Gina Krupski, founder of Pink Camellia
The online world is a very different place from five years ago when I launched my luxury nightwear business www.pinkcamellia.com. But how I wish I had known at the beginning what I've learnt the hard way along the road...
Back in 2005 online shopping was really just starting to take off and was a novelty for people in the UK that most were still wary of.
I was into my fifties and desperately looking for a career change from full time mother. A qualified Chartered Accountant who discovered that after 10 years abroad as a trailing spouse in Poland & Japan she was far from a desirable commodity.
The world moves on and I found to my cost that time out of the professional world is really the career kiss of death. No one was remotely interested in someone of my age as a part time employee- quite a shock for someone who had always been in demand before.
What to do? I rather fancied the idea of an online shop, the bricks & mortar variety having no appeal whatever. I could run the business from home & combine it with coping with the demands of a family life with three teenagers.
I had always loved the beautiful nightwear & dressing gowns that my mother had worn but found trying to replace one that she had given me was impossible. Everything seemed to be in cheap & nasty fabrics & designs and as for what was available for the, um, older person- well forget it! Where were these lovely things hiding? Surely they must be somewhere?
A trip to London was swiftly followed by one to Paris & it was there that I found a nightwear paradise. Shops with huge nightwear departments selling beautiful things- something almost impossible to find here in the UK.
I quickly fell in love with some wonderful brands and the adventure really started to take off. Not surprisingly a Google search identified a web site designer who couldn't have been more helpful and who is still the bedrock of the business now.
What to call it? That was easy- my wonderful mother had recently died & left me the contents of her beautiful garden including a stunning pink camellia. As you can imagine this is lovingly tended & flourishing!
It was a very rewarding but challenging nine months to the birth of www.pinkcamellia.com on 1 October 2005. Nowadays small businesses have a much higher profile, our economy depends on them, and there is so much help and advice easily available. In those days it was difficult even to know where to start looking.
Photographer, models, website design, marketing- all completely alien worlds to a Chartered Accountant but what an exciting time I've had exploring different worlds.
Starting up a new business is always traumatic- will anybody like what you're doing-enough to buy something? After a couple of anxious months when nothing much seemed to happen the Christmas shopping season started & sales took off- what a relief that was!
Over the years we've taken on more wonderful brands & now even have our own Pink Camellia label ballet wrap bed jackets knitted for us here in the UK. Bed jackets are such a useful item with pretty ones almost impossible to find and having our own label is truly thrilling.
Competition on the web has increased out of all recognition over the five years and maintaining those vital high Google rankings is just as important as ever and even harder to do these days.
Luxury nightwear is still very much a niche market in the UK with the nightwear market here, unlike the rest of Europe, being totally dominated by the own label brands such as M & S. Awareness and interest is growing, despite the tough economic times, and of course the last two very cold winters have been a boon to all nightwear suppliers.
I've learnt so much over the last five years about running a small business. My daughter has started her own London based catering company, Capital Cooking, and I've been able to point her in the right direction for advice as well as warn her about some of the traps for the unwary. It's so easy to overspend when you start out and there are plenty of people out there who'll be only too happy to relieve you of some of your precious capital.
Joining women's networking groups & meeting other women with their own ventures has been a huge plus-having that support and help has been vital- particularly on those frequent cold & grey days.
I've loved it all - I adore everything we sell which is only absolutely the best in terms of quality, fabrics & designs but particularly I love dealing with customers. Providing a personal service which often means we can track down something a customer has been looking for without success.
Best of all is that wonderful feeling of waking up in the morning- knowing that you can do whatever you want to that day. That the success of your business depends entirely on your own efforts and of course that your home office is only a few steps way with no need to get out of those oh so comfortable pjs & dressing gown...
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