Archive for the ‘Small business journal’ Category
Christmas in August!
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
Difficult to get my head around, but I have been sitting at my computer all evening uploading Christmas stock (mainly advent calendars) onto the Orchardcards.co.uk website. All the seasonal stock is arriving this month, and the stock room is in chaos. It’s exciting though, because we actually chose this stock in March, and as we unpack I remember how many lovely new designs there are.
We need to process all the new stock as soon as possible, as we always try to get a few products featured in the glossy magazines and, believe it or not, they require images for their November issues now.
Exciting plans
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
Our year, at Orchardcards.co.uk, goes like this: September to December are, predictably, our busiest selling months. We concentrate only on customer service and work very hard to get the orders out. After a brief lull over Christmas and the New Year, we then spend the period between January and April restocking our ranges of greetings cards. This involves visiting trade fairs for novel ideas, uploading the new designs to the websites, and topping up our stocks of the old favourites. Then, finally, at this time of year (late spring and summer) we are able to devote some time to improving the website and developing new business ideas. We had a very exciting meeting with our webmaster, Clear Design, yesterday and have begun the process of, amongst other things, designing a new customer loyalty system for Orchardcards.co.uk. We hope to have it in place by the autumn.
Cheeky freeloaders
Saturday, May 15th, 2010
We’ve received three emails this week from a Mrs F.H. of Sunderland. She is not a customer. We’ve never previously heard of her, let alone received any payment or sent goods to her name or address.
In her first message, she complains that she returned some faulty cards to us four months ago, and that we have not responded. She requests replacements. We haven’t received any such returns, and we know she has never purchased anything from us. So I respond, politely wondering whether she’s muddled us up with another company, or if she has made a mistake in her name or address as we can’t find her in our records.
She promptly emails back, sounding aggrieved. She tells me she has made no mistakes and that she has “proofs of posting” to our address for the alleged returned cards and some “follow up letters”. I explain again that we have never received any such correspondence and that I should know because I open the post! I point out that she will be able to use the “proofs of posting” to claim from the Royal Mail if items have been lost. I ask her again for any information she can give to help us trace her original purchase, and believe that this is the last we will hear from her.
But I am wrong. Her final message is worded as follows (spelling and punctuation as it appears in the original email): “with you’s being the manufactures nd your name on the cards hence why I returned to your company. I do hope something can be sorted as feel I have lost out.”
Checkmate! I write back explaining that we do not manufacture any cards, and that our name is not printed on the back of any stock. She has not replied.
I guess these people trade on the fact that some companies feel it’s easier to send what is requested rather than stand their ground, but essentially it’s just deceitful isn’t it?
April trading a little quiet
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Since starting trading in April 2006, we seem to have weathered the financial ups and downs. Perhaps we are small enough to travel under the economic radar? Suddenly, however, this April was really quiet, and we experienced only a few percentage points year-on-year growth, after months of continuous and significant improvement. It was worrying, because we are only just reaching profitability, but I’m glad to say that things picked up towards the end of the month and we anticipate a better May. Maybe everyone was, quite rightly, simply enjoying the sunny Easter weather outside rather than shopping online?
2010 Budget worries
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
We know the country must repay billions in debt and at Orchardcards, as a retail business, our biggest concern is that VAT will be increased from the current rate of 17.5%. This would be unpopular just before a General Election, but if it isn’t announced by the Chancellor tomorrow, I guess it is still a strong contender for any Budget announced by a new government later in the spring.
The Daily Mail came to interview me about this today, and Orchardcards.co.uk is featured as a case studay at the bottom of this article What will the Budget mean for your family
Beware! Glitches with new Mastercard Debit Card
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Mastercard have recently launched a new debit card to replace or run alongside the existing Maestro/Switch system.
However we think that there has been some confusion amongst commercial payment systems about exactly what type of card this is. Although it is actually a true debit card, we believe that Paypal are sometimes treating it as a foreign payment card, and that other organisations are treating it as a credit card, and as a result cardholders are suffering bank charges.
If you have one of these new Mastercard Debit Cards, and think you have found one or more of these inaccurate charges on your bank statement, we advise you to contact your bank for a refund. We also advise you to change the payment card associated with your Paypal account back to a Maestro card, Visa Debit card or credit card for the time being.