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Notes from Australia
Avoid ‘saving money’ content if you want higher-end clients
September 27, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
How do you position your ecommerce products and services? Are your items, on average, more expensive than your competitors? Do you offer high-end, custom products that shoppers can’t find elsewhere? Or ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
New subcategories increase sales and signups
August 30, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Ecommerce sites typically launch with a modest product range and, potentially, category names that will become redundant as the business grows. I launched My Wedding Décor over two years ago with ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Pros and cons of running 2 businesses
July 30, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
I launched My Event Décor in January 2017 to sell products to corporate event designers and marketing managers. My Wedding Décor, which I started in April 2015, targets couples, wedding planners, and stylists. I ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
What I’ve learnt from millennials and baby boomers
June 24, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
In the past nine months, I’ve had three event-management interns — two millennials (the generation born 1981-2000) and a baby boomer (those born 1946-1964) — work with me at My ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Preparing to exhibit at a wedding expo
April 25, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Décor will soon exhibit at One Fine Day Wedding Fair in Melbourne, Australia. One Fine Day has been running high-end wedding fairs in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Deleting slow-moving inventory
March 27, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Décor will celebrate its second birthday next month. When the website launched in April 2015, it began with 80 products, which had grown to almost 500 products at the ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
The challenge of setting up a second website
January 28, 2017 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
There must be many businesses that launch with a specific customer target market in mind, and then receive orders from quite different groups. When I launched My Wedding Décor in April ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
For 2017: Better marketing, better products, better automation
December 30, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
I have been using the holidays to plan a three-point strategy for 2017. Create better targeted marketing. Fine-tune my product range and pricing for better profitability. Streamline customer service with automated emails where ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
How long to wait for a return on investment?
November 29, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
One of the challenges of an online retailer is to determine the best advertising channels. In addition to Facebook advertising, I decided to concentrate My Wedding Décor on a few wedding directories to ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Wedding rentals (and order thresholds) boost revenue
October 24, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
When I launched My Wedding Decor in April 2015, the site had just 80 or so products for sale. Three weeks passed and I received my first order, from a Sydney-based ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
How I maximize my holiday promotions
September 15, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
The critical holiday selling season is almost here. Here are five items that I’m focusing on to get the most of my holiday marketing activities. Offer coupons for additional info. Offer ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Comparing puppies to customers
July 29, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Last month, my husband and I began raising a black Labrador puppy. Next year, we will give one-year-old Whimsy to Guide Dogs Victoria for intensive training to help assist a person ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
5 ways to alienate your customers
June 22, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
In a single month, I’ve encountered the following five instances of poor customer service from online companies. All could have been easily avoided. Silence after a payment. If you don’t contact ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
How I measure ecommerce success
May 5, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Most merchants measure ecommerce success by revenue. Shopify’s dashboard notes tell me my website is in the top five percent of those launched in the last 12 months. But I don’t ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Lessons from a corner shop closing down
April 4, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
You’ve likely seen a few brick-and-mortar shops go out of business in recent times. I recently saw hastily-printed sheets at local ice cream store — called Lick Me — thanking ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Could a new slogan increase sales?
February 19, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Decor has gradually evolved in the 10 months since I launched the site. Four weeks ago I made two simple changes that may have been responsible for increasing my ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
You lose money under-promising and over-delivering
January 2, 2016 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
There seems to be a well-meaning but misguided belief that as online retailers we should under-promise and over-deliver to make our customers more loyal. But I don’t believe this to be ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
How I doubled my conversions in one month
November 25, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
My Wedding Decor turned seven months old on November 23. In the last month, advice from three sources — a wedding directory business development manager, a retailer on the Shopify forum, ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
8 tips for setting up gift certificates, for ecommerce
September 9, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
With the festive season fast approaching, setting up a gift certificate option on your website can increase sales. This is something I plan to add on my wedding decor site, like ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
How 10 Shopify apps have impacted my sales
July 30, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
I have installed 15 apps from the Shopify store since launching My Wedding Decor in late April. Here I examine the impact of 10 of those apps on my sales. Quantity ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
9 tips for working with suppliers
June 16, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
I launched my third ecommerce venture, My Wedding Decor, in April. Since then, I have been working with over 40 wedding-product suppliers. Here’s what I’ve learned so far. 1. Maintain your ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
First 3 weeks of my new business
May 15, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
After eight months of planning, I launched MyWeddingDecor.com.au on April 23. I founded the business to appeal to Australian couples that seek personalized, unique, and unusual wedding decor. Today, May ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
The swift countdown to launching my new site
April 9, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Launching a new website takes a lot of preparation and planning. I first addressed my new ecommerce business, My Wedding Decor, back in February, in “Launching my third website business in 15 ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Launching my third website business in 15 years
February 25, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
The countdown has begun: I launch my Australian wedding decorations website, my third ecommerce venture in 15 years, in eight weeks. And like many online retailers who sell items with ... Read More »
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Management
Lessons Learned: Baking Site Says No to Shark Tank
February 11, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Many of the most successful online retailers sell products that solve problems. Daniel Rensing, who grew up in Levittown, N.Y., created a clever product that attracted press attention within 10 days ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
The benefits of free product samples
January 22, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Whether you’ve been in business for years or you’re just launching a new website, sending samples of your products can grab the attention of shoppers. In this post, I’ll review ... Read More »
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Management
Lessons Learned: Paddle Board Company Encounters Sharks, Success
January 21, 2015 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Imagine seeing a group of sharks. Would you lose your nerve? Stephan Aarstol nearly did. He had nothing to lose but rejection by pitching his business, Tower Paddle Boards, to the ... Read More »
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Management
Lessons Learned: Air Controller Directs Online Traffic
December 16, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Nathan Hartnett was an air traffic control officer in the Royal Australian Air Force in his hometown of Toowoomba (a city 79 miles west of Brisbane), Australia from 2001 to ... Read More »
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Notes from Australia
Brick-and-click stores should offer free pick-up
December 9, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Free shipping is commonplace for ecommerce companies. For brick-and-click companies — those with online and physical stores — free pick-up can be a helpful shipping option for ecommerce customers that ... Read More »
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Management
Lessons Learned: Car Forums the Ramp to Ecommerce Success
November 20, 2014 • Elizabeth Hollingsworth
As a boy in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1960s, Fredric Gwinn used to watch his father, a machinist by trade, work on the family car, doing everything from routine maintenance ... Read More »
Elizabeth Hollingsworth
Elizabeth Hollingsworth is an experienced ecommerce merchant, having founded three online businesses. Her latest is My Wedding Décor, a provider of wedding decorations.
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