Help and advise needed please

stacey1981_2

Hi, sorry this may be a long post!

I really need some advise and tips for my fathers long running business. He runs an aquatic shop within a garden centre. He has run this business for nearly 30 years but with last summer being such a washout he nearly went bankrupt as its a seasonal business.

He managed to get through the winter putting most of his bills of until this summer... only now it looks as though we are going to have just a useless summer as last year

He`s not making enough to cover this year never mind last year.

I know if he does not do something he will not be in business by the end of the year and I just dont know what to advise him, its just so heartbreaking to see him go under after so many years just because of this useless weather

so any tips or advise on how to get the customer through the soggy puddles into the shop I would be very very great ful

He hasn`t really advertised much as he`s never needed to before so he does not know where to start, also he`s not got a website as yet

sorry if this is in the wrong place on the forum

Chollita

I'd say you need to do some advertising in local papers/specialist magazines. People need to know where he is. Is he in the Yellow Pages? (I think it's free to advertise in the online version Yell.com). Also you could try contacting any local groups, they may have a newsletter he can advertise in.

guycross

yeah - I think if he has never had to do any advertising before - cash in the freebies first...

local media are usually desperate for news (and money for adverts too, so be careful) so write to the local paper complaining about the current economic climate and say how bad things are for a hardy local businessman (mentioning clear bobby jones from bobs garden centre)

offer a prize to local radio... local garden fete - offer some kind of gardening classes????

all this is more work than calling the local rag and shelling out £500 for an ad, but i figure thats the kinda help you need

gc

sidthesexist

As far as the website goes iirc you can get some web space from Microsoft?

http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/?lc=2057&cloc=en-gb

Also does he only deal with the outside aquatic business (pond's and pond fish?) if so how about diversifying into the indoor side (tropical fish ect) or starting to deal with most other pet products as well (cats/dogs ect?)

epsilondraconis

In addition to some of the godo suggestions above:

Maybe he could contact the local school and get a class of kids to come in to have a lesson on aquatic life. Initially he could try it as a loss leader in the hope that the kids then say to mummy and daddy that they would like some fish (or even a pond in the garden).

Hope all goes well.

stacey1981_2

thanks so much for your advise, great ideas, will defo tell him about the local paper doing a story and the school idea, he does indo aquatics as well tropicals and that but relys heavily on the garden centre trade, thanks for all your help any more ideas would be very welcome

stacey1981_2

thanks so much for your advise, great ideas, will defo tell him about the local paper doing a story and the school idea, he does indo aquatics as well tropicals and that but relys heavily on the garden centre trade, thanks for all your help any more ideas would be very welcome

stacey1981_2

bumping up the question as im desperate for some more advise, thanks

whatsername

Thinking about the local paper idea, we have local free parenting magazines around here, as well as local area 'guides'. He might be able to write articles about some element of the business, for which I believe he will get free publicity. He could offer to write a weekly/monthly column for a local publication...

What about leaflet dropping? Offering something free for every purchase on xxx weekend, or a 10% discount or similar?

Best of luck, it takes so much for small businesses to survive these days, I wish you all the luck in the world.

stacey1981_2

Hi, thanks very much for all the advise me and my dad are very great ful,

what we`v decided to do is set up online and hopefully expand his customer base that way, I know the basics on how to do this ie, buying the website, name ect, but how would we go about advertising the website?

whats the best way to promote the website?

I know how to add to search engines and google word/ads but would love some tips on the best way to do this

thanks again

guycross

ebay is the easiest way to do this kind of thing, no problems about search engines of anything like that then.... ebay's forums are full of help