Stephen, founder of Kosen Fine Flashlights, started the Brooklyn brand in 2024 to build the features he felt every modern flashlight should have. Here is how the brand launched on Big Cartel, added Fera Reviews to build buyer trust, and what its numbers look like today.
What were you trying to solve?
"We were looking for the buyer proof point. Fera made it easy to onboard, charged a fair price that I felt I could experiment with, and had reasonable pricing models for future growth."
Why did you choose Fera?
"After a lot of examination, we determined that Fera had the most reasonable onboarding price and experience, and sustainable rates that wouldn’t cripple our growth strategy."
How has it helped your business?
"By outsourcing a key part of trust building with new customers, Fera has saved us a lot of money in shorter-lived campaigns that just burn budgets, like ad spend."
| Period | Orders per month | Average order value | Repeat share | Orders reviewed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Fera (Feb–May 2024) | 19.7 | $186 | 15% | n/a |
| Installed, not yet asking (Jun 2024–Feb 2025) | 31.4 | $189 | 48% | 5.7% |
| Started asking for reviews (Mar–Nov 2025) | 25.9 | $237 | 51% | 12.9% |
| Running properly (Dec 2025–Oct 2026) | 51.9 | $217 | 61% | 14.7% |
What are your plans going forward?
"We plan to continue to use Fera. It’s a highly effective way for creators like myself to spend more time making new products instead of being forced to build marketing outreach."
Why Big Cartel?
"Big Cartel is right-sized for our business. It was very easy to try it out with a single listing for free, and the features they keep adding make it easy to upgrade tiers as my business needs more automation and more capabilities.
For creators just dipping their toes into ecommerce, all the way up to pros who want to maintain a simple side business, Big Cartel makes it easy with fair pricing, responsive customer service (they added features I asked for!) and the right connections to vendors for features they don’t support. It lets me scale at a pace that works for me."
What does Big Cartel offer independent creators?
"Big Cartel straddles the line between scrappy and professional, which mirrors the way creators work. It made it easy to start, gave me the tools I needed to stay tax compliant and track the baseline health of my company, and it handles all of the transactions, giving my customers a professional checkout that is safe and easy."
What should every new Big Cartel merchant know?
"You can absolutely run a Big Cartel store for $0 a month until your business finds its footing, and then it has plenty of ways to grow with you. Having no upfront cost makes it easy to work out the kinks in your process without burning real cash while you’re still learning. Big Cartel’s pricing helped me soft launch my brand at low cost, and then pivot when it became something big."
