“Kissed by a Bee”: A Small Business that Sells Everywhere

6 min read

The last Saturday in November is not your average Saturday — it’s Small Business Saturday! A day that encourages shoppers to support small and local businesses instead of large retail companies.

To celebrate, we’re spotlighting a different Ecwid merchant every Saturday this month. We’ve already shared the fascinating story of Atlas46, a premium manufacturer of US-made workwear. Today we’re giving the floor to “Kissed by a Bee.” A third-generation herbalist, Akilah Nisa started her business as a side hustle, selling home-made cosmetics and self-care products.

As is the case with many entrepreneurs, losing her full-time job turned out to be a good thing for Akilah. While her husband handles growing 75% of the organic ingredients used in their products, Akilah runs their omnichannel business, selling both online and in-person.

Why a Small Business Went Omnichannel

Despite being a solopreneur, Akilah regularly takes part in vendor shows in addition to her online sales. And in-person events generate about 15% of Kissed by a Bee’s total revenue.

I love going to shows because I get to interact with and talk to other people. I get the chance to wrangle them to my side.

Akilah at a vendor show

With omnichannel selling, different sales channels work together to build a sales funnel quickly and efficiently. According to Akilah, frequent customers who are already familiar with the Kissed by a Bee brand will come to vendor shows and stock up to avoid waiting for shipping. Customers who buy in-person are then enfolded into Akilah’s online experience when they’re added to her mailing list.

I’ve connected Ecwid to my MailChimp account to make it easy to automatically add event customers to my mailing list for activation in the future. Re-selling to previous customers is always more cost-effective than attracting completely new customers.

Because Akilah’s Ecwid E-commerce store is integrated with Square, she has all the tools she needs to sell online and in-person right from her Ecwid control panel. Using her Square card reader to accept credit cards, Akilah stays seamlessly integrated with her online store.

Before Square, there was no way to take credit cards, and signing up with a card reader company to get one of those clunky machines was cumbersome. Square changed the game.

Synchronizing omnichannel sales can be a challenge. Not only is it time-consuming, but it also introduces the risk of over-selling your products. Integrating Ecwid and Square allows you to sync your inventories in real time, automatically. For Akilah, every sale — online and in-person — goes through the same system, so she never has to worry about record-keeping or overselling her stock again.

E-commerce Technologies that Make Omnichannel Sales Possible

Akilah sells online with her Ecwid Instant Site — a free online shop that can be set up in minutes without any experience thanks to Ecwid’s easy-to-use store creator.

Ecwid Instant Site is amazing: basic, easy, and it works just as well as a multi-page website in a fraction of the set-up time.

Getting product images is even easier. Akilah takes all her own photos right from her smartphone, and uploads the images direct to her product catalog via the Ecwid Mobile app. The app also allows posting directly to Instagram, where Akilah can tag products to allow followers to make purchases without ever leaving their Instagrams.

Akilah’s smartphone product photography looks great

The Ecwid integration with Instagram and Facebook makes advertising my products easy. I also put the Facebook pixel in for analytics.

Leveraging features like Facebook advertising and abandoned cart recovery helps Akilah generate a stable 85% of Kissed by a Bee’s total revenue directly from the online store.

It just all works together and it’s seamless. I’ve recommended Ecwid to a few people already.

Akilah is thinking of creating a ShopApp for her store in the future and recommends everyone take advantage of the already abundant free apps in the Ecwid App Market. With the help of connected apps, customers can chat with her on site and sign up for her newsletter, and she’s even added additional reporting features to further optimize her business. And the best part? Akilah hasn’t paid a dime for these apps.

It’s been almost 5 years now and I haven’t looked back. All you have to do is just do it! It doesn’t take long to build your store and connect everything. Just do it!