Before Toasted Pixie started using CloudLink a sale could be a precarious thing. So many questions popped up each time a product was sold. Was it priced right, did it make money, what materials were used? All these questions on top of: did everything make it into the box, did I send the right product to the right people. Toasted Pixie had real small business problems.

When you first start selling online it can be exciting. The thrill of someone buying something you've made can far outweigh all the thoughts and questions that come along with getting the product to your customer. Toasted Pixie was no exception to this. Victoria, the owner of Toasted Pixie had real small business problems, but they were small. She didn't know what she didn't know.

At Toasted Pixie their most common line of business was the hand crafting of small statues that were sold only through the marketing and sales site Etsy. Products were create, listed, then packaged and delivered to customers as the orders came in. For a hobby business for one person, this was no problem. The real problem came when she decided she wanted to sell more, and to grow out of Etsy.

The first step was opening a Shopify store. This opened access to more potential sales, and allowed her to easily widen the group of products she carried. When sales increased, so did the problems. Suddenly, with smaller items customers were buying more than one thing, and more than one customer at a time. She suddenly found herself with difficulties ensuring that the right customer got the right order. The information that came from her store and payment provider weren't making it any easier.

On top of all this, she had a growing suspicion that she might be losing money on some of her products. She wasn't entirely sure what the cost of her materials was, or how it broke down on each product. At was at that time that she introduced CloudLink. At first, it seemed like a lot of work for a small business owner. She suddenly had to keep inventory, and track materials lists.

This small change however identified that she was in fact losing money on some of her products. Knowing this led to a slight price adjustment to ensure she was still making money. She also negotiated better shipping rates to help reduce the total cost of getting a product to her customer. By beginning to track her materials she also noticed that she was holding onto some product that was going to waste before it could be used. By making some simple adjustments she began selling some of her materials before expiration if she knew she wasn't going to be able to use them. This prevented them from going to waste, and allowed her to recoup some of her material costs.

Finally, she had a custom integration built for her Etsy and Shopify stores which allowed her to receive orders directly in CloudLink, print packing slips, and have an easy to use list of all orders that needed to be fulfilled. She was able, based on a simple bill of materials to calculate how many materials she needed to buy, the lead time it would take her to deliver her product.

Now, Toasted Pixie is a small thriving company, using CloudLink to help them grow. Take a look at their Etsy store here.

If you are using CloudLink Product, and you'd like us to feature your business please let us know. We love to showcase the stories of our customers. Please contact us at 877.207.6267.