We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeannie Howard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeannie below.

Jeannie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

My Company name is Jeannie Jeannetics LLC. A friend of mine would always say that to me after I’d make something he thought was impossible possibly. When I was able to persuade a person with my charm to say yes after they already told him several times no. Or I was able to fix something or a situation he would always call out “Jeannie Jeannetics!” Meaning I have something special in my genetics that always lets me succeed. I liked that and chose to make it my brand and business name.

Jeannie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Well my name is Jeannie Howard I am a German/American Freelance Model, and as of last year I’m an e-commerce business owner. I started an Online Lingerie Boutique Jeannie’s Lingerie.

My Lingerie is a perfect combination of classy chic and sultry sexy with affordable prices.
The lingerie I choose are for women who like to feel beautiful sexy and confident.

I have an array of tasteful seductive pieces and continue to expand the selection. Most of my pieces are in the size Small to Large, but I’m working on adding a selection of plus size lingerie.

Starting this business was a big challenge for me since I’ve never done anything like it. It took me over six month of research to find the best products and I spend several months on learning how to create a website, do marketing and what legal work needs to be done (business license, sellers permit, fees, taxes etc.). The entire last year was a big learning curve for me. At times stressful and frustrating but I can say it was worth it. I’ve been getting so much positive feedback from costumers that just makes me happy and lets me know I’ve done a good job.
Some of the pieces I model myself, others are showcased by different models with different body types.

I also published my own Sexy Calendar for 2023 where I showcase my lingerie. The Calendar is a thank you for my male followers who have supported my modeling career over the years on social media.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I use the web based e-commerce platform Big Cartel to showcase and sell my products.

After doing months of research I found it was the best fit for me and what I wanted to do.
It has fewer monthly and extra fees than other platforms even offers a free options.
As a person starting out not knowing how successful I’ll be I tried to keep my upfront expenses as small as possible.

Big Cartel is also very easy to configure, which is important for me since I’m not the most tech savvy person.

There are things I wish I could change on my website, which I actually could if I would know how to code.
But for now I’m pretty happy and proud with the overall design of my website.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

I thought I could take a cheap shortcut before I started my business and bought one of those done for you Shopify stores.

I guess because I was doing so much research on e-commerce and how to start an online boutique the internet algorithm picked up on it and kept showing me advertisements on these done for you stores.

So one day I was getting frustrated with my research on finding a good vendor and the right products and clicked on one of those ads.
The offer sounded great. Professional team of researchers and web developers would create a e-commerce store for me in whatever niche I want with proven to sell products from well established U.S. vendors.
In my frustration I thought I’m just going to pay others to do all the hard work and I just sit back and make money.

Well big mistake.
Three days after I payed, I received my login information to my Shopify store. The overall design of the store looked good but the lingerie I had on there was awful, cheap looking and disgraceful to say the least.
The prices they had set were outrageous. The Vendor that was used was in Taiwan shipping was taking up to 30 days.
That was nothing I wanted my name or my brand to be associated with. In addition to that if I had not immediately canceled my membership with Shopify and deleted the store I’d have been signed up for the most expensive monthly membership with all kinds of extra fees to have the storefront looking the way it was.
Unfortunately I didn’t get my initial investment back that I paid to have this hideous store made but I learned my lesson.
It is better to build your business yourself with some help from others and have it the way you envision it.
I’m proud of my boutique and my products. My Lingerie is tasteful sexy. Lets women like me feel beautiful and confident. My prices are affordable and processing and shipping doesn’t take longer than 12 days. Every piece that gets order undergoes a quality check before it gets shipped out to the customer.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Jeanniejeannetics.com
• Instagram: Jeannies_lingerie and model_jeannie
• Facebook: Jeannies Lingerie and modeljeannie
• Other: TikTok@model_jeannie

Image Credits
Photographer: 2nd Look Photography and TotalCapture