Baby Gassy Gooma

This week This is Boutique welcomes the lady behind the incredible success story that is Baby Gassy Gooma.  Baby Gassy Gooma is the definition of boutique with a fan base that stretches right around the world and back and the brand holds a very special place in the heart of the Boutique Custom Community.  This is Boutique is delighted to present this fabulous interview.  Baby Gassy Gooma has also been extremely generous in offering a special offer to This is Boutique readers - you can find out more about that at the end of the interview.

A very special welcome to Gretchen of Baby Gassy Gooma.

1.Gretchen, can you tell us a bit the birth of Baby Gassy Gooma, the moment that you knew that this is what you were going to do?
Sure, it was a moment I will never forget. I was standing in the walk-in closet of my nursery-to-be in my old house and upon admiring an outfit that I had just bought off of ebay, I found the whole closet all of a sudden lit up with the brightest ray of sun I had ever seen in my life and the overwhelming desire came into my heart to start designing childrens clothing. It was almost as if it were an audible command, though was not, but just “that strong” of a call to do something. Because I never would have dreamt this path for myself in a million years (I don’t even sew), I knew it was God answering my prayer that I had started 2 years prior. It was a simple prayer of making myself useful to God, for His glory, to do whatever He would have me to do, with whatever talent He had given me. The goal was never about financial gain. The goal was usefulness to Him. So, I started having this dialogue with God. “But I cannot even sew, God” and then it was as if He directed me to start designing because there were sewers He was going to line up for me. When this answer to prayer came, I was working full-time as a senior medical transcriptionist for an ophthalmology office. I found myself typing about “glaucoma” and “cataracts” and all I could literally think about were new designs. My passion for design was starting to overtake me. Within a few months, something out-of-the ordinary happened at work that was a sign for me to move on and step out into the realm of faith to begin this journey. With the thought of leaving a very secure job where I was making a good salary, there was a bit of anxiety, knowing I was departing that comfort zone for the world of the unknown. At that time, I was testmarketing my first designs on ebay to see if there was a market for them. The world of ebay is fickle, and you never know how much you are going to make each day, let alone per month, and it was risky in quitting my job, as I had no clue if I would even be making enough to help cover our bills each month. Here I was living in a large home with 2 BMW payments, with a $450 electric bill, and total of $5000 worth of bills each month, so the burden to help cover those bills and replace my good salary was pretty high. But, something out of the ordinary happened at work that I took as a clear sign to quit my job. So, with basically nothing but a wing and a prayer, I took the plunge into the realm of faith. Those first few days were challenging. There was anxiety that wanted to swell up within me, but I had to quiet that down thru much prayer. I was on my knees every single night asking for God to grant His favor upon our business and to provide for us. I was amazed that within the first week of quitting my job, the sales on ebay tripled. It was a sign from God that He was going to be with me every step of this journey. Over the course of 8 years, there have been many difficult and challenging moments, we have them still, but I have never thought to stop praising God in spite of them. Instead, I try to stay focused with Bible promises, like “I lift my eyes unto the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth” and I know he will continue to see us thru every obstacle to this day. It is a humbling and exciting thing to know that there is always someone else who knows the situation a whole lot better than I do and I know He will see us thru, no matter what the circumstance looks like.

2. You spent some time trailing your designs on eBay, can you tell us a bit about this time?
Yes, from September 2001 until June 1, 2004 (when I got involved in a bad car wreck), (It was an 80mph near head-on collision) we were selling custom designs on ebay. I was designing new things each week and testmarketing them under my ebay store, “babygassygooma.” Some things did well, others did not, so it was trial and error, as I tried to zero in on what my customers wanted. Back in those days, there were literally only 20 or so designers selling custom childrens clothing, so we were all aware of each other. I was selling bibs, blankets, embellished overalls, embellished jean sets, and custom dresses. The first item I ever listed on ebay was a leopard fur bib with a satin backside and shaggy gold trim. (how practical, right?) But, they did well, and our bibs and blankets did well so then we started introducing the clothing. Within one month, I was contacted by a boutique out in Las Vegas and they emailed me thru ebay, asking if I had a “wholesale catalog” and of course, at that time, I had no clue what it was. But, they ended up ordering 45 designs, and that was my very first boutique order. More wholesale requests started coming in from store owners, so I then felt it was feasible to create my own e-commerce website where I could showcase more of my custom work, and eventually moved off ebay. Then, in early 2005, we became a wholesaler and our reps started selling our line at market to high-end boutiques worldwide. When I became a wholesale in early 2005, I was strongly advised by my reps, on more than one occasion, to never mention the word “ebay” as they told me it was like a “four-letter word” and had a bad stigma attached to it so most of my store customers have no clue our brand had an ebay store on there from September 2001 thru June 2004, testmarketing our designs. The brand name on ebay today? If you search “baby gassy gooma” on ebay today, and click the “title and description” box, and click the “store inventory” box, there are 555 baby gassy gooma items being sold on ebay as of this morning: Who is selling this? The strong majority is being sold by stay-at-home moms. At the end of each of our selling seasons, we would sell off all remaining merchandise to them at reduced prices, to help them supplement their incomes.

3. One thing that really defines Baby Gassy Gooma is the gorgeous model photography. We’ve all fallen in love with the Gooma girls, Sophie, Chaislyn, Madi, Kristi and Whitney to name just a few. Can you tell us a bit about how this works, what lead you to decide on this type of photography and your experiences.

My first customer on ebay was actually the mother of our first model, Sophie. How the modeling came about was that her best friend, who was also a customer, told me privately that Sophie’s mom was trying to get her daughter into modeling. I approached Sophie’s mom about it and she ended up working with us for 3 years. When she left, I decided to hold a model search thru my customer base, and was flooded with little girls wanting to be the next “face” of our brand. Our second main model was Chaislyn, who became the next “hangtag” model as well. She modeled for us from early 2005 thru the Spring 2008 season. Each year, we would hold “Gooma Girl” model searches via our customer base, so that is how all our subsequent models were found. All of our models have moms with professional photography businesses, so we are really blessed to have some great talent working with us. Two models of ours use a third party photographer, which we don’t mind, if they choose to do so. With our new designs, they all are now shooting outdoors in rustic settings and everything looks really uniform. Most people are surprised when I tell them that we have 8-10 photographers working with us, as they assume we just use one professional photographer to get a cohesive look. Our models live all over the United States. We even had one prior model live in France. We just mail them new clothing whenever we need photos taken for our site or when it is time to shoot the new collection. It works for us, and it is a win-win situation. The moms get free clothing for their kids, spending time with their daughters, and we receive our photos for free which saves us from costly agency fees. We have actually had Ford Models in Chicago solicit their childrens modeling service to us! It was flattering they asked, but I had to tell them we were “covered” in that department. But, we really have a really great team assembled right now and many of our model moms become great friends of mine. They all have amazing talent and I am constantly in awe of their work.

Sophie and Chaislyn in early Baby Gassy Gooma

4. You have recently developed Gooma Girls, designed to connect designers and model mom teams - can you tell us a bit more about this.

Yes, Gooma Girls is a spinoff of our yearly model searches that we had each year thru Baby Gassy Gooma. Since we are no longer hosting those each year due to time constraints, we realized there were still so many moms emailing us and wanting to get their children involved in modeling, but not knowing how? So, we thought we would take on the huge task of creating a model placement service. The goal of Gooma Girls is to be a safe and effective way to bridge the gap between models and designers looking for children models of all ages, infant sizes thru tween. My primary role is cultivating relationships with manufacturering customers who shoot seasonally, 6 months in between shoots, once for spring and then again for fall, to use our service. Additionally, I have just hired someone to target retail customers, who are the stores who carry a wide variety of brands, but who tend to use modeling year-round. So, my area is manufacturing and hers will be retail. We just launched the company this Spring, so our goal is to build it up and make it a successful venture for all parties involved. If you are a designer needing a new face for your brand, we welcome you to fill out our inquiry form. For more information, visit www.goomagirls.com.

5. Another development is the Spotlight Boutique section of your website - can you explain to us how this works the story behind this innovation?

Sure, while on the hunt for baby clothes rather recently, I stumbled across many creative artists whose work impressed me. I sent them an invitation to participate in a new venture called Spotlight Boutique where the goal is to turn the “spotlight” on other creative designers work, and introduce their work to our built-in audience. We have furniture vendors, gift vendors, artists who make bibs and baby booties, hair accessories, and clothing that would not serve to compete with our label. It’s just a fun way for me to encourage others in their creative work.

6. Can you tell us a bit about the structure of the Baby Gassy Gooma Empire. Can you tell  about the people including yourself behind the beautiful clothing that we see as the end result?

I had to laugh at the word “empire”. No empire yet! Seriously, most manufacturers that I know of seem to be structured very similar to our company. We have a small office staff that consists of family members who manage our daily email. We have a warehouse staff consisting of more family members who fill all of our orders, whether they are individual orders placed thru our online store at www.babygassygooma.com or orders that are placed thru our reps at market, they are the ones who fill our orders and ship everything to your door. I also have design assistants who help me, when the need arises. Everything else is subcontracted out. Our factory has a large staff. Our rep teams have their own staff.

7. A highlight of the Baby Gassy Gooma line is the head to toe accessorizing. Personally I am a big fan of the hat and love that the lines provide so many opportunities to really achieve that total boutique look. What is your philosophy when it comes to designing in terms of the Baby Gassy Gooma “look”.

Well, in terms of wholesale sales, accessories are not ever going to be your bread and butter when you have a clothing line. About 25% of our store customers additionally order the matching accessories. Most do not see a return on their investment, so they do not bother with them. Our hats have sold better for us than purses. Personally speaking, I believe that accessories tie a whole look together. It is attention to details that excites me in any design! Whether we do a modern or vintage silhouette, we really thrive on creating feminine looks with a lot of detail! Having said that, it has been a task in finding a factory who could handle our level of detailing. There are lot of t-shirt and jogging pant factories out there so we had to sift thru many in order to find ones who had all the ruffling machinery and embroidery capabilities.

8. You are an inspiration to the boutique custom community, can you share with us the 3 most valuable lessons you have learnt in your journey so far.

hmmmm……..how about 4 things? My favorite lessons learned and things that I continue to take strength from all begin with the letter “P”
1. Prayer. Pray over your business regularly, commit it to God. This business has taught us to be dependent on Him, more than anything.
2. Perseverence. There are going to be a lot of good and bad moments, when sales are great, when sales are down. Just be willing to stick it out, thru thick and thin.
3. Passion. Passion is the burning desire to do something regardless of how well the circumstances are at the moment. Passion pushes thru fear. Passion never dies.
4. Patience. This is a hard one to learn but just know that it is going to take some time to grow your business. Rome was not built in a day. There may be markets where
you do well, markets where you do not even get one sale. It happens to all of us. You aren’t alone. Just realize it takes time to grow. Baby steps each day will get you
headed in the right direction. There is joy in the journey.

9. You are currently taking a year off from your wholesale business - what can we expect from the next line?

Yes! I am excited to be taking a year off of our busy wholesale business to become a mommy. I figured that I owned the business and have waited so long to become a mom, so why not take the time, and really enjoy it? To keep things interesting, however, for our mom customers, we now have web exclusive designs on our website that are not found in stores anywhere, but sold only via our website. New designs will be launched every 10 days in order to keep our mom customers excited during this “downtime” and they are designed with the help of my assistants. Once a new design is launched on our website, it will be available for immediate shipment too! When I come back from my break and launch our next wholesale collection, my goal is to keep this web exclusive line in place, to always be there for our mom customers. This web exclusive line is geared towards the mom shopper who loves custom designs and who wants something that is not saturated and found in all the stores.
Here are some of these designs.

10. There have been many changes in the Baby Gassy Gooma world - what can we look forward to in the future?

I have so many interests and one of them is writing, so I want to commit to writing some inspirational childrens books. My heart goes out to kids struggling, the ones who are told they aren’t good enough. I want to make a difference and give back, share my story, and encourage them that any dream is worth pursuing, and that the risk in trying is more rewarding than the fear of failure. With a generous portion of our net profits, Baby Gassy Gooma will continue to give back to underprivileged kids and those struggling with low self esteem, to inspire them with hope. We welcome other businesses to partner with us, in our mission.

11. Any shout outs.

I would love to say a huge “thank you” to all the fabulous photographers that we are privileged to work with and a huge “thank you” to all of our fabulous customers who have supported us thru the years. Many of you have become friends and we appreciate you all. I also want to say “thank you” to Cree for taking the time to learn more about me and our company, this was fun!

Thank you so much Gretchen for a fabulous interview and for Jacqueline for introducing us.  As a special offer Baby Gassy Gooma is offering This is Boutique readers 25% off any order placed thru our website by entering code THANKYOUCREE25 at checkout. Be sure to click the “redeem” button after typing in the code!