Nicole Brewer and Amy Laws offer “champagne taste on a sippy cup budget” through Smocked Auctions.

Two business owners prove moms really can do it all

It started two years ago with a living room sale and a Facebook post, and now Preston Hollow residents Nicole Brewer and Amy Laws are running a company that raked in well over a million dollars this year.

The twist? All sales happen on Facebook.

“It’s really the way we sell, not just what we sell,” Brewer says.

Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. sharp, Brewer and Laws post photos of their exclusive, specially designed children’s clothes on the Facebook page of their business, Smocked Auctions. Then it’s first-come first-served for the 130,000-plus Facebook users who “like” Smocked Auctions’ page. To “win” an item, they have to be one of the first to comment on a photo with their desired size and email address.

“It’s easy to shop with us,” Laws says. “[Customers] don’t have to thumb through multiple web pages. They see something they like and they click.”

Impulse buying meets instant gratification in the auctions: You choose to buy within seconds and receive the clothes on your doorstep three days later.

Brewer and Laws, who both hold business degrees, started selling children’s clothes on Facebook at a time when it was still unchartered territory. Though they first sold wholesale goods, they now design their own clothes.

Demand is high. A single one of their Facebook posts can garner as many as 1,500 comments, and the company ships to about 40 states in any given month.

“People started to befriend each other online,” Laws says of the community built through Smocked Auctions. “It’s like online dating for clothes.”

In addition to the twice-weekly auctions, the business also holds sample sales twice a year and preorder sales once a week. Smocked Auctions had more than 2,000 transactions at a recent sample sale, which has evolved from a couple of hours in a living room to a couple of days in a hotel ballroom with people flying in from out of state. Their Facebook sales are still the most popular, though.

“It’s the community,” Brewer says about the reasons behind the success. “We have a group of moms, they get their kids fed and their husbands fed, and then it’s their time. They trust our product. They know it’s good. They know if they pay for it, they’re going to get it.”

Brewer and Laws ran the company by themselves for almost a year — they now have a staff of five — and didn’t initially market their product, saying customers were, and still are, their best advertisers.

Like most of their customers, the two are mothers of small children and know that functionality is often as important as cuteness when it comes to clothes.

“Our business has evolved rapidly as we’ve seen what’s practical for our children,” Brewer says.

The company recently developed custom software to help with invoicing, inventory, order fulfillment, bulk shipping and more, but the two still personally log the winners and answer questions posted on the Facebook page.

If being a mom is a full-time job, both Brewer and Laws have two intense positions. They take care of their own kids, and they also work nights and seven days a week on Smocked Auctions, yet they say they love what they’re doing.

“It’s our baby,” Laws says. “No one cares about your baby as much as you do.”

The two remain best friends, as they were when they started.

“I wouldn’t want to do this with anybody else,” Laws says. “It’s fun to work with your best friend. It’s like getting married — we didn’t know when we were ‘dating’ that it was going to be serious,” they say, finishing each other’s sentences.