Wow!! It’s been about 5 months since I last updated my blog (very naughty of me).  So, what’s been happening in those 5 months. Well, it has certainly been eventful.  I had some personal issues which made me lose focus for a few months.  My marriage of 20 years ran into some serious trouble earlier on in the year.  Thankfully, everything has now been resolved and both hubby and I are happy again.

So, 2009 the year of the big credit crunch and recession, how has it affected everybody else.  Well, for me, web sales have been down on last year.  You may remember that I stopped selling on eBay at the start of the year and boy did that impact on my sales.  I thought that maybe more people would return to buy from my main site, nope.  Seems that people just love buying on eBay.  So I’ve decided to return to eBay for 2010.  I tried using the few new handmade crafting online sites but they didn’t generate in many sales.  Then again I didn’t really promote the sites too much.  I was trying to use them more as a marketing tool to help drive sales to my site.

2009 saw me do lots of public events – pamper nights, school fetes, fundraising events, etc.  They were all a bit hit and miss.  The most disappointing were the school fetes.  Most of the time I did make my table money back, but after petrol costs, and time, there was very little profit (if any).  Again the main idea was to get my name out there and hopefully start generating more web sales. But that didn’t really work too well. I have only had a couple of people ring me up from these events with repeat orders.

The pamper evenings started up very well and I did think that I had found a couple of good regularly attended events.  However, the last couple of months, at a time when candle sales really start to take off, mine just took a nosedive.  Whether it was because people started to get used to me being there and thought to themselves that they’d purchase next time, I really can’t say.  I guess maybe customer complacency set in.  All in all I think 2009 was just a bit of a poor year for me, as I think it was for many retailers.  Hopefully 2010 may bring some economic recovery that we can all benefit from.

2010 plans? Well, as I previously stated, I will return to sell on eBay.  I’m not too sure of the handmade craft sites. I will be reviewing them over the Christmas/New Year break. I’m going to concentrate more on generating online sales and using various methods to drive traffic to my site.  Public events will be scrutinised more closely, I think I need to be more selective in the types of events I do.  School fetes, unless they’re church schools or extremely popular schools, are very poorly attended by the parents, which is such a shame. Craft events will have to be very heavily advertised or be long established ones. The same with charity events.  It sounds harsh, but there is nothing worse than setting up and just sitting/standing at your stall for 6 hours and have very few people stop by.  I think we’ve all been there, you feel like it’s been a waste of your time, especially if you could have been getting on with some other productive aspect of your business.

So, for the moment, I’ve closed my website to orders until 15 January 2010.  This should give me enough time to sort out my stock, raw materials and pricing.  With VAT rising back to 17.5% the cost of my raw goods will increase so this will force me to review my prices.  I can’t see them going down, unfortunately.  I may be able to keep some prices the same, but I feel that on the whole they will be going up.  I will be revamping my line and my image, give it all a bit of a makeover.  Some of my fragrances will be also be renamed in the hope that they will sell better.

I am currently working on new fragrances for the coming spring. More home fragrancing items will be making an appearance during 2010 too.  Other ideas in the pipeline include wholesale orders and a regular quarterly newsletter, along with special incentives to persuade customers who order from eBay or crafty sites to re-order from my main site. I’ll also be using the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter more, to try to raise awareness of Cosy Candles & Aromas.

Well, that’s enough chatter for now.  I’ve got plenty of ideas and research to keep me busy over the next few weeks.  All that’s left to say is to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. For those who don’t celebrate, enjoy the day getting together with family and friends or just chilling out.  I hope that the New Year will bring everyone good health, prosperity and happiness.

See you all in 2010!!!!!

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