Could you tell us about your background and what Established Eyewear sells?
Hi my name is Shaun Gamarra, my illustrious career in fashion started in retail and quickly escalated to curating international labels, Established Eyewear was created with the aim of providing premium caliber sunglasses at accessible prices.
I designed the pieces as statement accessories with the versatility and ease to function from casual to formal occasions, from beach holidays to casual weekends, from hectic work weeks to leading creative enterprises.
The collection features fine quality pieces meticulously handcrafted by artisans in Hong Kong, fitted with scratch resistant, six base polarized German lenses by renowned manufacturer Carl Zeiss Vision, custom cellulose Italian bio acetate frames by Mazzucchelli, and OBE & OBR stainless steel hinges by COMMO TECH . Established Eyewear is available to purchase from $175 to $259 online at www.establishedstore.com as well as in specialty boutiques in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Hong Kong, and Japan.
What were you doing before/while you started the company? How did this lead into starting Established?
I started working in Retail, which morphed into opening my own retail store,which lead me to importing rare brands from overseas. Which then turned into a wholesale business which now has transformed into an eyewear label. I founded ESTABLISHED as our clients were requesting a sustainable eyewear brand within a certain price point which was not covered in horrible branding. I searched for 6 months and came up empty handed so set about creating EST.
How did you find the right partner to create your products?Did you use a website like Alibaba initially or have contacts?
NO Alibaba! Trial and error, it’s amazing what you can find via google.
Where did you first sales come from?
Via our “established” wholesale accounts, we also were fortunate to plan our launch at a tradeshow show we walked into quite solid wholesale orders. Via the online store it would have been via facebook.
How do you work with the press?
At first we tried PR firms only to be bleed for extortionate amounts of money for nothing, we actually saw a better return on investing 1 day per week on PR outreach inhouse.
Tip!
You can see some of the many publications that have talked about ESTABLISHED eyewear here.
Now we have some great firms we work with, we also still manage a portion inhouse.
Which Shopify apps do you use? Which apps are most important to your business?
What is your average monthly revenue or number of orders?
Between 15-50+ I wish we were a little more consistent by that’s something we are working towards.
What are you working towards now?
The launch of our new collection, we have some new online exclusives and a few little collaborations which will be announced shortly.
Where can we learn more?
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