BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Chris Gerbig is the co-founder and president of Pink Lily, a women’s boutique clothing company.

Gerbig and his wife Tori started the company in their kitchen in 2014 to make some extra cash. 

What You Need To Know

  •  Chris and Tori Gerbig are the owners of the Pink Lily

  •  The e-commerce business had been named one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S. three times in the past five years

  •  They started the online clothing business out of their home

Their business has been included on the Inc. 5000 list three times in the past five years. Inc. 5000 ranks the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the United States.

“Dominance in social media marketing has helped us to do really well. We’ve hired a fantastic team over the years. This started as a part-time job for us but we quickly realized the opportunity and we dove in head first,” Gerbig said. 

He attributes their success partly to their expertise in varying fields. 

“My wife and I have different skill sets so she’s more the marketing sales, I’m more the operation, HR side of things, so we’ve been able to divide and conquer the responsibilities of the company.”

Both he and his wife went to Western Kentucky University and thought Bowling Green would be a good place to set up shop. 

“In e-commerce, you don’t really have to be in a place where there is a lot of traffic or a lot of customers because we’re shipping all over the world every day,” he said. “We’re in a college town, we’re close to Nashville, we get the talent that we need, but we don’t have to set up shop in New York City or in the middle of downtown Dallas or anything like that, we can still accomplish what we want to right here in Bowling Green.”

This appears to be helping them with their success, shipping out over 10,000 packages a day with over 300 employees.

Kay McMillian is one employee, and she has worked in the fulfillment center for about three years and says the company has been accommodating with her health. 

“I was being treated for breast cancer and I worked here and they really worked well with my schedule, if I needed time off for my treatments,” McMillan said. 

Gerbig said adding more team members, including people like McMillian, have helped the company grow. 

“For me that’s been the best part is to build that team, for so long it was just Tori and myself with no real management or executive team,” Gerbig said. 

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