Pupsentials is growing from a Mom and Pup startup to over $5 million in revenue

Jake and Kyndall Chambers founded Pupsentials, a custom embroidered goods company with the goal of sharing their love of dogs and art. They started with Kyndall’s artistic talent, Jake’s business skills and one embroidery machine. Together, they offered highly detailed, embroidered images of customers’ animals on sweatshirts.

In response to the high-quality, personalized product, Pupsentials’ sales skyrocketed, posing a challenge for the company to free up cash for operations, purchase machinery and expand staff. On the other hand, these goals meant faster access to sales funds, securing necessary financing and increasing business credit.

To help them manage and continue to grow, Pupsentials turned to Shopify Finance, a suite of financial services provided through Shopify, including Shopify Balance, Shopify Capital, and Shopify Credit. Since partnering with Shopify, Pupsentials has:

• Reached $5,000,000 in total revenue in two years
• Shortened order processing time from 6-8 weeks to 5-7 days
• Increased employment and acquired production tools necessary to accelerate growth
• Gained access to faster procurement and capital while reducing dependence on multiple suppliers
• Increased business credit while reaping a greater percentage of rewards back to reinvest in your business

Challenge: Access to the cash needed to support growth

Like many winning ideas, the Pupsentials embroidered sweatshirt started with a spark of curiosity and a bit of excitement. Initially, however, Jake and Kyndall were told they couldn’t be made. “We approached 42 local suppliers and were told it couldn’t be done because it was too detailed and had too many colors,” says Jake. “At that point we realized we were either crazy or on to something.” Undeterred, the couple decided to bet on themselves and buy their first embroidery machine.

Shortly thereafter, thanks to celebrity endorsement of their prototype, Pupsentials received 300 orders in one day. However, they could only produce eight shirts a day with a limited number of workers and only one embroidery machine. “It was a labor of love at first because we had to work day and night,” says Jake. “Those 300 people loved their sweatshirts and told their friends about it, and from there we started getting more and more orders.”

This was followed by a period of steady, although demanding, sales growth. “We were getting orders organically, but keeping up with production was a challenge,” says Jake. Therefore, Pupsentials decided to increase its production capacity and advertising expenses. Still, the company’s financial services providers kept expansion on a leash, benefiting from modest support and limited access to cash from sales. Sometimes they even penalized the brand with a credit block due to how quickly their product was selling. Jake says, “Sometimes, dealing with multiple vendors, it was really hard to get in touch with anyone to even understand what the problem was.” In response, Pupsentials was sometimes forced to decline orders to ensure a high-quality customer experience.

Solution: Centralize your financial solutions with Shopify

Realizing they needed an option that better suited their financial needs, Pupsentials partnered with Shopify and took advantage of three Shopify Finance offers to free up cash, preserve capital, and increase business credit. It all started with fulfilling orders.

Pupsentials decided to open a Shopify Balance account – a free financial account through Shopify where you can manage payments and transactions in one place – and started receiving payouts on same-day sales with just a few clicks.*

Suddenly, the pace of brand development became an asset, not a liability. “With Shopify Balance, we saw results quickly and it really made a difference,” says Jake. “This helped us avoid the cash flow issues we were facing, which meant we could keep our operations running smoothly. It was also much easier to keep track of our cash than in the past when we used many different accounts.”

The next step for Pupsentials was to increase its order fulfillment capabilities. Fortunately, they received a financing offer through Shopify Capital and were able to apply online within minutes. Once the needed financing was approved, the brand began gradually adding the machinery and staff needed to increase production. As a result, Jake says, “we’ve reduced our order turnaround time from 6-8 weeks to 5-7 days.”

With the procurement bottleneck behind it, Pupsentials could next focus on maximizing its growth. Acting on a notification from their Shopify dashboard, they signed up for Shopify Credit, a full cash back Visa(R) card from Shopify, that offered a higher spending limit and other benefits compared to their previous credit card. According to Jake, this change “allowed us to increase our ad spend while providing better rewards and a higher percentage back in statement credits.”

Results: Unlocking their full potential

Shopify Finance has helped Pupsentials grow from a bold and creative business idea to an artistic and financial success over two years, culminating in the company’s recent appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America. “We were able to say yes to new opportunities like this thanks to the help and support from Shopify Capital, which allowed us to invest in a strong backend to support our sales velocity,” says Jake. “We achieved $5,000,000 in sales throughout the sales period and expect to achieve that amount this year alone.”

Many entrepreneurs will confirm that working with multiple suppliers is never easy. Combining multiple services into one e-commerce-focused offering, Shopify was a perfect fit for Ppsentials. “Shopify Finance has really met the needs of sellers like us,” says Jake. “I can say that this ecosystem was built to really help us, compared to some other platforms that may not have had sellers like us in mind, and certainly not all the products available. Having all the products in one place combined with the trust we have in Shopify makes it worth it for us.”

Jake believes that the big difference was how Shopify understood its business in a unique way. “If we ever needed to discuss anything we always used the Shopify team, unlike other banks or products, they don’t really have a holistic view of the business, whereas in my opinion Shopify does. And they don’t really understand what we’re doing and how we’re going to achieve it. Shopify understands e-commerce sellers like no one else.”

For Pupsentials, Shopify Finance helped enable growth.

• Reached $5,000,000 in total revenue in two years
• Shortened order processing time from 6-8 weeks to 5-7 days
• I increased employment and acquired the production tools necessary to accelerate growth
• Gained access to faster procurement and capital while reducing dependence on multiple suppliers
• Increased business credit while reaping a greater percentage of rewards back to reinvest in your business

Results may vary for each seller. All loans through Shopify Capital in the United States are originated by WebBank.

Shopify partners with Stripe Payments Company and Celtic Bank for Shopify Credit. Card products are issued by Celtic Bank under a license issued by Visa USA Inc. and are subject to credit approval. See the Issuing Bank Terms and Conditions and the Shopify Lending Program Terms

“Cashback” refers to rewards earned as a percentage off qualifying purchases in the form of statement credit. Restrictions apply. Please see Rewards Program Terms and Conditions for details.

*Shopify Payments payouts are deposited into your Shopify Balance account within 5 business days. For most sellers, payouts typically take 1-3 business days. Withdrawals sent to a third-party bank typically take over a week longer to process

We wouldn’t be where we are today, on track to $10 million in revenue, if it weren’t for Shopify. With their financial services, we saw results quickly and were always able to get the customer support we needed. Having previously worked with many financial service providers, we believe it will make much more sense to combine these solutions into one ecosystem.

• Pupsentials
• Jake Chambers – Co-founder