Sometimes you just need to get out there and try something new.
In 1999, Fabric.com (Phoenix Textiles at that time) was one of the first companies to go online to sell fabric. Stephen Friedman was in the fabric wholesale business and needed to get rid of some inventory. He created a Yahoo! Store, posted fabric online for $1 a yard, and sold out in a week – he was hooked.
Today, Fabric.com has thousands of fabric SKUs for apparel, quilting, and home decorating. Admittedly, selling fabric online (something people typically like to see and touch) is a challenge. Yet, hundreds of orders come in each day. And, they are not alone. The big fabric retailers are now online, along with regional brick and mortar stores, and small boutique firms trying to expand their reach.
In June, Fabric.com graduated from the Yahoo Store, launched a new site, and hired an internal resource to optimize their PPC efforts and the site. Optimizing for fabric is no easy feat with hundreds of different fabrics online changing each week – and 10 different ways to identify the same fabric. As I mentioned, competition is fierce too. Everyday Mike Bradbury optimizes pages one at a time, adding more content. He works on getting the word out about Fabric.com, so he can generate high quality links back to certain pages. He reviews the rankings and like many of us, curses Google and its inconsistency.
The culture of just getting out there and trying something new, started by Stephen in 1999, has continued through the years. As a new employee Mike has caught on to this philosophy and tried something new himself - a quilting blog. The beauty of blogging is you don’t have to create a requirements document, site plan, and implementation schedule. You can just get out there. Yes, yes, we all know he will need to eventually go back and put a strategy in place and determine how it will reinforce the Fabric.com brand, etc. But, for now, I applaud his effort.