Life With Ferris: Libby & Puddins

Libby & Puddins is an online boutique that boasts “All Bitsy Apparel” and “Mommy Musts.” The brainchild of sisters Laura Jones Barnette and Lizzie Jones, it offers adorable clothing for the “bitsy set” that includes everything from bubbles and onesies to outerwear and dresses. Brands include Angel Dear, Cheeni, Ishtex, Mary Mary, Petit Ami and Yo Baby, among others. The Mommy Musts feature jewelry from McClain-Made, Laura’s jewelry line, with more in store in the future. 

These two gals are well aware of the cutest and most desirable baby garb, learning about it first hand from their sister, Allie Jones Hall, who is the mother of three. They’d schemed for years about going into business together.

“Since college, the two of us have taken an interest in business, and frequently discuss ideas amongst one another,” Laura said. “We seem to find ourselves discussing a friend of a friend’s new business venture, the latest episode of Shark Tank, or, our most inspired topic, the latest and greatest business podcast. Lizzie decided to move back to Chattanooga from Austin, Texas, in 2017, and our newfound time together nurtured our passion for business and we decided to sign up for a business class through the CO.LAB. Lizzie and I entered the class with completely different business ideas, and came out of the class more inspired and motivated than ever to build something together.” 

Lizzie and Laura both possess extensive skill sets. Lizzie worked for the fastest growing start up in Austin, Texas, watching the company grow from 40 to 600 plus employees. She saw what it takes to run, scale, and operate a business. And Laura nurtured McClain Made Jewelry from a wholesale operation to a retail brick and mortar store, growing an online presence, managing finances and coordinating trade shows and vendor relations. They were both confident they could start a business together; they just needed to figure out which business!

“As for what led me to this, it started with listening to lots and lots of entrepreneurial podcasts while on a road trip out west in August of 2017,” Lizzie said. “From those podcasts, I had an idea to sell something on Amazon and researched what could be the next new trend and what could sell well. After reading some articles, I narrowed it down to either the baby or CBD category. The winner: baby something!”

After her road trip, Lizzie researched more, realizing she was behind the trend for selling on Amazon. However, when a friend mentioned that someone she knew opened up a successful online only children’s boutique, Lizzie reached out to learn more and to seek out advice. From there, the seed to open up an online children’s boutique was planted. 

Besides carrying fabulous baby attire at a desirable price point, one of their main goals is customer service. “After our sister Allie had twins, we realized the job of mom is no easy task, and moms truly do sacrifice any free time they have for their kids. We took that thought and incorporated it into the way we want to conduct business. With that said, one goal of ours is to make everything convenient for the mom, which is why we offer monogramming and free shipping. We hope these few things make it easy for parents to shop in their own home at their own time,” Lizzie said. 

As far as determining which brands they carry, Laura and Lizzie got great advice from their friends with kids, as well as finding new trendy brands via social media. Based on that information, they select stores they’ll visit when they go to market. 

Speaking of social media, their advertising is purely based on it. “We create and share content via Facebook, Instagram and Mailchimp,” Lizzie explained. And we’ve discovered that Instagram stories are a very powerful marketing tool. It’s like a mini Libby & Puddins commercial! These are fun to make; however, it can be hard to create content that we know attracts our customers. It’s challenging because 'social media-ers' looks at many, many quick images a day. Our generation has almost programmed itself to take in an enormous amount of information in a short time frame, so there’s beauty in providing our customers with a quick Instagram story because, quite honestly, a quick few seconds might be all the time they have!”

“One of our primary goals is to attain 10,000 Instagram followers. Instagram drives the majority of traffic to our website, and we hope that number will sustain a loyal customer base,” Laura added. “Having followers is not enough though, you have to monitor analytics - most importantly, conversion rates. We can have many followers, but if “likes” and “views” do not convert to sales, then we are not accomplishing much. We feel that once we hit 10,000 followers, then Libby and Puddins will be a well-oiled company, so to speak, and we can begin to brainstorm about expanding our offerings.”

Don’t expect a storefront any time soon. “The idea of being on online only shop was a result of two schools of thought, first, the cost of running a retail brick and mortar store is costly. Second, millennials (our target market) make 54 percent of purchases online,” Laura said, explaining why the online shop makes perfect sense. 

These two love finally getting a chance to work together, and clearly it is very special to both of them. “I cannot begin to explain how proud of [Lizzie] I am, and how blown away I have been to watch her business mindset expand from thoughts to action. She has impressed me with her drive, knowledge, and strategic thinking, and last but not least, she keeps me on my toes!” Laura said of her sister.

Follow libbyandpuddins on Instagram.

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Ferris Robinson is the author of three children’s books, “The Queen Who Banished Bugs,” “The Queen Who Accidentally Banished Birds,” and “Call Me Arthropod” in her pollinator series. “Making Arrangements” is her first novel. “Dogs and Love - Stories of Fidelity” is a collection of true tales about man’s best friend. Her website is ferrisrobinson.com and you can download a free pollinator poster there. She is the editor of The Lookout Mountain Mirror and The Signal Mountain Mirror.