Andrea Fender comes from a long line of terrifying women (her words, not ours). That’s what inspired the idea behind perfume company Sucreabeille, which strays from the usual undiverse and superficial marketing tactics you see from perfume companies. Sucrabeille’s tagline is “Sexy is boring. Let’s be terrifying.” From the perfume business, a cult following and community has been born, brought together in a Facebook group whose members talk daily, not only about their favorite scents, but about topics like their sexuality, interests, parenthood advice, and book recommendations.
When Andrea first took over Sucreabeille five years ago, her needs were very small. Andrea met a woman who helped her with her printing and shipping needs, and when that woman started working at PostNet, Andrea took her business there. After partnering with PostNet, Andrea was able to ship her products anywhere and expand her marketing which caused the perfume business to flourish and sales to explode. With Sucrabeille’s growing needs, Andrea’s local PostNet has adapted its capabilities to grow alongside Sucreabeille, even purchasing a special UV-coating machine to improve the quality of the perfume labels.
Hear from Andrea below with inspiration and advice on owning a business, and her journey with PostNet:
The brand was given to me five years ago. Before I took over, it was perfume dupes. When I took it on, it was tiny and rough around the edges. After a couple of years, all of that was completely phased out.
You have to figure out a way to test everything as cheaply as possible. If people are interested in online sales, start with an online marketplace, like Etsy. They have a step-by-step guide to get you started. You will get a few sales, and it’s a great way to test if you like the online sales aspect.
Find out if you like online sales. If you don’t, stop there. Starting a small business is hard, so you better be genuinely delighted. You may have a hobby you love, like making Christmas gifts, but find out if you like shipping and managing customers. Etsy is a great way to figure out these different aspects. They already have a marketplace, so you’ll get a few sales just by existing.
Get creative with marketing. I recommend tucking something into your packages that gets people to sign up for your newsletter. “Future you” would love to have those people in your database.
Utilize social media. I recommend a Facebook business page and a Facebook group to link between, and remember, there are no shortcuts to building community. Have you ever seen the visual of someone pushing a rock up a hill? That’s what marketing is like for a year. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be annoying. If you’re a crafter, get active in Facebook groups. Set yourself small, attainable goals like growing your group to a thousand members and posting every day.
Empower yourself. To my fellow women business owners, don’t be afraid to charge money. Or be afraid and do it anyway. A lot of women say things like, “I don’t want to bother people.” Talk about what you charge and what you make. We can learn from men – What would they do? What would they charge? This is a place where we can help each other when you’re not held back.
Our local Lacey, WA, PostNet owner Daniel, always goes the extra mile to help me and my business. When we first started working with Daniel, we were printing labels on flat sheets of paper. As Sucrabeille grew, we began printing over 400 perfume labels in five different sizes. We had a work bench outside covered in cardboard and were pinning down each corner of the paper and adding a manual spray application as a clear coat because perfumes can leak and cause the ink on the labels to bleed. The process worked, but it was insanely laborious, and we couldn’t figure out how to stop our labels from bleeding ink.
We went to Daniel with the problem and he said the labels needed a UV coating to prevent the ink bleeding. After discussing our needs and orders, Daniel decided to make the investment to purchase a high-end UV coater for his PostNet so he could help us and other customers. With the many challenges and struggles I had, I could always go to Daniel and he would help me or even connect me with vendors for other services where he couldn’t provide help.
I’ve seen Daniel help other small business owners overcome their own challenges too – for example, providing mail services so they didn’t need to put their personal address information online when they were running their businesses out of their homes.
What I love about PostNet is they treated me the same when I first opened and was a tiny business as they do now after years of growth.
Customer service. The customer service I receive goes far beyond answering the phone and being nice to me. I feel Daniel took a real chance on me and believed in me and my business and he always has my back.
I was diagnosed with ADHD and this is the first thing I’ve done in my life that lights up every part of my brain. It highlights what I’m good at, challenges me at the things I’m not so great at, and also helps me rely on others when I need help.
Owning a small business is constant problem-solving, community-building, and standing for what you believe in.
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