what a weekend! or oh how the mighty fall, or something...

Ugh! What can I say?

Friday 13th. I guess it's more bad judgement than bad luck that the lights inside the car were left switched on overnight, meaning my battery was flat when I came to set off. And more bad judgement that I took a wrong turn, and instead of just turning round (which I couldn't do to start with as it was a dual carriageway and no way to cross it) I thought 'there will be a way to get across to the other road.' Well, there wasn't. And somehow I ended up going the whole way round Derby ring road again before coming back to the roundabout. So it wasn't bad luck at all that meant I was setting up for a couple of hours after the show opened :-|

It was definitely bad judgement, but not mine, that chose a venue for a show that only had enough parking for the stallholders and not for customers. That was hard to find, badly publicised and badly set up.

I don't know if I'll do any more shows, and if I do I'll have to do a reccie of the venue first. And I just can't help thinking I could do better myself. But do people really want to go to these things? I'd love to know...

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! I hope today brings the promise of Springtime new beginnings :-)

I'm up at ridiculous o'clock due to my youngest taking herself up to bed for a nap at 7pm, we hadn't even had tea. And while I have lots of jobs to do, sometimes things take a bit more concentration than listening to Dora the Explorer at 2am will allow. Like comparing types of cloth nappy to decide what a realistic and sufficiently profitable RRP would be on the products one can import. Or writing an email in html to send out to previous customers. Blogging doesn't need quite that level of concentration :-)

The email is a bit of a summing-up of news, I'll put the link here when I can get it finished and uploaded. I hope it doesn't annoy anyone, when I haven't had an opt-in-or-out for a newsletter in the past. The setting of RRPs is so that I can distribute a wholesale price-list, which was the point of registering for VAT. I mean, it's pointless and actually could be expensive if it doesn't increase sales.

Another string to my bow will be setting up some local demonstration sessions. This should have been an integral part of the business from the beginning, and any new sling and natural-baby-care retailer really needs to figure out their niche and local interest, because generally-speaking, people like to see how things work and what they look like, especially when the type of product is unfamiliar. The people who know about slings and are confident with the internet already know what they're looking for and how to find it, but there aren't that many of those, and there are increasing numbers of retailers competing for that relatively small customer-pool.

Anyway, enjoy your day, chocolate-loaded or not *grin*

Happy Easter!

a movin' and a shakin'

We had a busy week on the admin side of things last week, a new bank account, working on a merchant account and chip and pin machine, ordered some new accounting software and registered for VAT. The latter meant that this weekend we did a complete stock-take, during which I found something I knew was around here somewhere (the pinks and purples longies found here) and I appear to have misplaced some potties. Most disconcerting.

Registering for VAT also means that it will be easier to market my wholesale items to other businesses. So watch out, I may be spamming your inbox soon, lol.