# no customers :-( advice please



## 12jane

can anyone advise me as to why you think I have had no sales via my website Pet Paradise - Home ? I have had plenty of views, and am wondering what is wrong. thank you very much


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## babycham2002

Sorry to hear its not going how you expected
For me its that the name suggests you will be selling pet products, actual stuff for pets, then upon onvestigating (hence the viewing figures) i Find you are not
What you are selling is something quite specialised people would be going looking for it if that makes sense, I would normally use ebay for something like the cards
I also dont like the orange of the main page, it hurts my eyes as im moving around.


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## 12jane

thanks. Do you think I should change the wording I use on advertising? Its 
"A small business selling a range of pet related products" 
should i change it to say gifts? or something else?

Im afraid I can not change the name or colour scheme, didnt realise the orange would hurt your eyes, everyone who say it before I chose it said they loved it! 

I appreciate any comments


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## 12jane

Had my first sale via the website just now :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: so exiting


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## slbrown2108

i thin k ur website is very good. Can i just say i will be ordering some pictures from your site for christmas presents and will be ordering them when i come back my holidays in october. Great prices aswell very reasonable.


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## Guest

12jane said:


> can anyone advise me as to why you think I have had no sales via my website Pet Paradise - Home ? I have had plenty of views, and am wondering what is wrong. thank you very much


you can get most of that stuff in the pound shop:thumbup:


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## 12jane

borderer said:


> you can get most of that stuff in the pound shop:thumbup:


what pound shop do you go to?


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## 12jane

slbrown2108 said:


> i think ur website is very good. Can i just say i will be ordering some pictures from your site for christmas presents and will be ordering them when i come back my holidays in october. Great prices aswell very reasonable.


thanks, Im keeping my prices as low as possible (e.g. the RRP on adult T-shirts is almost £12 but I am selling them for £7.50 )

I have a few more prints to add this evening


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## 12jane

I have done some improvements and added more items, any other comments?


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## simplysardonic

12jane said:


> I have done some improvements and added more items, any other comments?


yes, thankyou ever so much for the ratty shopping bag, it arrived yesterday & my daughter is really jealous


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## sue&harvey

I found your site the other day, and I was miss led by the web address, ending in eu. To me that says you will deliver to EU countries, which is why I clicked it, to find you are uk based. This could also put off UK customers, IYSWIM


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## Dot

I like your website 12jane. I have just had a quick look, first time I have seen it. I will have a good look later on. Hope it takes off for you and you get lots of customers. I would like some cards with a labrador pic but you don't seem to have labs. Might you be able to get some?


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## 12jane

Dot said:


> I like your website 12jane. I have just had a quick look, first time I have seen it. I will have a good look later on. Hope it takes off for you and you get lots of customers. I would like some cards with a labrador pic but you don't seem to have labs. Might you be able to get some?


I have some lovely labrador prints I can order some labrador cards for you, is there a\ specific colour you are looking for?


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## 12jane

sue&harvey said:


> I found your site the other day, and I was miss led by the web address, ending in eu. To me that says you will deliver to EU countries, which is why I clicked it, to find you are uk based. This could also put off UK customers, IYSWIM


Just edited my homepage to add:-

We are a UK based business, but can deliver all items except our mugs to anywhere in the world, just contact us with your order for us to work out postage first.

Though I had already put that on the delivery page


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## 12jane

simplysardonic said:


> yes, thankyou ever so much for the ratty shopping bag, it arrived yesterday & my daughter is really jealous


Does she want one? ;-)

Glad you like it, would to be willing to link swap now?


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## Dot

12jane said:


> I have some lovely labrador prints I can order some labrador cards for you, is there a\ specific colour you are looking for?


Black labs would be nice Have you a black lab shopping bag also? Thanks.


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## Tapir

just ordered a ratty shopping bag


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## Cleo38

It would be useful if you had a search option as well. Reading a previous post on here it mentioned a bag - I wasn't sure which section these would be in. 
I have seen the bag mentioned previously (the rat one) & will be ordering it later!
Godd luck - I hope it goes well for you!


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## 12jane

Dot said:


> Black labs would be nice Have you a black lab shopping bag also? Thanks.


Yes, I ordered a black lab shopping bag the other day, it should be here in a day or two, if you are interested

ETA I can only find yellow lab cards at present, I will order some of them, but keep a look out for black labs.

You would think that lab items would be easiest to find, but they are harder than some rare breeds lol


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## 12jane

Cleo38 said:


> It would be useful if you had a search option as well. Reading a previous post on here it mentioned a bag - I wasn't sure which section these would be in.
> I have seen the bag mentioned previously (the rat one) & will be ordering it later!
> Godd luck - I hope it goes well for you!


thank you, I dont think the service I use will allow a search option I will look into it though.
The dog bags can be found by clicking dog items, rats in the small animal items section etc.


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## petforum

12jane said:


> can anyone advise me as to why you think I have had no sales via my website Pet Paradise - Home ? I have had plenty of views, and am wondering what is wrong. thank you very much


Hi 12Jane,

Heres my advice. I would change your websites domain name, the .eu domain will probably prevent your website ranking well in google uk. I would get a .co.uk website. If you want to stick with the name pet paradise, i know the .co.uk domain has already gone, but buy the name petparadisegifts.co.uk. I think this domain name would be much better as it is a uk domain, plus it has the added benefit, of having the text pet and gifts in the name.

Looking at your website, it seems that you mainly sell pet related gifts. Check out the google keyword tool using the link below and do some research on how many people search in google for different related terms to your business. Once you have found all the popular search terms related to your business, build your website around these terms.

https://adwords.google.com/select/*Keyword*ToolExternal


Make sure your homepage title is changed from "Pet Paradise - Home" to "Pet Gifts | Buy Pet Related Gifts at Pet Paradise" or something similar. Rename your subpages from "Dog Items" etc to "Dog Gifts" and add the text "Dog Gifts" to the titles on the pages. People arent searching for Dog Items or Cat items, they will be searching for Pet Gifts, Dog Gifts etc. Your pages need to reflect this so that google can index your website and pages correctly. This will result in a lot more visitors to your website and they will be searching for the things you sell which will help you sell a lot more.

Once youve sorted your website domain name, structure and naming to better reflect your business aims. I would then invest some money in promoting your website on other pet related websites in the UK.

If you need any other advice please pm me. Im always happy to help when i have some spare time.

Cheers and good luck with your business
Mark


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## GSDlover4ever

I had a look at the dog cards and when i clicked the thumb nale to have a better look the image is totally blured. This has put me off buying them.

Also it doesn't say how many cards you get because of the wording:

quote
A cute card measuring 15cm x 10cm . They come with an envelope, wrapped in cellophane. quote


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## 12jane

GSDlover4ever said:


> I had a look at the dog cards and when i clicked the thumb nale to have a better look the image is totally blured. This has put me off buying them.
> 
> Also it doesn't say how many cards you get because of the wording:
> 
> quote
> A cute card measuring 15cm x 10cm . They come with an envelope, wrapped in cellophane. quote


I have improved the images as much as I can, and edited the text.


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## kaz_f

It's well set out and nice design but two things would put me off.
.eu - as Mark said already and secondly Paypal. As soon as it took me through to the paypal page I would ditch my purchase.


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## 12jane

kaz_f said:


> secondly Paypal. As soon as it took me through to the paypal page I would ditch my purchase.


why is that? Because you want to not use paypal? I can accept cheques or other payment methods, but not cards without going through paypal at present. Is that what you want?


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## 12jane

I am going to leave the site name as it is for now, and possible re think at the end of the month. I have set up a facebook group here to advertise, and just had an enquiry already  Welcome to Facebook Please join if you are interested in my business, I am offering a free gift to a member chosen at random once I have 100 fans


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## kaz_f

12jane said:


> why is that? Because you want to not use paypal? I can accept cheques or other payment methods, but not cards without going through paypal at present. Is that what you want?


Yeah in a former life I used to run an online business and when I first started out I used paypal to accept payments whilst I got SecureTrading set up. It was a complete and utter buraucratic nightmare, they owed me £700 which I tried to draw down and they buggered things up so much that it took me eight months to get it, their support function was shockingly awful. When you start a small business up £700 is a lot of money to effectively lose! Also, I also find the payment process a nightmare, it tries to take it from your paypal account first off when all you really want to do is buy the item using a debit card. I just see paypal as an extra hassle and would rather get it elsewhere if that was my only payment option. I think it's largely down to my own mistrust of paypal but lots of others feel like it too.

Your site is lovely though, navigation is easy to use and the design is really nice and it's fab that you accept other types of payment . Good on you! My experience was that it took me a while to refine the basket and payment facility on my website as I was finding that people would get part way through the payment process and then I would lose them. After a while though I got it right and using a better payment provider helped. I think that when people are online shopping they don't have much patience so the process has to be quick and smooth otherwise they tend to wander off elsewhere.


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## 12jane

thank you for explaining. I thought that most people preferred paypal as a payment method nowadays. I personally do as I rarely have my card near me when im on the pc, and several other people have told me the same.
Could you give me some more information about SecureTrading please? thank you.


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## Dogznmogz

Hi,

I must confess when I first looked at your site I also thought it was selling products for animals, not about animals. I like your site though. I imagine lack of sales is mainly due to low google ranking. You need visitors to get customers! Believe me I know. I am also struggling to get my site selling dog apparel moving well. I am making sales but it is much slower than I expected.

Good Luck

Linda


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## thedogsmother

Bought some lovely mugs off the site and they are lovely, hope people start ordering off you soon as I cant fault the product or the service.


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## SarahAvon

I love the bags! Just ordered a Boxer one for myself and the Husky bag for a colleague. I've posted your link on my facebook page to give you a helping hand! Have Liked your facebook page too, I'm TeamSarah Avon Glamorgan in case you were wondering!


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## Amy&Ted

I've had a good look round the site. I was going to invest in a Border Terrier shopping bag but i didn't like the writing on it


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## 12jane

thedogsmother said:


> Bought some lovely mugs off the site and they are lovely, hope people start ordering off you soon as I cant fault the product or the service.


thank you. I didnt know how much packaging to use, so used plenty

Orders are picking up now

Thnak you Sarah for ordering and for liking my page

Amy&Ted I was a little anooyed about the writing on the border terrier ones as well, I ordered a different image(which was nicer but they have discountinued now: ) and they sent that one, they said in the small print that if an design is unavailable, another will be sent of the same breed so I cant do anything about it. I am however looking for another border terrier design to put on t-shirts and bags now


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## Amy&Ted

12jane said:


> thank you. I didnt know how much packaging to use, so used plenty
> 
> Orders are picking up now
> 
> Thnak you Sarah for ordering and for liking my page
> 
> Amy&Ted I was a little anooyed about the writing on the border terrier ones as well, I ordered a different image(which was nicer but they have discountinued now: ) and they sent that one, they said in the small print that if an design is unavailable, another will be sent of the same breed so I cant do anything about it. I am however looking for another border terrier design to put on t-shirts and bags now


Give me a shout if you get one sorted... i would defo get one :thumbup::thumbup:


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## 12jane

Amy&Ted said:


> Give me a shout if you get one sorted... i would defo get one :thumbup::thumbup:


thanks, will do. 
If you have facebook, please "like" my group  and invite your friends once we have 100 fans, one will be chosen at random to recieve an item from the site


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## Amy&Ted

Just have Jane


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## Cleo38

I love my rat bag - the pic is great! Will be ordering a black lab one for my sister if my OH lets me use his Paypal account .... I've forgotten all my logon details


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## 12jane

Cleo38 said:


> I love my rat bag - the pic is great! Will be ordering a black lab one for my sister if my OH lets me use his Paypal account .... I've forgotten all my logon details


thanks, the pictures are great quality arent they

Thanks for becomming a fan, we now have 45 fans:thumbup:


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## missnaomi

I just bought a bag for my boyfriend's mum. She'll love it.
Naomi x


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## SarahAvon

Told my colleague I bought the Husky bag for her, she went and had a look and is thrilled! 
Said it's made her day and can't wait for it to arrive! =D


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## missnaomi

missnaomi said:


> I just bought a bag for my boyfriend's mum. She'll love it.
> Naomi x


That winking face wasn't supposed to happen, my cat was helping me.


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## 12jane

missnaomi said:


> I just bought a bag for my boyfriend's mum. She'll love it.
> Naomi x


thank you

The bags will be sent in the morning to Sarah and Naomi


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## 12jane

SarahAvon said:


> Told my colleague I bought the Husky bag for her, she went and had a look and is thrilled!
> Said it's made her day and can't wait for it to arrive! =D


Glad she likes it

I have added more dog shopping bags today, some cats, horses and donkey bags as well


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## Simple

Just noticed your dog collars do not say what they are made from.

Could do with pictures on a dog (stuffed or real deal)


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## 12jane

Simple said:


> Just noticed your dog collars do not say what they are made from.
> 
> Could do with pictures on a dog (stuffed or real deal)


thanks. I'll find what they are made from and get my dog to pose for a pic


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## 12jane

can someone advise me here? I have noticed that this wording doesnt sound great, but cant think how to change it! thanks

"Our items are great gifts, or as a treat for yourself"


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## Drews Animal Togs

12jane said:


> "Our items are great gifts, or as a treat for yourself"


"Our items *make* great gifts, or as a treat for yourself"


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## Simple

12jane said:


> can someone advise me here? I have noticed that this wroding doesnt sound great, but cant this how to change it! thanks
> 
> "Our items are great gifts, or as a treat for yourself"


We have great gift items for yourself, your pet or maybe someone else

Our items are great gifts for yourself or maybe someone else

I'm not great at this engrish malarky, but that's my attempt


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## 12jane

thank you  A friends suggested 

Our items make great gifts... but you might find you want to keep them for yourself! 

which I will use (at least for now lol)

Anything else I can do to make the site better?


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## 12jane

Business is picking up now And I (whether permitting) have a stall at the village show tomorrow:thumbup:


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## Cleo38

Hope it goes well for you!


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## 12jane

Cleo38 said:


> Hope it goes well for you!


Thank you


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## 12jane

Well the weaher was awful, but more than half of the people who came to look at the stall bought something:thumbup:


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## 12jane

Orders have slowed down now But I have a stall booked in the village autumn fair this weekend and another at a tabletop sale next saturday:thumbup:

Please continue to invite your friends to my Facebook group


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## doggylicious

It will pick up,Im sure.You have some lovely products.


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## Allana

I would love to buy some Alaskan Klee Kai products but cant find any


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## archielee

Allana said:


> I would love to buy some Alaskan Klee Kai products but cant find any


:lol: yes you can hun just keep looking


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## Allana

I'll keep my eyes peeled! 

I'm off to look! X


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## 12jane

Allana said:


> I would love to buy some Alaskan Klee Kai products but cant find any


Sorry I havent seen any with any of my suppliers yet I will keep a look out though


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## 12jane

I just thought I would let those of you that are interested know that I have some items ending on Ebay tonight 

petparadise2010 items - Get great deals on Clothes, Shoes Accessories items on eBay UK!


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## Amethyst

Some beautiful things and very reasonable!


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## 12jane

Amethyst said:


> Some beautiful things and very reasonable!


Thank you
I have put so much into this business this last 6 months, and was hoping that I would do well this month, but the weather has meant that I have been unable to get out to the christmas fairs that werent cancelled, and the internet has been playing up so I havent been able to do much extra advertising online!

Let me know if there is anything you would like to see on the site:thumbup:


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## midnightstar

Have only joined the forum today but i think your site is great,the only thing i would change is the donain name to .co.uk as i have a web site to and its one of the main things that put people of looking from the uk.This is what i was told when setting my site up.

Angie


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## Sled dog hotel

I havent waded through all the replies so apologies if duplicating but it might be worth your while advertising in mags like Dogs today,your dog,your cat etc. or maybe even in dog world.


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## midnightstar

Also try all the free classified sites as well gumtree is a good one i have sold stuff of there.


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## 12jane

Thanks, im afriad that the .co.uk is taken which I didnt think would be a problem when I set the site up, and I dont want to change it now.

I have contacted some magazines, but they cost up to £1000 to advertise in! Some do the small 9x1cm ads, just for the site name, and they are upwards of £80 and im not sure if it would be worth it. What do you think?


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## Sled dog hotel

12jane said:


> Thanks, im afriad that the .co.uk is taken which I didnt think would be a problem when I set the site up, and I dont want to change it now.
> 
> I have contacted some magazines, but they cost up to £1000 to advertise in! Some do the small 9x1cm ads, just for the site name, and they are upwards of £80 and im not sure if it would be worth it. What do you think?


It might be worth doing a tester ad, If you do your research and find what dog mags have the highest circulation and try just one ad in one of the high profile ones if you get a response and get some orders then it might be worth investing in some others too. At the moment you probably have to relie to a degree of someone stumbling across your site. The only other thing I can maybe suggest is contact the most popular breed clubs or ones that you carry several types of merchandise for their breed, Most do magazines so you could enquire if they take advertising and how much it costs. Most however also do their own merchandise I think so dont know how feasible it would be.


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## 12jane

Thank, I will try contacting some breed clubs, is there a list somewhere of them? I have a few items on Ebay, (all shopping bags atm) and have a link to my site on there. I do have some ads onlnie and am getting views everyday, just not that many orders at present.


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## petcoach

You know, what you are going through seems part of the course for a small business. I am a Life Coach and I coach small business owners and others wanting to make changes (I also want to start to coach pet owners, but that is another issue). They all say they want customers - and in this present financial climate - it is very difficult to start a new business.

Once the first clients come through the doors, then everything becomes far easier because if they like your product they will not only return, they will also tell their friends about you.

I take on board what someone said about the pound shop - this is no reflection on your site - but there is both a pound and a 99p shop in Stratford (East London) and I bought an awful lot of my Christmas presents there, including some great dog toys for 99p each. What the popularity of these shops mean is that anyone in sales is facing unfair competition so you need to not only be unique, but you also need to tailor make your product with a particular client in mind - and then market it directly to them.

You use vistaprint for your website and I use it for both of mine and you can change the design of your website - but you might have to upgrade to do so. I changed Sue Taylor - Welcome from a plan background to the one I now use, with the dog on it.

When you go into your website and you look at the hits, don't be deceived because although it looks like hundreds of people have viewed your site - most of the hits will come from other websites like google. Don't only look at the hits, look at the viewed pages and also the referring sites.

Your home page is your shop window - so you should display your products on there to lead people into the rest of your site.

I take on board what someone said about your web name. I started my business as an educational consultant, hence my web address: Sue Taylor - Home I have been running that side of my business down, while I build up my life coaching, but I am stuck with that web address, which is on all my publicity. I get around this problem by shortening my address on bit.ly and I use that address in my publicity.

Best of luck,

Sue


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## 12jane

thanks, do you have any advice as to what I ned to change on my homepage?

I have contacted some breed clubs, arte there any more that you can think of?

Border Collie club of GB
Wessex Border Collie Club
Midlands Border Collie Club
HUMBERSIDE CAVALIER KING CHARLES SPANIEL CLUB


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## Sled dog hotel

If you can change it I would make your home page more visual with more pictures of the most popular type products to draw the people in and want to look at more. The narrative is very interesting and well written but people tend to be lazy on reading text. They tend to shop on visuals and that atracts them I think more than the written word or initially anyway.

I think every breed club has a magazine or publication. Maybe try other breeds like labradors, golden retrievers, cocker spaniels. They toy breeds like yorkies, chis etc might be worth it too. I should think the breed clubs would be listed on the internet.

A lot of RSPCA centres have fun days to raise funds and when I went to the last one (My youngests an RSPCA Dog) There were a lot private stands there selling their products. Dont know what the arrangement is as regards to fees,
but something like that might be worth considering to raise your profile or maybe even companion dog shows.


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## 12jane

thanks, I will do that sometime. I found a list of breed clubs but there werent many on it. I dont have alocal rescue/RSPCA but do do stalls at the horse shows in the area in the summer. I missed the local christmas fairs as we were snowed in! I am adding more items to Ebay at present


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## carebear

if i was to buy something with a pic of a dog on i would prefer to have my own dog on it. is there a way you can use peoples own pictures to transfer onto your merchandice. 
i hope it all works out for you


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## 12jane

That might be possible someday carebear, but the costs to set it up to do peoples own individual designs would be thousands :-(

I have just ordered almost £300 of new stock before the VAT increase tomorrow


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## Sled dog hotel

The only comment I would make is that in this economic climate a lot of the items that you sell are luxury/gift items rather that essentials and must have/needs. Is there no way you can perhaps carry some other lines like perhaps dog food, treats more collars and leads beds etc. essential items that dog owners must have/need. You would need to look at your purchase prices, profit margins etc to see if you can offer deals to get customers interested at least initially to see if you can undercut and offer a saving, maybe reducing your profit margins to the usual. Obviously if you offer a delivery service the costs will have to be factored in to your overall purchase costs too. If you had more bread and butter so to speak lines that might give you a better cash flow/kick start to your other lines. If its viable once you have done costings maybe you could offer a local delivery service and do some flyers/leaflets to distribute locally. You would have to do price comparisons to to see what the opposition is charging.


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