Knitting a Website

Wouldn't it be great if you could knit a website? There'd be so many advantages - just pick the pattern you want "I'll have the jewellery store one please", select your wool "Hmmm, I think the rainbow with silver streaks would look nice", then go home and relax in your favourite chair and knit while you watch tv.

Of course the techie geek people have made it too difficult to follow their pattern, even though they make out it's quite simple. And it is - if you only have a single product to upload, with a single description and a single photo. And you already know the best way to photograph your one and only product, use imaging software and describe your fabulous product in such an emotive way that people can't resist purchasing it.

Then there is the tiny matter of understanding how the website and shopping cart work together, where everything is kept in each - and actually finding these things, in the construction end of your website, for a second (and third) time. A complicated fair isle is much easier.

You may have guessed by now that MinzBeadz was not actually knitted or constructed overnight. In fact it took a whole lot of overnights to get it to the point it could safely show it's pretty little face in public.

Figuring out how to insert products into my new website was relatively simple, but I have to admit that I've never really gotten the hang of Photoshop and prefer an old freeware program called PhotoFiltre - it's sort of like Photoshop for complete and utter dummies (as opposed to your regular dummies). Which means fewer bells and whistles and more of your basic 'must have' items, like the little lasso thing that cuts around your image.

Somewhere around 2am on a night where I was going cross eyed and thought I was never going to finish getting everything ready, I did question the wisdom of starting a business with multiple teensy tiny products, said a small thank you to whoever invented the digital camera, and cursed whoever invented imaging software. The cutting out part (which I'm sure some lovely photographer type people will have a proper technical term for) is really really (and one more just to emphasise it) really time consuming. It was at this point that the brilliant idea of knitting my website occurred.

Knitting a website is quite easy

There are a lot of pros to doing this:

• I enjoy knitting
• Intricate patterns are easy with needles and wool, limited only by my imagination instead of handicapped by my lack of knowledge
• There are only two stitches to learn and remember, rather than three and a half million things, most of which I don't know the terminology for
• The wool industry in Australia would sing my praises

 Just imagine it, I could be the first non-designer person to be completely relaxed doing my own website.

Even after all the practice I've now had, achieving a pure white background in a photo has defeated me. No matter what type of lighting (front, back, sideways, and sticking my tongue out left then right whilst hopping on one foot) the background always ends up greyish. Like Grandpa's old white underwear that's been washed too many times without a good bleach.

Exactly, totally unattractive. Unattractive Grandpa underwear background thus equals cutting out of images with the miniature lasso.

At this point I was thinking how I might convert my new jewellery business to being a service business with no products at all (i.e. a website knitting business). In my sleep deprived state it seemed quite possible, however with each new day the fantastic and inventive ideas of how to do this taunted me, just out of reach of my almost conscious brain. Most frustrating.

Given that I had rather a lot of products at this point, I finally gave up trying to retrieve the ideas, tucked away behind what was needed at the supermarket, and how to whiten grey underwear, and stick to selling the jewels.

Welcome to my nightmare

And besides, I was beginning to have disturbing dreams of strange little baby lassos cutting out every dream image... chasing me... chasing me.... 

Needless to say (have you noticed how people say "needless to say" right before they say the very thing that is needless?), eventually the virtual shelves filled in my store, I was happy with the descriptions of each item and I could at least, at this point, tell a potential customer that of course I had a website. (Duh, just knitted one didn't I?)

Except that my terms and conditions, my return policy, my shipping policy, my information telling all about "us", and hey, Welcome You Managed to Find My Website! needed to be tweaked. So tweak I did, and twiddled and I think I may have twitched a bit too, if the truth be told. And now I could, at long last, begin my marketing campaign in earnest.

As to how the marketing plan has gone in real life, well... that's a story for next time.

No Hidden Costs - Arghhh

Many of you will have had a momentary shiver of apprehension at the title of this post, and some of you will run and hide. Personally, I get a little shaky when I see those words and feel like going as far away as possible, as fast as possible.

Whilst all the prelim stuff ("stuff" being a technical term for legal things) was being organised, I was doing research into building my own website (i.e. playing at being a web designer), who I might get to host it, and all the things that seemed to go along with that.

There are a lot of places where you can have fun building a website for free, so the 'research' was taking a while. What I discovered during that time was, when you see the words "no hidden costs", step away from your computer. Trust me, they're there. I saw this phrase so often that I began to look for it, just so I could begin the hunt for the 'no hidden costs'! Hmm, I might have spent more time on that than I possibly needed to, now that I think about it. But it seemed like a bit of a game at the time - "come out come out wherever you are".

Finally I came across a large, well known hosting company who, despite telling me they had no hidden costs, actually didn't seem to have any. I thought I must have missed them - so I looked again (not much of a fun game this time. I nearly went blind reading the terms and conditions twice, and dying of boredom seemed a distinct possibility).

All looks good - I can load my own website, register my domain name and it will be all systems go. So there I am, filling in yet another round of details (except this time I get to include my wonderful name where required). Excellent - two domain names now registered.

New form, select the hosting package I want - next screen, fill in payment details - next screen. Great, I'm at the confirm payment screen, and this has been sooo easy.


Hang on! What the hell's that? It looks like No Hidden Costs - on the last page, in tiny weeny font at the bottom, and not next to the confirm button where my eyes are naturally looking. Technically, I suppose it's not actually hidden, but...  

To say I wasn't thrilled with this would be an understatement. (I believe a rude word or two may have passed my lips!). To have a website hosted can be quite economical, until you want a shopping cart included - and then it just isn't. Every piece of information on this site up to this point had said that a shopping cart was included in the price. This final, last moment, sneaky sentence altered the hosting from "shopping cart included" and mere pocket money, to "shopping cart not included" get a second mortgage.

I have wondered since how many people got a very nasty surprise on their next credit card statement because they didn't actually see this "completely out in the open, totally transparent" No Hidden Cost.

So, back to the drawing board in the search for someone to play host to my fantastic, but as yet not built, site (I have a good imagination, that's how I know it was fantastic at this stage). And now I have the added pleasure of having to move my domain name away from the sneaky people to wherever I end up. Another thing to put on the to-do list. (The actual entry was: DNS thingies! Thingies is another technical term, like 'stuff' - you have to learn the lingo if you want to be in business).

Just as an aside, have you noticed when you start a business how the to-do list grows faster than the items being crossed off? That's when "make lunch" seems vitally important to put on the list, just for the sheer pleasure of being able to say "whew, one thing less to do now" as you put a lovely thick line through it.

Anyway, just about the time I decided that more big dollars were going to have to be spent (that cute little shopping cart was looking more like one with a wonky wheel), I found it. A hosting company that didn't mention the dreaded words, was reasonably priced, answered my emails quickly and - bonus - included a website in the price too. Call me suspicious, but until it was all done I was still waiting for the hidden costs to make an ugly appearance. I am pleased to report there weren't any, and my wonderful hosting company is Avant Marketing.

There has been only one annoying thing about finally unearthing Avant Marketing (although I suspect they didn't know they were buried anywhere), and that was discovering the price also included a free domain name, which of course I had already paid sneaky company to register. Rats!

Things moved rather quickly from this point onwards. As I had played at being a designer so much beforehand, I knew the basic "feel" I wanted for my website. Two weeks later, I was a business owner, with a Real Certificate and now a Real Website!

Point the dot com at the dot com dot au site, set up emails, photograph beads and charms and bracelets, cut out said photos with imaging software (right after learning how to actually do that), figure out how to get an actual product on the website, think up enticing descriptions for each product ...

But that's a story for next time.

Min

Owner
MinzBeadz
And you can Like MinzBeadz on Facebook too!

Choosing the Perfect Business Name - in 127 (or more) easy steps!

Choosing a name, registering it and getting an ABN is simple - or so you'd think.

First off - get the ABN. In Victoria, where I am, you can go to http://www.business.vic.gov.au and use a nifty little tool to check your eligibility. One of the first questions is "Have you started trading as an enterprise/business?". Well, no not yet (I figured the buying frenzy didn't actually qualify as trading). So, check the 'no' box...

The next page shows a list of activities that constitute trading (none of which have occurred at this stage). So, check the 'no' box... Response: "You are not entitled to be registered for an ABN". Well, that's a bit rude! 

In order to trade as a business you require an ABN, to get an ABN you need to be already trading as a business - which you're not allowed to do without an ABN. Dizzy yet? On reflection, this might have been the point I actually began to have a few disquieting thoughts about everything being a piece of cake. What to do? Alright, it's just a teensy little fib - check the 'yes' box. Woo hoo! The government likes me.

Second - register my business name. http://www.business.gov.au has links to each state or territory and is easy to follow. But hold on, you can't just willy nilly register your name, there are things to check first. Is it too similar to an existing business name? Is the domain name available? And what about trademarks - is my name the same as a registered trademark?

The choosing of a name took a very long time. What I discovered was, whilst lots of appropriate "bead" or "jewellery" names were available to register as my business name, I couldn't actually find a domain name to match. Someone had beaten me to them all! Really, it was sheer greed - didn't they know I might need just one of them? 

So, selecting a business name with matching domain name, that Google or Bing might like to pop into number one position, wasn't going exactly as I'd planned. And I still haven't got my name. And I still have to read up on trademarks...

For much of my life my nickname has been Min, so in a flash of inspiration (did I mention I have flashes of inspiration? You might recognise it as brilliance, but I'm quite modest so I'm sticking with inspiration), I decided on MinzBeadz. No business names like it (check), domain name available (check), anyone with the trademark (um, check?). Maybe I should get some help with this one.

Checking whether a trademark is available is not just a matter of someone else having the exact same name. You can step on someone's toes by having a similar name too. You are able to check trademarks yourself at IP Australia  however there are a number of companies around that will do the hard work for you (you need to suss them out carefully, as many just give you a 'yes' or 'no' with a comment along the lines of "call us to discuss" - as if I have time for someone else's sales pitch).

Best of all though, and highly important, (as much of my start up cash left my account rather hastily in my little shopping spree for stock), some of these companies will do it all for free! 

One of the nice things that I've found, since my whole new life began, is helpful people who don't seem to have an ulterior motive in helping. As a perfect example of this, for assistance with trademarks try Mark My Words Trademark Services - friendly, helpful and, most of all, speaking my language. As I'm not bilingual, speaking in English rather than Legalese is a necessity, and not feeling like a dodo, I find, is really good for the self esteem. Mark My Words Trademark Services will not only search to see if your name is ok to use as a trademark (for free), but can do all the registration part for you as well (unfortunately not for free).

But back to my wonderful name. As it turned out, no one except me wanted it, which is a little hard to understand given its greatness, and all seemed well in the mysterious world of trademarks.

Off to Consumer Affairs to register MinzBeadz which was quick and easy - big thumbs up to Consumer Affairs Victoria, and my beautiful and important looking Certificate of Registration arrived only a few days later in the mail.

Now I'm a real business, as opposed to a shopper gone mad. I know this because shoppers gone mad only have credit card statements and receipts, whereas I have A Certificate.

Proof I am absolutely not a mad shopper (oh, I added the gold star - I thought I deserved one)

All I have to do now is register my domain name, get a website (with one of those cute little shopping carts), and wait for the money to roll in. Of course, I will still be nice to the little people when I'm a gazillionaire (cut to scene: white sand, azure water glinting sunlight, hammock, palm trees, really cute bronzed waiter bearing cool drink with a little umbrella...)

But that's a story for next time (the website, not the cute bronzed waiter).

Min

Owner MinzBeadz
And you can Like MinzBeadz on Facebook too!