Baby booty creates a stir

Baby Dagny carries high-end, high-fashion, untraditional infant items

Jehán Seirafi - The Desert Sun - February 4, 2007

In her mid-20s, Andrea McGinty found herself suddenly single. After her engagement was called off she found herself swimming in a sea of unwanted dates, trying to navigate her way through a decent date. Dissatisfied with her options and the inability to meet a good man, she started "It's Just Lunch," a dating service for working professionals. Fast forward 15 years, McGinty, now married, sits in her Rancho Mirage home explaining her retirement from the company, selling to the Riverside Investment Group two years ago.

The self-professed "serial entrepreneur" couldn't sit still, so six months into her first pregnancy she happened upon the idea for her newest adventure: "Baby Dagny," named for her now 12-month old daughter.

Searching the Internet late one night McGinty was bored with traditional infant offerings that turned up over and over, "I kept seeing the same old stuff - everything was pink and blue."

When she discovered a site from the Netherlands, it led her to seek out more from the Nordic countries. "I found so much of the stuff was both form and function; high quality and high fashion."

Knowing she couldn't be the only mother wanting something different, edgier and just a little funky for her little one, she invested $800,000 and began importing baby items from around the globe to sell on www.babydagny.com.

With signed North American exclusivity agreements with each of her vendors, McGinty has cornered a market in the States. She has consolidated her shipping from small vendors across the globe and moves containers in through Long Beach.

"There's really not anyone else trying to bring together unique goods from outside the U.S. under one umbrella" she says when asked about competitors.

Baby Dagny launched softly on the Internet the first week of December. January has already seen a swell of interest.

The site gets an average of 4,000 unique visitors a day, with each user looking at about 12 pages. McGinty says that the success so far has been unbelievable since the majority of customers have come through word of mouth. The business has yet to do any significant marketing.

Gift baskets filled with items were sent to the human resources departments of 50 large companies throughout Southern California. Someone is always having a baby, 4.5 million each year in the U.S., so McGinty hoped that the departments would call her when gifts were needed for employees, clients and partners.

Many of the items were also put into the hands of nanny networks, who then would pass them along to their affluent clients.

McGinty is quick to point out that Baby Dagny is not just serving the wealthy. The highest priced item is $160 and the average price point of her goods is $55, which just happens to be the average price paid for a baby shower gift in the U.S., she says.

"My typical customers are moms, grandmas, aunts and sisters - anyone who wants to buy a gift," she explains.

McGinty and her business partner, Natalie Prust, the inventor of the Seat Chiller, a cooling device for baby car seats featured last summer in The Desert Sun, and four additional employees, all of whom are close friends or previous employees, are hands-on workers for the upstart based in Palm Desert.

Baby Dagny's business plan predicts an additional 24 people by the end of the year. 2007 is expected to bring many more additions to the company.

By year's end, the flagship store located in trendy West L.A. near the boutique-laden Robertson Boulevard should be up and running.

The Baby Dagny Spring 2007 catalog will be mailed out by late March, a campaign that will require an additional $1 million.

McGinty believes catalogs lend credibility, especially to high-end customers and the purchase percentage is double that of the Internet.

She estimates that of those that visit an online site, 5 percent will make a purchase versus the 10 percent who will buy from a catalog.

The prospective changes have positioned Baby Dagny well. Revenue for the upcoming year, the first in business, is estimated at $1.4 million.

That's good news for a business owner who's had to make the move from a service-oriented to an inventory-based company.

"We did a lot of research beforehand so we knew what to expect, especially in terms of customs and tariffs, but I love it because you're constantly learning something new."

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