Bretnwood alpaca business started with 4-H project

Name of business: Alpaca Direct

Type of business: Retail and e-commerce

Owners: Jim and Kelley Hobart

Founded: 2005

Address: 144 Continente Ave., Suite 170, Brentwood

Phone number: 925-237-2575

Web address: www.alpacadirect.com

Hours: Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p. m.; Thursday 7 to 9 p.m.

Number of employees: eight

Products and services: Direct importers of Alpaca apparel, including sweaters, socks, scarves and slippers. Peruvian Pima cotton pajamas, Peruvian jewelry, full-service yarn shop with more than 3,000 yarns in stock, spinning supplies and more than 130 colors of roving in stock. Roving is used to spin into yarn for hand spinners.

How did you get into the business: "We started raising alpacas in 2004 and decided to share the awesome qualities of alpaca fiber through a Web site we launched in 2005," Jim Hobart said. "Alpaca is warmer and stronger than wool, soft as cashmere, doesn't pill and is hypoallergenic."

Their relationship with alpacas started in the spring of 2004 as a 4-H project for their 11-year-old daughter.

"Our seven-acre ranch in Brentwood provided a nice reprieve from the fast pace of Silicon Valley, and alpacas seemed a good solution to create a viable home-based business to leverage our land and utilize Kelley's veterinary and nursing skills," Hobart said.

At the time Hobart was a veteran of the software industry, and had not found his niche in this new endeavor, but seeing those furry animals in his front yard provided a welcome departure from pressures of the dot-com world. Their journey quickly transformed from a 4-H project into a fast growing e-commerce alpaca product business. They opened their first retail outlet in Brentwood in September.

Best part about the business?: "Watching the business grow from our little ranch store to now supporting over 35,000 customers globally," he said. "Having great employees and involving the whole family in the operations."

Worst part about the business?: "Not a bad thing, but managing growth so that we can maintain our high service levels to both our local and global customers," Hobart said.

Key to success: "Listen to your customers. We have over 1,000 reviews on our Web site from customers. We support a local knitting group on Thursday nights and listen every week to ensure we're delivering an exceptional customer experience," he said.

Biggest misperception about the business: People think the business is a lot bigger than it is. Alpaca Direct does have a call center in Canada that relieves some of the call v olume. "We also have great staff and they work very hard, especially this time of the year," he said.

Future plans: Hobart said that he plans to keep growing their customer base and expand their product line to deliver unique products that are of exceptional quality while delivering remarkable service with every customer transaction.
— Roni Gehlke