Kristina Karlsson runs the successful Australian stationary business – Kikki K.

I noticed she was one of the first female targeted retailers to open an online shop on her website years ago. The quality of the site and user experience is up there with Witchery and Peter Alexander – other successful early adopters in the Australian marketplace.

I just came across this interview by Amanda Gome from one of my favourite business websites – Smart Company. She talks about her strategy to expand while juggling business and a new family.

Here’s an excerpt about the online shop side of her business.

What is happening online? Retailers have been very slow to adapt to online in Australia. What has been your experience online?

We’ve grown 102% in online from last year to today, and I see that continuing. There will be even bigger growth in the future because I just realise now that I do most of my shopping online, I guess now having a baby and working.

I love shopping and the pleasure of shopping by walking in and looking and buying whatever you can see, but if you need things like makeup and stationery, grocery, I think that is just going to grow for sure. That is how I do it and I talk to a lot of my friends and talk about Christmas shopping this year, and a lot of my friends said that they are going to do it all online.

What do you think of Australian retailers, where are they at?

The ones that I buy from, I find good.

Who do you buy from?

I buy from Coles online a lot, I buy organic vegetables and things like that online. What else do I buy online… I buy a lot of baby clothes, toys, gifts like that. So I find that it is good.

I buy things overseas as well and I absolutely love it, there is an excitement to get something in the post and that is what we have really focused on. We always put a handwritten note in our orders and I think that the experience of actually getting the package should be how it would be to come into our stores.

What percentage of revenue is coming from online?

I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head actually, but it is like a store on its own, so it’s small in that way, but we are planning for it to be much bigger.

What are several things you did that you learnt about online? One of the things is making it personal, what else have you learnt about the site?

For a start, why I think we have been successful is we have an increased awareness of our website. I guess that has come through because we have our website on our products, we have it on our receipts in the store, shopping bags, so I guess there is an increased awareness that you can buy Kikki.K online.

We are definitely managing it better, we have someone totally focused on that now and I think that’s really important. We have an online store manager whereas before we didn’t; of course it is as important as we do in our physical stores.

Do you outsource your IT development and maintenance of your site, or is it internal?

A little bit of both, we have someone to help with more the technical side but the updates and everything we do in-house. We have someone totally dedicated on doing that. We give great customer service, people can call us anytime to ask questions and the strength of my brand as well is helping.

Read the full interview here.

Related posts:

1. Interview: James Tuckerman founder of Australian Anthill
2. Kate Morris – Founder of Adore Beauty

Filed under: Inspiration