Pawtec

From where did the idea to create your own mobile chargers & blu-ray drives come?

I have always had a passion for online sales and tech, and I’ve been selling online for over a decade. Around June 2013, I told myself “Why not create my own consumer tech brand and sell that!” I brainstormed some names, and came up with Pawtec since it was unique. One of the first Pawtec products were our External DVD and Blu-Ray writers. I knew there would be demand for these products because laptops were becoming thinner and CD drives were not included. Then around September of 2013, three months into the business, my wife and I found out we will be having our first child. I knew I couldn’t handle a 9 to 5 job while starting up my business, and a baby on the way. I ended up leaving my day job in operations for a consumer toy company when my daughter was born to focus on the growth of Pawtec. In early 2014, I bootstrapped my profits back into the business to grow our product line to mobile accessories due to the market growth of smartphones. I can happily say, I enjoy running my own business and seeing my products out on the market for consumers to enjoy.

The phone & computer accessory business is highly competitive; what advice can you offer to others in a likewise highly competitive space?

This is a highly competitive industry indeed. However, at Pawtec we focus our designs to be stylish and unique. For example, we have various colors of aluminum external drives, and various stylish cables to charge and sync your smartphones. Our Apple charge and sync cables are Apple MFi certified that have to go through an approval process. We care very much about quality. I went overseas twice this year to check up on the manufacturing facilities to make sure everything is up to our standards. My advice to others is to focus on the products you know best and not to focus too much on price. Your competitors may be lower in price, but show your customers you excel in service and support. Great customer service locks on a customer for life, and we have seen that at Pawtec with our customers’ re-orders.

How has ShipStation helped you with your business?

ShipStation allowed us to streamline our shipping process with an all-in-one solution. Prior to using ShipStation we were manually entering orders and it was time-consuming. With ShipStation, we are able to integrate all our sales channels. Now, with a click of a button, we can pull orders and print shipping labels with ease. We are now able to ship faster and accurately.

What’s your favorite ShipStation feature?

It is hard to pick just one feature. The historical shipments and search features helps when we need to pull order information and tracking numbers. Another feature I like is the batch shipping; this is great when we run flash sales. It allows us to create hundreds of labels at once.