Featured Tradespacer: Boxy Lady

Lynne Hatton, 52, from Callington in Cornwall, set up her crafts business, Boxy Lady, in 2000. She originally decorated blank boxes with decoupage, which is the art of gluing on coloured paper cutouts, and using paints and gold leaf. She sold them at her local market but soon realised that it would be better – and cheaper – to buy in bulk and offer blank boxes to customers who want to try decoupage themselves. She took the idea a step further and put her business online. ‘I thought a website was the ideal way to help other crafters get the boxes,’ she explains. Making the business mail order means she no longer faces the early mornings on Tavistock Pannier market.

Lynne’s son, Ian, 23, is a computer studies graduate and helped her build the Boxy Lady website. To generate further sales, Lynne signed up to BT Tradespace in 2007. This year, Boxy Lady has already experienced a significant increase in traffic and sales.

‘I think customers are becoming much more confident with web purchases, and using the web to find what they’re looking for,’ says Lynne, who has added PayPal to the site, a secure payment system that allows customers to buy products more safely and easily online.

‘Our biggest challenge is to reach the widest audience possible, but in a cost-effective way,’ says Lynne. ‘Keeping up with technology and looking for new ways to reach our customers is very important, and a continual challenge.’
Lynne says she finds BT Tradespace very easy to use. ‘It was very simple to upload all my business information when I first joined. I like the fact that I can share my crafts expertise while selling my creations at the same time. I can also tell a new audience about decoupage and other ways to decorate, and also offer some new ideas on using the products.’

Lynne’s also discovered the benefits of blogging. ‘It’s a great way to get new people interested in my products – particularly at peak selling times like Christmas,’ she explains. ‘As and when I have something new to say, I can change the products to suit the seasons. It’s very flexible. For example, I’ve just put an idea on the site to help keep kids busy during the summer holidays – it’s to make a memory box, to collect treasures from walks or outings. It will be handy for that classic back-to-school essay “What did you do in the holidays”, too.’

Lynne’s quick to recommend BT Tradespace as a useful start-up tool: ‘I’d recommend BT Tradespace particularly for a business with no website – it would be a great way to get started. Also for any small business like me, it provides a really cost-effective way to reach new customers.’

http://boxylady.bttradespace.com