Good but tiring week
So… by mid January we should have a prototype of the personalised reflective bag covers for cyclists made up by Stratford Workwear Ltd.
I’ve put a couple of products on Ebay to test the waters - no interest as yet on the eco shower head. I need to look again at how well the product is described - it makes such a difference - such as with Onya - the words ‘christmas present/gift’ and ‘eco friendly’ are important - and handbags are a popular category - there’s quite a lot of helpful info available with a service called EbayPop. Well, lots of learning done this week! It’s possible to look at what words are popular using a Yahoo service.
The 500 year vision website is beginning to take shape. Mike has been brilliant at doing bits - he did a couple of mock ups for me while we were watching School of Rock last night - or rather listening while we both worked away on our laptops! We’d gone out for a drink earlier - so it wasn’t a completely sad Friday night! Anyway, after he’d done the mock up I began thinking about exactly what I need from the site for the time being.
I have a plan… I saw a web site a few months ago where someone was learning Czech - each day they would put on a new cartoon drawing with a word. It was a nice, clean and simple style - and very visual. I want a similar style for www.500yearvision.com - with the first page you see looking like a naive style street scene - including an eco shop, a bog standard unit and typical users such as a wheelchair user, cyclist and a (unisex) parent with a child in a push chair. When your cursor goes over the bog or characters there will be a bit of an explanation about bog. If you hover over the eco shop you will be invited to click through to the 500 year vision eco shop. In the eco shop I hope to be able to sell all of the components which will go into a bog standard unit - meaning that anyone could build one themselves if they wanted to take up the challenge.
I really love the artwork that is used in Cafe Rouge - naive art by someone called Lucy. I’ll do some research to see what I can find out about it. Maybe we could do a basic version of the 500 year vision site with my cartoons - really to express exactly how it’s going to work rather than a pristine finish - and then get a professional artist to do the cartoons for us once we can afford it. The Lucy idea is roughly based on a marketing campaign I put together for Sage in Moseley - though they didn’t get to see it in the end!
Several times this week I’ve got back into flow - where you forget to drink, eat or even go to the loo because you’re so into what you’re doing. I was exhausted by mid way through this afternoon. I’d been up since 5.30 buzzing with ideas, and preparing for the Moseley Bazaar which Lisa ran today. They did a really good job, and even though there were less than a hundred people through during the day - I still sold 14 Onya bags - which means that I’ve now paid for the stock I bought.
Mike also took some pics for me to use on the 500 year vision Ebay shop. I’d finally managed to get 5 bits of feedback for (random!) items sold - hence I am able to list things for a fixed price, hence I am able to list Onya bags. Everything was ready for the listing to go on as soon as the feedback was scored & the product had been bought by 11.30 this morning.
Progress with Amazon - there seems to be no way round needing an EAN code in order to list products on Amazon. I phoned them up and explained that I’d only opened the pro seller account in order to list a particular item - and on finding out I could only do it with an EAN code - was unable to use the account. They’ve offered me a refund - which is great - especially for a business that didn’t yet have any turnover. Very, very good customer service.
So - tomorrow, while Mike is out with his family I’m going to do some work on the web site - drawing and scanning cartoon images. On Monday I need to reorder Onya bags, and talk to the eco shower people to see if I can represent their products.
