Trained as an educator
- scrap booking industry started to slump with coming of digital cameras
Didn’t want to do a shop because of the hours
Didn’t understand how God would use an online yarn shop
Challenge of an E-commerce business
- never meet the customers face-to-face
o impact on customers
§ find your niche
§ not much of a business for sock yarn
§ sock nitters are very passionate
§ expanded to lace yarn
§ very narrow niche market so they can do it very well
o make them want to come back
§ find your competitive advantage
§ build your website from the ground up
· don’t use a framework
· individualize it
§ good customer service
§ catch customer’s attention
· hand written notes
· good packaging
· need really good photos of your products
o turn customer satisfaction into customer loyalty
§ answering emails
§ answering phone calls
§ writing a blog
· relate to the owner of the business
· start to think you’re they’re friend
§ blog contest
· people leave comments and random person gets a prize
§ lots of customer involvement
o how to get people to tell their friends
§ give them more than they expect
§ free gift with every sale
§ two people processing the orders
§ when you make a mistake, admit it and make it right immediately
- challenging to make your products unique
