Hi there,
Many thanks for all the feedback.

Online selling..now where do I start ? My experience so far is that it is a lot of hard work, considering you have to build up your links, SEO the site etc, whilst competing against so many other good websites, many of which have probably a much bigger budget. I have found getting mentioned on blogs is quite useful, it seems to generate good traffic and sales..however, I still have a long way to go to reach a high enough level of visitors to make it sustainable in the longer term. I'd love to know what has worked for you, and what hasn't !

Paula

ps I found signing up for a Wordtracker trial was also quite useful in learning basic SEO tips

Do any of you sell on Ebay as well? You could create an about me page and add your website link in there. Even if you do not sell many items, it will help in terms of visibility and gives you a marketing platform. Every little bit helps.

Local fairs and tradeshows might also be worth considering and get some leaflet drops and cards out.

Online networking will be hard work, but is worth it in the end. I don't know about you all, but I never seem to be off my laptop now these days.

Don't know if you have noticed, but you can now
blog on The Pink Martini as well

Hi there,
Thanks for the advice. I will certainly give the blog some thought. Good luck to everyone in their online adventures !
Paula x

I sell Fairtrade Products on E-bay Vigdis and I have an 'about me' page, must have check if I've got my website address on there!
The local fairs and tradeshows are brilliant, I will be at the Highland Show a couple of days this year and I'm at a couple of local Agricultural Shows too. Apart from the sales, you make lots of contacts at shows.

Online networking IS hard work, but I'm determined to make a go of it. (You may have noticed!!)

Not done much in the way of blogging, must get into that.

Have you noticed, this forum's really busy tonight!!

Yes, it seems a bit busy tonight

I think that we are all the same boat and we all seem to be online a lot. It is hard to get separated from the laptop at the moment, although I had to watch The Apprentice and Desperate Housewives and downed tools.

Can I point you to the event section where you can post your tradeshows?

I've tried Ebay a bit, but had no success - not sure what I'm doing wrong really, particularly since I think I give a lot more info about my products than a lot of handbag sellers on Ebay.

I am going to be trying some cross-promotion with a few other businesswomen (homemade soaps and jewellery), which doesn't cost any of us anything apart from the cost of producing promo cards with discounts on, so we'll see how that goes!

Hi, I must admit I tried Ebay too, althought it was a while ago, and I didn't have any success either ! I've started using Etsy instead in the last few days so will see how that goes. Next month I have a stall at a craft fair at one of the National Trust events so I will let you all know how it goes, what works, and what doesn't. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm worried I won't sell anything. Still, you have to try these things.
I like the idea of a cross promo, though.Would be interested to hear how that works.

Paula

ps I dropped off for a bit last night to watch Property Ladder..it is a bit of an addiction !

I'm sure your stall will go down very well! I haven't got round to doing anything like that yet. One thing I would love to get your experience of is returns - do you get many and what do you think causes them? I've had a surprising amount, mainly caused by customers not appreciating the dimensions of bags, although getting better now I think because I've tweaked the website to remind customers to make sure they know exactly what they are buying.

The cross-promotion is easy - just find a retailer who is selling things that don't conflict with yours, and swap discount postcards to put in each other's parcels to customers. If you use Amazon you'll probably notice the Vistaprint cards they include in parcels - same principle.

Hi there,
I've had only one return so far, strangely enough it was for a tea cosy ! I sell a few bags myself, and as you say, I try to put in as much information as I can..materials, sizes etc so customer has as much information as possible. I'm sure now that you've tweaked things, the situation will improve.
I'd love to hear from you about what links you've found to be most effective.
Paula

One return is excellent! I've even had a couple of customers who've not told me they are returning a bag or why, and just posted it, which is a shame because I never got to hear why they didn't like it. Though I've got to say most of my customers are lovely - I've had some lovely comments from them about the site and the service.

I've got links all over the place! Some I've paid for (so that you don't have to put a link to them on your site) and some that are free. One that has really stood out for me has been http://www.020.co.uk/ They'll take your listing for free and I only found them by accident - submitted my site, and the next day a lady called me to offer me another free listing in one of the other categories and to tell me all about what traffic they get and advise me on what other categories to be in. Top service! No other directory has ever done that for me!
www.freeindex.co.uk is also very good - if you link to them, you can have an enhanced listing and it gives you a whole page to showcase your site, your products etc.