A company with Ponte Vedra Beach roots is making a name for itself through an unconventional business model designed by a designer of women's handbags.
The 3-year-old Beijo generally doesn't sell its bags in retail stores. It also doesn't sell through catalogs or online. Instead, sales representatives who are mostly women, buy them wholesale and then sell them in homes, offices and special vendor shows.
It's paying off. The company plans to break the $20 million sales mark this year and received national exposure Tuesday when it's bags were featured on the Tyra Banks television talk show. (The bags were shown during a segment on handbags and given to audience members as gifts.)
Beijo founder and former Ponte Vedra Beach resident Susan Handley said she's received offers from retailers to sell her line of handbags. But she's resisted putting profits before principles.
Chloe Bags ReplicaBeijo gives women the chance to make money while spending more time with their families -- the same reason Handley started her company in the first place.
"It's the spirit of it," she said. "I know it sounds hokey, but it's so much more than just a handbag. It's so fulfilling for me to be involved with these women and just to hear their stories."
Last month, Rica Flowers, a Jacksonville mother of two, set up a Beijo display in the lobby of the downtown Modis Building for two days. She started selling the company's bags and accessories in September 2004 after being laid off from a call center job.
Flowers said she typically works 25 hours a week, during which she puts on two or three Beijo parties in homes or offices.
"This is ideal for me because of the money I'm making and the flexibility with my family," Flowers said. "And with the people I'm meeting, it's just a lot of fun."
Beijo bags, which are manufactured in China, sell for $58 to $85; briefcases are $129. But the best seller is the $72 half-moon bags, dubbed so because of its half-moon-shaped top, said Jacksonville- based Florida distributor Janet Shuman.
The bags' brightly colored signature look comes from a glossy, patent-leather-looking material called poromeric.
The company now sells 36 different types of handbags and accessories in 47 colors through 1,500 sales representatives nationally. They're also sold in just a few selected boutiquess.
Handley said the company sold $3 million in bags during 2003, and $12 million last year.
It all started in 2002 when Handley, then a 32-year-old single mother, was selling advertising for an alternative weekly newspaper but looking for a job that would give her time with her son. She then realized she would get some inspiration for an idea if she was forced to survive. So she quit her job and began designing handbags. With a loan from her parents, Handley then went to China, found a factory that could manufacture what she wanted and ordered 5,000 bags.
She declined to say what she paid for the bags. But Handley said she sold 300 of them during a four-day Christmas crafts show at the Ponte Vedra Inn, Replica ugg boots got requests for home parties and never looked back.
"Within a month and a half I realized I had something that was magic," she said, "something that didn't come around more than once in a lifetime."
Beijo (pronounced Bay-joo) is Portuguese for "kiss," w
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