Name of your website?Purrfectly Rebarkable Pets
Your name?
A.J. Thompson
Your Location (city, etc)
Reynoldsburg
Please give us a short summary of your website?
We seek to provide unique gift options for pets and pet owners. Featured on our site is our growing collection of inedible gift cakes, composed of puppy housetraining pads and decorated with a variety of puppy/small dog necessities. We specialize in specialty gift items, pet parties & puppy shower gifts & centerpieces.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
After creating pet gift creations for friends and family for years, we decided it was time to offer our unique gift items and creations nationwide.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
This is our first website! Launched in January, 2008.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We have been told that our gift items are "perfectly remarkable". We added a happy pet sound twist and launched "Purrfectly Rebarkable Pets". We think all animals are purrfectly rebarkable!
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
We use top quality ingredients and materials in our of gift items. We never settle for ordinary--or cheap. We provide a range of products to fit a variety of price ranges. We are artists creating gifts that we want people to love and be excited about--if we wouldn't use an item for one of our pets, you won't find it in our gifts and baskets!
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
We create our gift items because we love gift giving. We plan to use the website to promote our gift items and our love of animals. The excitement of giving receiving gifts bring out the inner child in us all! We hope that this website keeps us young at heart as our 3 little girls grow up too fast!
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Just starting on a national marketing adventure, our time and money currently outweigh our success. Luckily, we are doing something that we enjoy and see it as a wonderful opportunity to grow a hobby.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Building and marketing. Advertising is expensive. With an unlimited budget, we would create much more marketing and advertising. We would also open a brick and mortar store front--and would add a pet bakery. Hopefully, all of these things will come to be in the future even without an unlimited budget!
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Definately. Hard work, family support, and a good business plan is already at work in anticipation of increased demand.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
We have really been lucky. Pet supplies, in general, are expensive. Aside from learning about product shipping--and some trial and error with that, we have been well prepared and things have gone very smoothly.
What has been your biggest challenge?
We have had to learn about website creation and maintenance, shipping solutions and e-commerce related issues. Every day presents something new to learn and develop.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Since we just launched the site in the past few weeks, a tried and true method hasn't been determined yet. We do get a great deal of response from smaller classified/business listing posts.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Ideally, we would love for business to be booming immediately. Things take time--and while we realize that, we would have hoped for faster progress.
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 will. We didn't really start the website for great financial gain. For us, this is a learning experience allowing us to do something that we enjoy.
Who is Purrfectly Rebarkable Pets?
We are a family owned company created by our lifelong love of animals. We have learned a lot from our house full of pets. Bear, the lone dog, a 14 year old Pomerian and The Cat Pack--Frito, a Maine Coon mix; Gina, a Siamese mix; Lea, a tabby stray that we adopted; and Sal E., a beautiful, white stray that adopted us. We know how important pets are and we love our work!
What is your website address?
Purrfectly Rebarkable Pets
