Using e-mails as invites, Bella of Cape Cod takes the house party online
Catherine Bean and Megan Murphy, two stay-at-home moms who live on Cape Cod, started selling inexpensive jewelry at house parties in 2004. But that meant schlepping their merchandise around, cooking and cleaning, and finding baby sitters for the five kids they have between them. Two years ago the founders of Bella of Cape Cod came up with a better idea: move the parties to their web site and use e-mail to send out invitations.
Here’s how it works: A customer, let’s call her Sue Smith, agrees to host an online party and provides Bella with a list of e-mail addresses of her friends. Bella sends out an e-mail invitation—Bean and Murphy call them “e-vites”—to those friends through their e-mail service provider, Constant Contact. The e-mail looks like it’s coming from Sue Smith, which makes it more likely Sue’s friends will open it.
The invitation announces a “party” on a day three days hence during which Sue’s friends can shop at bellaofcapecod.com and receive free shipping and a surprise gift if they buy at least $50 worth of merchandise. Another e-mail reminder is sent the morning of the party. As the hostess, Sue receives a Bella credit equal to 20% of the day’s sales and a pair of earrings.
Besides ringing up sales, Bella gets the e-mail addresses of Sue’s friends to add to its mailing list. That list has grown from 1,500 to 6,000 since Bella began the online parties in early 2006.
Murphy and Bean say they are very careful to assure customers that their friends’ privacy will be protected and that they will not be hit with lots of unwanted e-mail. They don’t ask for the names of friends, just their e-mail addresses, and they make clear the friends can opt out on the e-mail invitation and on subsequent monthly newsletters Bella sends. “This builds trust with people who are hosting the e-party,” Murphy says. “That makes them feel, okay, I’ll give up my friends’ e-mail addresses.”
Bella this year added fundraisers for charities. The offer is the same except that at the end of the day Bella sends a check for 20% of that day’s sales—from all customers, not just the hostess’s friends—to the designated charity. Bella also adds a cash donation button for the charity on those days. During a recent event that raised $2,000 to help the family of a sick child, one visitor donated $500. “We absorb the 3.5% credit card fee and pass that money to the organization,” Murphy says.
The “e-parties” are catching on for Bean and Murphy, who have set a limit of four per week. They are booked through Christmas and the Bella web site is starting to take reservations for online parties in 2008. The privately held company does not report its sales.
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