Blue Layne Boutique

Where It All Began 

Blue Layne was started by Samatha Colbert in 2013 in a spare room in her home. After having her son, Samantha began doing a bulk of her shopping online, especially from small boutiques. “I felt like boutiques gave such personalized sizing advice, especially for new moms like me.”

Despite having no retail experience, Samantha channeled her love for online boutiques by deciding to open her own. Blue Layne started as a single rack of clothes and eventually grew to a 4,000 square foot warehouse. The online boutique now offers 600% more products than it did 3 years ago. Today there are around 1,200 products in the warehouse at all times. 

Scaling the Business

Samantha attributes her success to a deep understanding of her customer base and the strong online community she built around the Blue Layne brand. Samantha began a VIP Facebook group that customers could join, creating a safe space for women to communicate, post photos wearing the clothes, and encourage one another. This online presence has gone hand-in-hand with the rapid growth of online sales for Blue Layne. “There are about 36,000 women in that group. They’re all so inspiring and uplifting to each other.”

Discovering The Shipping Solution 

To meet shipping demands in the very early days, Samantha used either handwritten shipping labels or printed them directly from PayPal. As her business began to scale, Samatha quickly realized she “needed something to pull in orders” and integrate seamlessly with her Shopify store. This is when she began using ShipStation.

“I looked at other shipping solutions to integrate with Shopify, but none of them were as easy to navigate as ShipStation.”

Thanks to ShipStation’s automation features, Samantha can create labels in less than two clicks. Under a minute’s time, the team can now fulfill an order without the manual labor of picking and packing. Averaging about 2,500 shipments per month, Samantha says she can save up to 120 hours per week on fulfillment. 

Blue Layne prides itself on offering free shipping for their customers on many orders. ShipStation alerts the Blue Layne team when multiple orders are placed under the same name, allowing them to consolidate orders into one package and reduce shipping costs. This ability has saved Samantha time and money as she runs her business. ShipStation’s batch shipping helps Blue Layne deliver a better overall experience for their customers. 

“ShipStation is very user-friendly and easy to train my staff on. I can go in and see our shipping reports. I really enjoy it.”

Sezzle Integration Boosts Online Sales

Optionality in the buying process has become more popular thanks to companies like Sezzle that allow you to pay for purchases over time, interest-free. Blue Layne customers value the option to pay over time, so much so that the boutique saw an increase in online sales when adding Sezzle to their site. Samantha says her customers enjoy how easy it is to sign up for Sezzle and to pay for both big and small purchases in four separate payments. 

Through the online store and Facebook group, Samantha and her team have grown the boutique’s presence to reach women nation-wide. Running a successful ecommerce store is a demanding challenge, but one that makes Blue Layne’s widespread influence possible. The ShipStation and Sezzle integration have helped Samantha provide the best customer experience she can at a rate that is both manageable and efficient for her team.