04/09/2020
Very proud of you Ally! 👏👏👏
Im SOOOOO happy for the success of your brand Oh My Yarn , Gantsilyo Manila's favorite since day 1 ❤
Hi guys, in case you all didn’t know, I’m Ally and I run this quaint space called Oh My Yarn!
In 2015, I was fresh out of high school and it was my long break pre-college (sakto sa transition ng k-12 curriculum that’s why it was a looon break from March to August). By then my mom and dad were pushing me to make a page for our site especially since we were starting to carry Bulak Yarns and many people didn’t want to make the long journey to Tabora in Divisoria. So lo and behold in April or May of 2015, Pacific Textile Online was born. We posted a bunch of our handdyed yarns and Monaco yarns as these were the only ones we carried so far.
Fast forward to 2016, we ordered 5 sizes of our Prym hooks. These honestly changed my life. Prior to this we carried only the typical IMIA steel hooks and Tulip double ended hooks (yea we still have these!). But boy oh boy!!! These were the first ever “big girl” hooks I tried. They excited me so much! That year, we expanded to carry Red Heart and Susan Bates too. Further down the road in the same year, we added more crochet and knitting supplies this time from Pony. (Yes we are the sole official distributor of Pony and Prym here in the Philippines.)
Moving on to 2017, we had a following of 2000+ already and man did that feel so good 😢. It’s really heart warming to know that that much people see what we post. But in November 2, 2017 we decided to rebrand to reflect what we really focused on. YAAARN. And we opened a page dedicated to sewing supplies (Pacific Sewing PH). We also launched an online order form that helps us track down orders faster as it is all in one spreadsheet now.
In 2018, three years since I first started selling online, I have my very own yarn line (hello Cotone line❤️) which was my first attempt at contacting a supplier abroad (yea guys its imported!!) and learning how to decide on colors, pricing and all that by myself with just a bit of help from my parents. Although they really pushed me to do it alone and without their interference. We've also managed to secure dealership rights to Tulip Japan, making us an authorized distributor of their products here in the Philippines. We are able to order DIRECT from Japan, fresh out their warehouse/factories.
In 2020, we finally took the leap and got our own space in the interwebs at www.ohhmyyarn.com (that's a double H!) We hope to serve you better by making everything accessible with just a touch of your fingertips.
I am now on my last semester of my 5-year double degree course and still managing this account and growing the business. Up until now I still value QUALITY. I don’t sell to make money. I sell to provide great products at reasonable prices. I sell to make people aware that cheap does not equal to sulit. Sometimes cheap is just cheap and you get what you pay for. These are things you learn from experiencing different yarns, tools and from selling.
I can also say I learned a lot about managing my time, especially since we label the yarns individually and sort through shipments personally. Yes, I don’t get a real assistant helping me take pictures, putting captions, and arranging all those new arrivals you see online. Nope it’s all me and my mom when she can spare time from office work in the store. I have to find time to do all this, and usually pictorials and labelling take up a WHOLE DAY. So that’s a big chunk of time taken away from a student who has a full load of classes every term.
So you see, online selling isn’t a full time job for most people. It’s a hobby, a sideline. We dedicate more time to online selling than a regular job. We could get regular 9am to 5pm jobs, get paid minimum wage, and generally just enjoy the rest of the time we have to ourselves. But we choose to answer questions and messages as long as we’re awake and we can see them. Kahit na 2am na.
I hope this is something buyers can know and buyers can appreciate as well. We aren’t automated. We have lives outside of selling. We are human too. We have feelings and we get tired.
because we really put so much time and effort into our craft.
