Growing Your Business

Running our own business has had many ups and downs. Through many of the trials I wish there had been some sort of guide for running a small online business. I did purchase many books, but none of them helped. Sure, in some areas they were good, but in other - important areas - they fell flat.

When I have the time I will share some of my experiences and hope they will benefit some of the readers of Cerean.

Thanks,

Mindy

NEW > Display Racks - Before I opened my brick and mortar store I had to get many incidental items. Counter displays and other display racks were things I needed, but didn't even know what to call them. I searched around online and found there was an entire display rack industry. Who knew? Anyhow, after doing some research I choose to buy my counter display racks from Marvolus out of Chicago. They had what I needed and have been in business forever - just in case I had problems. What problems I could have wire a wire display rack I didn't know, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

For holding nursing bras, Micro Steam Bags and other packaged items I ended up using several of the 3-Step Shelf Displays and for smaller or loose items I used the 3 shelf counter rack. These racks worked great for any of my counter level shelving. I had pumps displayed on shelves and on an island in the center of the store floor. I purchased my display shelves from basisdesign.com I was able to get some real cool displays at discount prices.

Fulfilling Orders

Order Fulfillment Companies - I wish I had known about fulfillment companies when I was shipping a lot of products. As a lactation consultant, I ran my own small business, but I never had to ship products to customers across the country. Suddenly, I was packing and shipping 5, 10 or even 20 orders each day. It was great money, but the workload was too much for me. One day, I just shut the entire process down. I closed the websites, stopped all Ads and that was it.

If I had been alert to Fulfillment companies I think I would still be running that online business.