It’s a very special when you can turn your passion into a business. Susan Cui is obsessed with beautiful party supplies and loves to help people organize parties. It only made sense for her to start her own party supply store. In 2024, she decided to add rentals to her offering and chose Booqable to manage her inventory and integrate online booking into her Shopify store.
My Party Box
Susan loves parties, from planning and getting equipment to enjoying the atmosphere. At the end of 2019, she started her own party supply store, My Party Box, to help others create parties with gorgeous supplies. She sells beautiful boutique-style party supplies and also popular licensed theme party equipment. In addition, she offers high-quality latex balloons and has her own brand of balloon garland kits.
In 2024, she decided to expand her business into party rentals. Susan wants to build a one-stop party shop where customers can get everything for their party. Her bundles, designed with an Instagram-style theme, are her most popular products. These allow customers to create the kind of atmosphere they see in Instagram posts but at a budget price.
While her bundles are the most popular, she also offers other rental products, including neon lights, backdrops, floral arrangements, and cake plinths. Susan is only just getting started and hopes to become the top online party business in New Zealand. She is working hard to achieve this goal, and adding rentals has put her closer to achieving it.
Integrating online bookings into Shopify
When Susan researched rental software, Booqable was one of her first options. She loved the platform and how easy it was for customers to use. It met her requirements of being a reliable system with high stock accuracy and preventing overbooking. However, she wasn’t sure whether she could embed it in her Shopify store alongside sales items.
After going through every case study and example website and reaching out to support where she found her answer, she could add online bookings to her Shopify website while maintaining her retail sales. This was perfect as it allowed her to use Booqable for her rental business without worrying about the two systems fighting each other.
In addition, the ability to create bundles has been a stand-out feature for her. This allows her to create rental bundles from the products in her inventory easily. She can experiment with different combinations to see which ones her customers are most interested in. Finally, integrated payments make it very efficient to manage and remove the administrative work of chasing customers for payment.
Expanding overseas
Susan has big ambitions for My Party Box and is only just starting. In addition to wanting to become the top online party store in New Zealand, she wants to expand overseas. This will be a massive achievement, and she’s working hard to make it a reality. She would also like to expand her product lines and create more beautiful rental packages for her customers.
