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur by Derek Sivers. It is a short book, but it has helped me not to take everything so seriously and make me feel that it is okay not to know everything because if I don’t know how to do it, I can learn it.
What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
The shipping fulfillment resource Ship Station gives me amazing shipping rates, emails my customers with aesthetically pleasing tracking information, and most of all help me to not mess up on the number of items ordered as it merely highlights a product when the quantity is over 1, simple yes I know, but it really works.
Who is your business role model? Why?
I would say both my parents are my business role models. They immigrated here from Ireland to peruse the American dream, and I would say they have achieved it. Both my parents have always been entrepreneurs and are the hardest-working people I have ever met.
How do you balance work and life?
I keep the balance at work by doing more things I like to do and less of things I don’t like doing. For the tasks I don’t prefer to do, I ask someone else to complete the job I know would actually enjoy it.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
Honestly, my favorite way to decompress is pretty much any new fantasy-based TV show marathon.
What do you have planned for the next six months?
The next six months are mainly focused on the growth of our customer base through our reach on Pinterest by adding more tutorials and adding more product categories to our inventory. With beads and jewelry-making supplies, you can’t just have one or two color options, you need tens to hundreds of colors, sizes, shapes, and finishes.
How can our readers connect with you?
You can find us at:
www.beadworld.com
Instagram: @beadworldinc
Pinterest: @beadworldinc
Facebook: www.facebook.com/beadworld
Facebook Group: Jewelry Inspiration – Share homemade jewelry, tips, and creativity