A Technological Terror – a.k.a. Taking The First Steps Into The World Of E-Commerce

WEBSITES.....

.....  they’re everywhere these days!

Retail outlets have long been on the website bandwagon but they are no longer alone!

Celebrities have them; money spent on their own personal version of ‘Hello’ or ‘OK’ magazine!!!!  Network channels use them to promote your favourite channels and programmes in an effort to increase viewing figures; even sporting personalities now have a website presence!

Like it or not online retail is BIG business and the big players spend a lot of money getting noticed!

So here I am starting out in the in the big bad world of enterprise and trying to stake my claim as a business owner – the thought of setting up and running a website a tad frightening.

Funnily enough that’s probably a good thing.....

Okay first things first; I am not a website expert, never have been and probably never will be – all that technical stuff goes in one ear and out the other. Still I do like learning, have never been very good at being told I can’t do something and I like a challenge, so let’s talk websites.....

..... or not; well not yet anyway!

Before I could even start building a website I needed to decide how I wanted to brand my products, I figured the web page would lead the way for all the other areas of marketing. Simple enough; or so I thought, as I sat down with paper, pen and a large pot of coffee ready to do some serious research into this wonderful branding that I was going to devise. I made lists, lots and lots of lists – what I liked, what I didn't like, who my target audience was, who my competitors were – it just goes on. The lists were refined, reduced and starting to make sense, time for the simple process of registering a domain name. Simple – no, no, no you silly woman what are you thinking of? Well just sticking ‘www’ on the front and ‘.co.uk’ on the back of my business name actually, surely that’s all you need to do …. Isn't it!

So off I went to a domain name expert and typed my proposed business name in only to find that it was already take, as was my second and third ideas. After a fair bit of head scratching I finally came up with a variation that was available, my excitement knew no bounds FINALLY I was getting somewhere. A brief look at Facebook and Twitter confirmed that no one on there was using the name either so in a rush of emotion I registered my name then went to lie down in a darkened room.

After all that things can only get easier but I’ll leave that for another day!

Introducing A Self Made Somebody

The first thing we should establish is the word eccentric (or crazy if you prefer) is often applied to me, so if you are expecting sensible, serious or profound you’re probably following the wrong blog page.  I should also mention that I can talk – a lot – hind leg off a donkey and all that as they say; so you have been warned!

I’ve been with my OH for twenty years although we’ve only been married for a dozen or so. I live on the outskirts of Nottingham, close enough to the centre if I need to be but far enough away to be on the edge of the countryside which I escape to as often as possible. I have a wide range of interests, including a fondness for good food and red wine and a very eclectic taste in music. Any spare time I do have is usually spent doing running repairs to the house or trying to tame the wilderness in my back garden.

Initially my career was spent in administration for both private and public organisations, something I enjoyed doing but stopped being challenging after a while. Anyone who has worked in an office knows it’s not a good career choice if you get bored easily; it takes a real skill to get enthusiastic about photocopying the same page for twenty different people. I took a year out and went back to college to study horticulture for no other reason than I love gardening (and boy is there more to that than meets the eye) but ultimately that doesn’t pay the bills so it was back to work for me. Deciding I wanted something completely different I went to work for Tesco’s, working my way up from checkout operator, through customer services to merchandising and stock control. It was an incredible experience not just in terms of learning retail skill but life skills as well. I can guarantee with the mentioning of good old Tesco at least some people will think that it’s an easy job, I mean what’s hard about putting cans of beans on a shelf? Let me tell you at times it’s hell on wheels – imagine running a long distance race where you are working flat out to stay ahead to the competitor whose breathing down your neck and desperately wondering where the finishing line is – that is the reality of retail nothing stays the same for more than a few days!

I loved every minute of it.

Eventually though I decided what I really wanted to do was work for myself – so here we are running my small business from the spare bedroom and writing blogs to entertain the people who are kind enough to visit.
 

Some of these musings will be about the creative side of things; with the occasional jewellery book review thrown in as well, some will be about my home life. I hope you enjoy reading them – feel free to leave comments – good, bad or indifferent – I’m happy to see them all.

Oh and I better not forget to mention my four cats – the real rulers in our house!