Good News Thread

[Madelaine Kirke]

I thought I'd start this as I want somewhere to tell you that I took a big step (for me) this week and it has paid off. So please post your good news here to encourage us all.

Until recently, my business was growing steadily, selling silk scarves and a few other items which I import from Thailand. I sold almost entirely on eBay. Last August eBay implemented a big change which almost stopped my business dead in its tracks. Since then each change to the site has made my sales worse, so I decided to step out and try to sell wholesale to some shops. I selected a shop, set off with samples and did the selling bit (which I find really difficult). She bought my samples, rang the next day for a proper order and then introduced me to someone else who would like to act as agent for one of my lines. Whew! Only a small sale ... but just the largest one I've ever made

[Richard Boyd]

I echo what Patricia said. There are people like myself who hate Ebay, we are bombarded with spam and phishing emails purporting to be from Ebay, so anything and everything from Ebay is eliminated by the spam checker.

I personally view Ebay as a website that is full of tat, so yes you own website would be great, even if it is a very small site it does not matter, but definitely do not limit your options.

[Madelaine Kirke]

It's interesting to get such a view on eBay - being an addict myself, it is not at all what I would expect so it is useful to see it from a completely opposite view (don't get me wrong - I loathe the management who think customer service is a cost not an investment but regularly buy items of good quality for astonishingly low prices).

[Kelvin Jones]

One popular hosted e-commerce site is Shopify.

If you sign up with them, they host your site for you and you manage the stock through a web browser.

I think they charge 2 or 3% commission on sales.

[David Braziel]

Shopify looks very cool. I havent seen many ecomerce apps that give you that level of control over the design of your store - and the design of their own site is very nice and web 2.0.

It doesnt look like a full solution - in that you would still need a separate site for your general info, blog, all the additional stuff that builds a shop apart from the sales end. Have a look at www.thepasty.com for a good uk example. It looks like they have integrated a shopify site with their own site but if so you really cant see the join.

I'm going to go look at this one some more.

David.

[Kelvin Jones]

I believe that you can point a particular sub-domain at the shopify servers, e.g. your site is at www.lovelysilkscarves.co.uk, you can put your shop on shop.lovelysilkscarves.co.uk and you can design the store to fit in with the rest of your website.

[Madelaine Kirke]

all these ideas and all this information! I've a lot to think about, thanks

[Rowena Mead]

Hey, I thought I'd reply to your good news thread - I recently got into my local paper with my toothbrush invention, you can check out the story in this link:

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/business/news/display.var.1367291.0.brus...

Good luck with your silk scarves selling!

[Madelaine Kirke]

Now that IS impressive! Well done!

[Anthony Brewitt]

Congragulations! sounds great, Im a web designer and was recently showcased in a popular magazine "web designing magazine" the demographic for the glossy mag does not help my needs but I still thought it was a big honour and now proudly display it on my office wall.