Name of your website?Akron Grove Bath Products
Your name?
Norbert Rug
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Custom made bath products and soaps. Over 200 products in over 100 available scents.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
“It all started as a project for my grandchildren. One Mother’s Day, they decided to give their mothers a hand crafted gift that they had made. They made bath fizzies from a recipe we got off the internet.”said Donna Rug. “Then a friend gave me a “Bath Bomb” she had received as a gift. I liked it so well we went online to find more and I was appalled at the price. I thought, that will be the day I spend $6.00 for a single bath. When I looked at the ingredients in the "Bath Bomb" I realized they were the same as in the bath fizzies they had just made." she continued. This is the answer the owner of Akron Grove Bath Products gives when asked why 3 years ago, she started her own company. She decided to start a business making bath bombs, a few glycerin soaps, and bath salts. This was her entire product line. Her concept was to provide a quality product at a price everyone could afford. “Initially, we were selling to friends and family and they liked the products. We began doing a few home parties and catalog sales." Donna said. She only had a product line of about 10 different items then. Soon after, she started the “Craft Show” circuit and had reasonable sales from them. Her natural, home made products sold well. Slowly, she started to add additional scents and other products. Eventually, her products were in several local shops and she decided that she wanted to expand her reach. Unfortunatly, it was becoming difficult for her and her husband to go out selling every weekend. “My husband suggested the internet and he spent many long hours building a website for us. He gave me the website one year as a Christmas present. At first, we were happy to get 1-2 visitors a week, but he kept improving the site while I was inventing and trying new products." she said. The website now gets 25-35 visitors a day. It also has links from over 3,600 other sites that funnel traffic to her site. Due to the internet they’ve managed to get her items in shops as far away as Texas and their products have been shipped to Canada, England, Scotland and Australia. She now carrys over 100 different items and can custom make them with any of her more than 80 scents. She can also make her products unscented and without dye for those that need or want them this way. She added. “After I make a new product, we give a sample to our friends and family members to try out. If they all like it, we then add it to our product line.”
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
2003, Akron Grove Bath Products. The site has undergone MANY changes since then. It's and will always be a "work in progress"
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Street names of the original partners homes
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
All our products are custom made to order.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Retirement income (Looking ahead)
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Not at first but it is improving.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
More marketing. Due to financial restrictions, we do it all ourselves
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
We sell 15,000 bars of soap a year to a resort in the British West Indies with no problem. I think we could keep up with demand.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Government regulations and restrictions.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting the name out and getting customers to give us a try.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
SEO on the search engines. (Type bath products on Google and see where we are)
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It hasn't been the "cash cow" everyone thinks. It is work.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Since 2003, We will run it as long as we are physically able
What has this website enabled you to do for charitable causes?
We send 10% of our retail sales to St. Jude's Hospital for Sick Children.
What is your website address?
Akron Grove Bath Products
