Lüks Linen talks about creating a community to promote their ethically sourced linen products.

Could you tell us a bit about the story behind Luks Linen and what you sell?

Lüks Linen is a purveyor of handwoven home and lifestyle goods. We work with family ateliers in Southern Turkey to produce lifetime lasting products including towels, blankets, throws and cushions.

Lüks was a sun-bed epiphany, whilst holidaying in Kalkan 3 years ago I noticed the locals using beautiful cotton peshtemals not only as beach towels but also as sarongs and wraps. A few hundred miles from home I thought that I could set up a business importing and selling these here in the UK. The cultural narrative and artisan craft behind these products was the icing on the cake and allowed me to fulfil a lifetime passion to work with and support local craftsmanship.

Has ecommerce been apart of Luks linen since you started? When did you get started with Shopify and why did you choose it?

Yes, absolutely, whilst we do wholesale to a few select retailers. The vision was always to work online as it automatically gives us a much broader reach. We now work with Paypal globally and are localised in over 40 countries.

What are your most successful marketing avenues?

Facebook advertising has always seen an uplift in conversions although Instagram is becoming increasingly important to us as the visual nature of our products lends itself to the platform.

Growing our email list and consistent communication with existing customers has also paid dividends - as an ethical company with sustainable ethics and lifetime products we have a rich story to tell (in addition to promotions, new products and offers).

Community networking has also been very beneficial to Lüks as a result of which we have been able to increase our presence and brand visibility, collaborate on partner projects and garner editorial coverage. I cannot stress the importance of PR in the marketing mix.

We are also venturing into live events for the first time this year - so we’ll see how that goes.

Did you build your Shopify store yourself or hire a designer and how long did it take to launch?

I initially built our Shopify store myself. I come from a design and advertising background and whilst I understood the importance of UX and how a site should look actually making it happen was a new experience for me and one that I really enjoyed. It has also been commercially beneficial to know the ins and outs of my site so I am not reliant on 3rd parties.

What theme are you using? Have you done any theme customizations?

Currently we are using React, however we are in the process of updating the site which has been as is for 2 years now and for the refresh we did employ a designer to create customizations.

What Shopify apps do you use? Which apps are most important to your business?

Where to start…

• We use Conversio for personalised customer receipts and to allow us to offer repeat business incentives and upsell opportunities.
• Kit is our virtual digital assistant and they manage all of our automated sales responses along with running business reports and Facebook Ad campaigns.
• We integrate with Mailchimp to capture all sign ups and to manage email campaigns
• Privy for pop-up sign ups
• SEO Manager has been a lifesaver in providing really easy to implement SEO best practices
• Welcome Header Bar is great for shipping and promotional info such as flash sales
• Yotpo - for customer reviews
• Affiliatly to manage our 3rd party partners

What would you do differently if you had to start over? Are there any blogs or resources that have been helpful for you?

Hmmm - I don’t like to dwell on what has been as it has all been a learning curve. One thing I will say is that I would have done more homework on understanding what all the web builder platforms offered - I made the mistake of building my website on another platform before realising Paypal was not an option which is when I discovered Shopify - and thank goodness I did!