I decided to start up a home based online web business to provide an income to cover school fees. Being a mum at home and looking after 2 small children means that during the day, while they are at school I have a few hours that can be used to work.  Trying to get a part time job proved difficult.  I want to be around for my children, to take them to school and to pick them up at the end of the day and be there when they are not well.  A home based part time business seemed the ideal opportunity and would fit in around my available time.

I decided to start a business that I had hands on experience of at home.  Initially the plan was to create some really lovely gift sets for newly arrived little ones.  I wanted to make it easy to do, providing gifts, cards and matching gifts for siblings too.  I am now working on including pampering items, hampers and furniture all for new mums and babies.  

I will be offering a wide variety of products, some handmade and sourced locally in the UK, some specifically hand crafted and made to order for us in California, others being more unusual items from around the world.  I am also starting to attend trade shows and am continually on the look out for different products.  Where I can support fair-trade and organic produce I will do.  I am also conscious of the volume of unnecessary packaging and aim to manage this well. 

So where am I now?  Well, it is 8 weeks since the idea was born.  I have set up the company, written a business plan, sourced some suppliers and investigated various options for setting up the website.  We decided on using a web design company and a well know product for E commerce called Actinic to build the site with us managing the day to day running of it with product uploads etc.  This is an ongoing process but we expect to go live in another 2 weeks.  Our focus will move to considering various marketing initiatives.  We have a number of interesting opportunities and ideas and can’t wait to pursue them!

Top 2 tips:

• Select easy to use Ecommerce shopping cart software
• Just do it!  Taking the first step is the hardest part.
• Enthusiasm for your business is catching!

Using Actinic as the shopping cart and this has been very straightforward and easy to use, we are also using the shared SSL service which all equates to one less worry when starting up as it deals with the security, which is very important when gaining confidence.  I would definitely recommend starting a business as it certainly engages your brain and very rewarding.

Please feel to visit us at www.4little1s.com.  We would love to hear from you!