Jimmy Beans Wool is both a bricks and mortar and Internet yarn superstore, offering knitters and crocheters worldwide a comprehensive selection of the finest yarns and supplies along with the latest fashion trends. With customers in more than 50 countries, Jimmy Beans Wool has successfully created an international knitting community comparable to that of the local yarn store, and is the resource for knitters looking for inspiration, instructions and project help.
In 2002, after 2 years of marriage and a life-changing move from San Francisco to Truckee, CA, Laura and
Doug Zander emptied their savings account and opened Jimmy Beans Wool. Both had worked as software engineers during the early dot com era, but when the bottom started to fall, they opted to turn their Tahoe vacation home into their permanent one. Laura had learned to knit just 6 months prior and was obsessed. While trying to figure out how to make a living in their new hometown of 14,000 people, she picked up a job creating a website for a nearby hand-dyed yarn company. The owner of the company convinced Laura to follow her newfound passion for knitting – and that she could create a yarn shop that was also a successful business. The rest is history…!
The name “Jimmy” referred to a much-loved character in one of their favorite Todd Snider songs (and had become Laura’s nickname), while “Beans” referred to the coffee also sold in the yarn shop. Within 12 months, the coffee gave way to yarn, but the name stuck. In the beginning, Laura worked in the shop, Doug kept his day job, and they reinvested all of the shops’ profits back into the business. Each evening, Doug would work on the shops’ website – eventually building an integrated inventory management system and an online shopping cart.
After 3 years of working nights, the online business had grown enough that Doug was able to quit that other job and work for JBW fulltime! Simultaneously, they found that they had outgrown the 500 sq ft spot in downtown Truckee’s train station – and decided to open a 2nd shop 30 miles away in Reno, NV. Well, business continued to grow – and eventually both of the shops were combined and relocated into a single, larger spot… the spot that they still occupy today!
- Adapting to rapid growth.
- Streamlined operations: Every bit of our business is online: from the website to our inventory system to our weekly schedule. Our workstations have to be fast, reliable, and sturdy (we aren’t the most graceful people). We are also short on space, so we can’t have extra equipment around that’s not being used 100% of the time.
- Maintaining our position as the industry leader in using innovative technology to sell yarn.
- Managing numerous mobile employees
Printing needs: printing knitting patterns for customers, class schedules, inventory worksheets, and even customer receipts that are too large to fit on our standard thermal receipts.
Because our growth has been so rapid (and unplanned for), we haven't had time to deal with computer failures or slow shipping times. Thank goodness for Dell. We now have 8 workstations in our small space - and are still using Dell desktops that we bought when we first opened 8 years ago.
Having a wireless printer has saved us time and money: we simply don’t have enough space to have printers at each computer. By having one wireless printer (that doesn’t require a cartridge change every 7 days), we save space, money, time, and energy (electrical, that is)!
There isn’t a single computer that isn’t in use all day long. We found ourselves in a situation this winter where members of the team were waiting in line to use a workstation. The moment we saw that happening, we emailed our Dell Rep and ordered 2 more desktops and a printer.
Our Dell laptops have provided us with the flexibility to work from home, on vacation, at trade shows, or in the shop. We have the same wireless printer model in our home office as we do in the shop, which makes printing from either location a breeze.
In many ways, technology IS our business.
In our yarn shop, there isn’t a job that can be done without using a computer. Everything about our business is online, from looking up customer orders, to viewing the color of a yarn, to viewing next week’s work schedule.
As former software engineers, we were able to build our internal and external systems from scratch, providing us with the ultimate flexibility. As the business grows and evolves, our internal systems evolve as well, ensuring that we are able to meet the demands of that growth. And how do we continue to ensure that the business grows? By using technology in innovative ways to accomplish our mission: bringing the local yarn shop feel to our online customers.