Life Changes- How I started an Online Business

In 1992 my husband decided that the newly liberated country of Poland offered wonderful opportunities for our family and took a job in Warsaw; the country that his parents had left during the last war.

It was pretty traumatic at first. I had left a comfortable job that I enjoyed, working as a Chartered Accountant at a small firm, and the two elder children were happy at school. All had seemed settled in our lives until then.

We stayed for eight years in Warsaw and it proved to be a richly rewarding period of our lives. The history of Poland was endlessly interesting and it was wonderful to watch a city and a people that were changing so rapidly from the depressing situation under communism to become vibrant and alive again.

Time brought us home to the UK and I decided that I would try to get back into my profession but it was not to be. I was now over 50 and had not worked for ten years – which was not a recipe for getting back rapidly into the job market. After writing many letters and making many phone calls it soon became apparent that I was no longer the desirable commodity that I had been in my earlier days and I was going to have to find some other form of employment. I then also found that I was not going to be able to get any other more routine administrative or accounting job as I was considered over-qualified. The stark truth was that the only person who would employ me was me and I was forced to start thinking of what I could possibly do for myself.

It was just after Christmas 2004 and there had been a lot in the press about the success of online firms and I thought that that was something I might be able to do. I felt comfortable with computers; although I knew that I would need to improve my skills, and although I had never felt I wanted to run a conventional shop the idea of a virtual one appealed to me.

My mother had recently died and she had always passed onto me beautiful nightwear which she didn’t need. She was an enthusiastic shopper of lovely things who would quite often buy two of something at a time! She was always beautifully dressed and had always been an inspiration. I needed to replace a dressing gown and started to search but found that I just couldn’t find anything that was what I was looking for; something in a high quality fabric, a good colour and with stylish design. Most of what I found aimed at my age group seemed to be frumpy and in cheap, unpleasant fabrics and colours. I decided that I would research to see if somewhere there was what I was looking for and perhaps also what other people might be searching for.

I knew that after London, the obvious place was Paris and of course there I found what I was looking for in abundance in all the top department stores. The French stores stocked beautiful nightwear and robes for all ages whereas in London it seemed as if many have given up on the mature market completely and only sell goods aimed at a younger age group.

It didn’t take long to settle on the brands that I wanted to stock; I tried to get together a range to cover most tastes for the over thirties age group. I found fantastic silk nightwear from Italy, beautiful unusual kimono robes from Paris, gorgeous mules and lots of beautiful, high quality classic nightwear. I decided to call the business, Pink Camellia, in honour of my mother and after the beautiful plants I had inherited from her garden.

Originally I had planned to start the business on a shoestring. I would design the website myself and take the photographs for it. After doing courses on these subjects at the local college it soon became apparent that there was no way I was going to be able to do either of these things to the professional standard that was required. I did many courses at the local college including several run by Learn Direct which were extremely useful. There were so many subjects on which I was almost completely ignorant and Learn Direct seemed to offer a course on almost all of them; there was even one about how to start up an ecommerce business-perfect.

I would be selling luxury products so everything had to be absolutely of the highest standard. I was lucky in managing to find great people for everything from website design, photography, printing and even the models.

It took me nine frantic months to go from the original idea to get to the website going live on 1st October 2005 and of course there were the hiccups along the way.  By far the worst of which when my major supplier was sold and the new owners refused to sell to an online business. I had to search frantically to find another supplier and fortunately found one that accepted that it was perfectly possible to sell upmarket goods on the internet.

I think one of the most exciting moments of my life was when someone rang to place the first order and that was followed by the huge thrill of the first website order.

However the orders were not coming in thick and fast which was obviously because no one knew I was there! I was still learning about Google and pay per click and also about PR. By the time the end of November came I was getting desperate; I was not getting any press coverage and very few orders were coming in. In desperation I rented a mailing list and sent out 3000 brochures and decided that I would have to spend money on advertising.

On the first of December everything changed when orders started coming in at last and the period up to Christmas was wonderful;  being busy taking orders, gift wrapping and sending out parcels. It was with some trepidation that the New Year arrived as I was concerned about the level of returns that I would get. There were very few! I was greatly reassured that women were actually happy with their gifts.

I have been kept very busy this year building on the success at Christmas and the time has been full of new experiences. At the age of 51 I was modelling the collection at a Charity fashion show, appearing in the press and exhibiting at large consumer fairs in London and Glasgow. I also started to discover networking, attending business seminars and the sheer fun of feeling part of the working population again.

The first anniversary of my very first order has brought the inauguration of my own label pieces- an unthinkable dream when I began! One of Pink Camellia’s most popular ranges have been luxury bed jackets for which there seems to be a demand but not much of a supply.  I have found a family firm in Nottingham to make beautiful lacy bed jackets and stoles in cashmere and wool in designs for the 21st century; they are carrying on a four hundred year old framework knitting tradition of which they are the sole survivors in what was once a very thriving cottage industry there.

The business has its ups and down and of course I have made mistakes and sometimes it is grey outside and difficult to keep up the motivation but I have huge plans for Pink Camellia and just keep going trying to get new ideas all the time. I offer a personal service and am happy to offer any advice or help and my aim is to develop the business to become the perfect choice for anyone looking for nightwear that is that bit better and different. The internet shopping market is growing hugely all the time as we all discover the pleasure of being able to choose and order items from the comfort of home rather than wrestling the problems of parking and shopping, particularly at Christmas time.

So far it has been a wonderful experience which has certainly given me the opportunity to try something that I have always wanted to do- run my own business.