Soap company founder utilizes past crisis-management lessons

Deanna Wallin has experience in guiding a business through a crisis, having launched Naples Soap Co. in the heart of the recession in 2009. Starting with a 300-square-foot store in Tin City in Naples, Wallin has since grown the company, with a niche in high-quality skincare and hair care products, to 13 locations across Florida. It produces and sells over 400 products and does some $9 million to $10 million a year in sales.

A coronavirus pandemic bright spot, a decade later, is that e-commerce has been the fastest growing segment of the business, going from $540,000 in 2018 revenue to a projected $1.3 million in 2020. The crisis has only boosted the company’s online sales, with a 140% year-over-year increase the middle weeks of March 2020 over March 2019.  Although Wallin temporarily shuttered the network of stores, she’s shifted to online fulfillment, where a staff of four prepares orders from the company’s facility in Fort Myers, near the Southwest Florida International Airport.