Welcome to both our new blog (our first ever blog) and our new website! We hope you enjoy browsing the site and that as we progress with the blog it can be an informative experience. Reading back on the post below this first post may be a bit rambling, however, this is the story of our evolution. We promise future posts will be far more concise.
When we were locked down, back in March for the first time, we suddenly had time to take a proper look at the future business. We had been involved in quite a traditional business for nearly 40 years and we thought that we had been progressing with the times just fine.
In 2008, we launched our first website. It was quite basic in comparison to what we have now. However, at the time it was a huge development for us. At that time we were still using handwritten receipt books and our till was inside an antique mahogany bureau. The website, designed by ourselves, was really just a profile of the business with a handful of product pictures. But this was relatively early in the days of online trade, especially for Ireland.
Following this we started up our Facebook page, which was followed a few years later by an Instagram page. Now all of a sudden mobile phones were overtaking PCs as the primary way to view the Internet. At this point we realised that our in-house website wasn't quite going to cut it. We needed something which was mobile responsive, but also we now knew that it needed to be a little more than a directory.
At this point, in 2015, we were contacted by Paul Feeney from Businessmantotherescue.com , who was based in Cork at the time but is currently working from Westport Co.Mayo, he was growing his website build portfolio and made us a very competitive offer. At this point our directory website suddenly turned into a beautiful responsive brochure website, with different product pages and collections.
Very quickly we began to see enquiries coming in from people who had found our website and saw something which they liked. Every year we saw more and more people coming through the door looking to try on a piece of jewellery which was on the site. Many of these people said that even though they had walked past the shop for years they had never actually seen what we had to offer.
We were blown away by the response which we were getting from people. Especially considering a lot of the product photography was being done using a homemade light box and entry level digital camera. Being a small family run business, we don't have the same resources as the bigger companies to employ photographers so it means we have to get stuck in ourselves. But we appeared to be doing OK, people liked what they saw.
Then, in November 2017 we were approached by Aidan Geraghty (an Offaly man) of videotree.ie in Dublin. Aidan specialised in video making and marketing for the jewellery business and was in Cork shooting. He passed by and offered to do a short video for our social media. We had quick discussion amongst ourselves and decided that it was a no brainer. Everything we had done online to this point had been successful and we felt it would be nice to have someone create professional content for us for once. He advised us on the stylised shots which would look well and executed a beautiful shoot in a very efficient manner. He also guided on the best way to promote the video. That Christmas we had a huge amount of compliments after the video launched and more new customers began to discover our store.
We were now beginning to really see the power and influence of having an online presence. Even though we weren't trading online it was bringing customers in the door. We invested in better photography equipment, although we were still doing it ourselves and our social media began to really gain traction. It was then that we began to think about whether we could start selling online. The Local Enterprise Office had a Trading Online Voucher available to support the development of an eCommerce website, so we decided to explore the idea of it. However, after sitting in on the TOV seminar we were a little intimidated about making the jump to eCommerce.
Over the next two years we attended a few seminars run by the LEO on online trading, listening to people like retail expert James Burke, formerly of SuperQuinn, and Jean McCabe from Willow in Galway & Ennis who were flourishing online. We knew there was an opportunity there, however, we didn't think our little traditional bricks and mortar jewellery business could compete with the large retailers online. Then we were approached by Lawrence Owens, the director of the Cork Business Association.
Lawrence had been in talks with Paul McGuirk from the LEO and they were looking for businesses that could be encouraged to take up the TOV, because at this point in 2019 it was quite an underutilised offering. Both Paul & Lawrence knew that in order for the local businesses in Cork to be future proofed online needed to be a part of this. Following a meeting with Paul & Lawrence we agreed that we would undertake this project and take a leap out of our comfort zone. However, it was now approaching Christmas and we knew that we would not have the time to think about it until January. Following a busy Christmas period we were shattered and it took awhile for us to start back into the website planning, we did have a meeting with retail expert James Burke to seek his advice on what way to proceed.
James, originally from Bantry, is a big hitter when it comes to retail advice. He has been involved in the industry for decades and learned the ropes from one of Irish retails greats, Feargal Quinn. We had dealt with James previously during our training for the Cork City Customer Service Charter and found him to be very friendly and easy to deal with. After our consultation with him we decided we needed to assess the store as a whole and see what direction our online presence should take. When James left the store we were energised to take on this task, but very shortly after the world was thrown into turmoil.
March 2020, Covid19 brought Ireland & the world to a standstill. Our doors were closed, we couldn't leave the house. While many worked from home all we could do was look at our accounts to see how to reduce our outgoings before our business ran out of cash. We had nothing coming in and we didn't know how we would survive. At first we buried our head in the sand, there was an air of depression, what was going to happen? For nearly 40 years we had gone from strength to strength and suddenly we were in free fall. Then once again the LEO & CBA stepped in.
They ran countless webinars advising local businesses of how to survive the closure and to come back stronger than ever. But the one thing they kept advising was about trading online. Those stores who had an eCommerce side had closed their physical doors but they were now pushing their online offering harder than ever. And we could all see it as the couriers and AnPost were the only vehicles on the move for months. Then Aidan made contact with us.
Aidan was no longer able to get out and about shooting videos, but he had run a few online webinars giving videography advice for DIY shooting which we found incredibly helpful. Then he mentioned to us that he was actually designing websites for a number of other jewellers, which we hadn't realised was an offering his business had. After having a chat with him over Zoom we now knew that we had a developer who was going to be perfect for the job.
Aidan understood the jewellery industry because he had been dealing with it for years. And more importantly, he was a tech guy who could speak in a language that you could understand, which is always helpful when you're taking on a technical project. Not only that but he also had his own website giftsofireland.com so he knew exactly what was needed because he was a retailer himself. After securing the TOV from the LEO we paid our deposit with Aidan and made the leap towards the world of eCommerce.
When you think about getting in a web developer some might think you pay the money and you can sit back and just wait for the end product, but it isn't so simple. Especially not in our business, when you have a few thousand unique and changing products. This was going to be the real challenge, we now needed high quality imagery for anything that was going to the site, but more than that, each product needed a description. This process took a bit longer than we had expected.
Trying to find the time, when you've just reopened your doors and are trying to get other aspects of the business back on it's feet, proved very tricky. However, after a few months of late evenings and early mornings we were nearly there. Just starting to finalise the site and next thing Micheal Martin stands before the country to announce another lock-down. This time though we knew what to expect. We needed to make a big push to tie up the loose ends with the website and started to fill in the gaps in the products. Taking photos, writing descriptions and testing the site with Aidan. We were ready to tackle it, but then we had another curveball thrown at us on Tuesday 20th October when a storm surge brought floodwaters in our door. But we battled on and decided we couldn't stop now and finally, with a small bit of sleep deprivation we've arrived at the point where we're ready.
On the 1st of November 2020 the site finished moving across from the old site and is live for taking orders. We can now open our doors again to the public, even though they may be digital doors. I'm sure there may be teething issues as we get used to the new side of our business, but we're live, we're open and we're ready to embrace the future of retail.
