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SINCE her products were headhunted for the Academy Awards and Golden Globes gift bags, business is blooming for Jellaine Ross.
Ross established Cherry Blooms in 2008, selling a wide range of fashion and beauty products in the online store and stockists internationally.
The Golden Globes contacted the company to feature its handbag organisers in the celebrity gift bags, with signature product, brush on fibre lash mascara, following suit at the Oscars the year after.
Ross says the boost in online traffic paved the way for Cherry Blooms to participate in a trade show in the US and secure a lucrative distribution contract with Nova Beauty.
"We launched there last year and now we're now in 50 states in the US and all of Canada," Ross says.
"We've already done three tradeshows in Europe and we're deciding who we want to distribute our products in the UK."
With the successful expansion into the American market and similar plans for Europe, Cherry Blooms has forecast 300 per cent growth this financial year.
"Passion is always going to be a part of being successful, but you've always got to do your due diligence and learn the best strategies of how to get to market faster and without as much risk," Ross says.
"I had really strict criteria on what I wanted to market: small, easy to ship, high margin, not saturated in the marketplace and something that people would run out of.
"Also it's the type of product that is so high-performance you would go tell everyone that you knew about it."
Ross plans to help budding entrepreneurs by sharing the secrets of her success with an online information service, featuring audio, action steps and accountability checklists.
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