We recently connected with Anaya Fernando and have shared our conversation below.
Anaya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?
When covid 19 hit it was a big pause for us because we really didn’t know what to do from when we were selling our products in pop up events. We had to make a major change if we were going to survive during the pandemic because we know that covid wiped some of the small businesses. The big change that our business had to go towards was an online store. we launched our online store in 2021 and it has helped us to reach a bigger audience and it help our repeat customers online. So, when we opened our online store, we had to getting material to ship our products to people all over the United States.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Sugar Sweet Bath + Body Treats was founded in 2018 with a passion to make bath time fun again. One of our objectives is to provide great products that make bath time fun and sweet! All of our products are made and packaged to look yummy enough to eat even though our products are NOT edible. We offer a unique selection of fun bath bombs, body butters, whipped soap, lip gloss, scrubs, and other treats. Also, my name is Anaya Fernando I’m a freshman in college I love to play tennis and I love to sing. I solve the problem of products being so greasy a lot of people tell me that my product just absorbs right into their skin and another problem that people have is a scrub that is too hard, so I make an exfoliating scrub that my customers love. I’m most proud of being in stores because I never really thought at that age, I was that I would be in stores and it was just an amazing accomplishment that I am proud of. Another thing I’m proud of is being on the news Just know I was very nervous when I found out I was on the news, but it is anything I’m proud of.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
What helped was definitely being at events to vend and that helped bring in customers besides my loving family. Those vendors even opened doors to getting on shelves and having a business mentor. Also, what built my reputation was social media because I had customers come to events that I vended at just come buy my products in person and ask questions about are they natural, are the safe, do this mess with hormones. which I could happily say yes, they are natural, yes, they are safe, and no they don’t mess with hormones. Another thing that helped was being part of pitch competition, classes with other entrepreneurs, and being on a panel. It just all help me build and build a reputation for Sugar Sweet Bath and Body Treats.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
I sell on Etsy and Shopify right now and I have some pros which they both are easy for me to update products edit products and even add/delete products. Which it makes it easier on me when we make products that I can go in and change how many we have in stock. The only con I have is I wish there was a way to sync both shops so it can make the same changes that I make on one that the other would do the same thing.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sugarsweetbathtreats.com/
- Instagram: sugarsweetbathtreats
- Facebook: Sugarsweetbathtreats1
- Twitter: Sugarsweetbath1
- Youtube: Sugar Sweet Bath + Body Treats
Image Credits
There is a group photo with my me (Anaya Fernando) , mom (D’andrea Bolden), dad (John Bolden), and brother (John Bolden)