{"id":3832,"date":"2019-07-05T22:43:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T22:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.reamaze.com\/?p=3832"},"modified":"2023-06-09T13:53:51","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T20:53:51","slug":"galen-leather-company-uses-reamaze-and-shopify-to-fuel-high-speed-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reamaze.com\/blog\/galen-leather-company-uses-reamaze-and-shopify-to-fuel-high-speed-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Galen Leather Company Uses Re:amaze and Shopify to Fuel High-Speed Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of the most important reasons we love working with clients in the eCommerce industry is hearing about all of their inspirational stories. In this case study, we chat with\u00a0Zeynep Prens, the founder and owner of the Galen Leather Company. Zeynep’s story is an inspiration to all entrepreneurs looking to build a successful online business.<\/p>\n
About the Galen Leather Company<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Galen Leather is a leather-making workshop based out of Istanbul, Turkey. The workshop produces stationary items, travel journals, notebook covers, electronic accessories, and personal accessories made of high quality, hand-crafted leather. Most importantly, Galen Leather’s products are designed in-house and handcrafted by Zeynep, her brother Yusuf, and her passionate staff just two other people.<\/p>\n
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Galen Leather started off by selling locally in Istanbul and branched out to an Etsy store to reach a broader global audience. Over the years, Galen Leather has evolved immensely and saw levels of growth unexpected by Zeynep herself. To handle growth in a more scalable way Zeynep and Yusuf decided to launch\u00a0their own eCommerce store and become an established direct-to-consumer brand.<\/p>\n
Just in the last year,\u00a0Galen Leather broke all previous\u00a0sales records, experiencing a 138% increase in revenue to hit an average of around $40,000 in sales each month. Most of\u00a0Galen Leather’s products are made to order, and as a small team of four, this achieve is no small feat!<\/p>\n
An Inspirational Back Story<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Following\u00a0a devastating diagnosis of a rare type of head and neck cancer (Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma) back in 2012,\u00a0Zeynep was forced to consider alternatives to\u00a0her career in sales.<\/p>\n
Doctors warned Zeynep that the cancer treatment may leave\u00a0her incapable of speech. Following a painful four months of treatment,\u00a0the doctors’\u00a0prognosis became\u00a0a reality. It completely turned\u00a0Zeynep’s\u00a0family life upside down. Without the ability to speak, she was no longer able to continue her career in sales as she was no longer able to speak\u00a0to customers and make sales.<\/p>\n
This forced\u00a0Zeynep to look for a new job model that would allow\u00a0her to work without speech. And not willing to back down for the sake of her young son and her family she came up with the idea of selling locally produced leather goods and vintage kilims online \u2013 readily available and popular products in Turkey!<\/p>\nZeynep, Yusuf, and Cagen of Galen Leather<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
This business model enabled\u00a0Zeynep to communicate to customers solely via email. Fortunately after a year,\u00a0Zeynep’s speech returned. But by then, this blessing in disguise had already taken off and Zeynep was quickly making a name for herself.\u00a0She decided\u00a0to keep growing\u00a0her eCommerce business\u00a0and brought\u00a0her brother Yusuf onboard as well.<\/p>\n
In order to scale her business even more, Zeynep knew they not only needed to more but also make some core changes. Yusuf and Zeynep decided to start producing\u00a0their own leather goods, designed 100% in-house.\u00a0They started taking classes to learn leather crafting, learning from some of the best leather crafters in the area, as well as YouTube videos. It took several tries to create\u00a0a leather bound Moleskine cover her husband\u00a0had been looking for. From there on out,\u00a0the team started designing\u00a0their own line of products and rebranded to Galen Leather.<\/p>\n
Finding Refuge in Shopify<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Galen Leather made huge headway while selling on eBay and Etsy in its hay day. However, in 2016, when PayPal pulled out of Turkey, Zeynep had to re-platform to Shopify so she could break away from a single payment method. And while Shopify’s learning curve was much steeper than Etsy or eBay, it proved to be a winning platform in terms of global reach, accessible features like Instagram shopping integration, and access to 3rd party apps like Re:amaze and Smile. It spurred Zeynep and Yusuf to scale their business like never before.<\/p>\n
In the following year, Shopify, 3rd part apps, and SEO consultants were able to help Zeynep increase website traffic by 114%, sales by 129%, and overall conversion rates by 31% across the board.<\/p>\n
Since launching on Shopify, Zeynep’s Galen Leather has sold more than $1 million in products, gained more than 32,000 followers on Instagram, and achieved an average website CTR of 4.7%.<\/p>\n
Zeynep and Yusuf discovered early on that eCommerce was a competitive space not just in terms of similar products but also in terms of optimizations. As a family-run business, Zeynep was committed to being different than large online and offline retailers. This meant they had to play to their strengths: exceptional customer service.<\/p>\n
Offering custom made products also meant customized customer service. To Zeynep, this was the secret to their success. They wanted to provide a better customer experience and receive more timely feedback about our products and offerings. Given the nature of\u00a0Galen Leather’s handmade products and most being made to order, when a customer can reach out to\u00a0their team instantly with a question or feedback, it adds to the personalized experience they wanted – being able to help them choose the appropriate item for their needs and to address any issues or concerns as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Leveraging Re:amaze for Better Customer Service<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Zeynep started using the Re:amaze platform for customer service back in July 2018. In the past year, Zeynep has taken advantage of many Re:amaze features such as automated live chat, help center FAQ, response templates, email integration, and most importantly, social media integration with Facebook and Messenger.<\/p>\n
“The most useful side of Re:amaze for us is multi-channel support. It is very easy to see all communication channels together (Facebook, Email, Contact Forms, etc.). Secondly it is very easy to measure the response times which helps our productivity. And lastly we can see all customer information, recent orders and the previous messages on one screen. It\u2019s great having all that information in one place.” – Zeynep Prens, Founder of Galen Leather<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Re:amaze’s integration with Shopify has been an incredible productivity booster for Zeyner and her staff. Being able to see customers’ lifetime value, order histories, current order data notes\/tags, and order timelines means Zeynep can save time navigating back and forth between tabs just to see basic information. With Re:amaze for Shopify, Zeynep is able to offer personalized and precise customer service to her customers, just the way she had imagined.<\/p>\n
Since adopting Re:amaze\u00a0Zeynep’s team has been able to reduce\u00a0response time by 1.8x on both Facebook and email\u00a0conversations and has compounded the personalized online shopping experience we wanted to create for our customers.<\/p>\n
UPDATE: Zeynep, the founder of Galen Leather, passed away on July 4th, 2019. Our condolences to the family of a truly inspirational woman, entrepreneur, and mother.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n
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