Open Mountain Blog

I have been looking forward to telling my readers about our client Coyuchi.com ever since we were first approached to develop their Web store.  The new store launched just last month.  The story is about how the Internet enables a boutique style, socially conscious store, located in a quaint California coastal town, to reach beyond the foot traffic of people getting away from the city for the day.

Coyuchi sells organic cotton products including linens and clothing that are produced following the best practices for certified organic and fair trade products.  You can read more about them on their Web site here.

We have a set of Coyuchi organic sheets for our bedroom and we love them.  My wife is a serious linen shopper.  The bed is always covered with the softest cotton sheets and a warm down comforter in natural patterns.  We live in downtown Napa and our bedroom looks out at green hills and, right now, red and yellow colored maple trees. Every morning we share a cup of fresh ground brew in bed with our dog Huck at our feet.  Getting the picture that the quality of the sheets is a big deal?

Socially conscious living is important to us and to Open Mountain.  Here’s a post about company efforts to be more green.  Finding a company like Coyuchi is such a score because it allows us to be eco-friendly without necessarily sacrificing creature comforts.  Sure, we’ll make compromises to support the environment.  Give up our morning coffee experience?  That’s a tough call and I am glad I now don’t have to make it.

Coyuchi could make a small profit catering to locals and out-of-town guests visiting Pt Reyes on the Northern California coast.  The store is an hour or two drive from San Francisco and the town has an eco-friendly feel to it.  Two things happened that set Coyuchi on a different course.

First, people started to care about the planet.  They started to recognize that irresponsible consumption could have serious consequences in the not so distant future.  Second, the Internet provided a means to share information.  The availability of global information brought communities together and informed them about what was happening in the world.  We’re all much more connected now and I think we can agree this has been a positive change.

Coyuchi uses the Internet to expand their reach, sell to even more customers and increase their revenue.  They provide a nice solution for people looking for quality in their linen that also want to support the environment in a socially responsible way.  Best of all, I can tell my sister in New York or family in Los Angeles about the company just in time for Christmas (wink wink nudge nudge).  This is exactly what the Internet was supposed to be about among other things.

The new Web store looks great.  The design is clean and friendly.  We built the site on top of the open source product osCommerce for e-commerce.  Using open source tools fit with the spirit of the project while also providing a cost-effective way to launch an online store without re-inventing the wheel.  In truth, we prefer to use open source tools as much as possible so long as we can meet the needs of our customers.

You’ll have to see for yourself what you think of the result.  The store is live now at Coyuchi.com.  As for the sheets, I can only tell you that we are very satisfied customers and we look forward to more and more products coming online.  Until then, I’m off to my post-morning, pre-lunch nap on my comfy organic sheets.  Huck, hey Huck, time for a nap…