Business funding options for unemployed single mum? Stuck! Please help

sugarwalsh

Hi OP, in many ways we are very similar. The only place we differ is I am not a single Mum (I once was and I know how hard it is), but I have just set up a new business with my husband. We had literally NO money at al;. We started by setting up a Facebook page selling items - this made a small amount which we invested into a website on Shopify. I paid someone to come up with a logo - £100 - I knew what I wanted but didn't know how.
We then got asked to make something we really couldn't afford to make, but we couldn't afford to say no either. Luckily family came to the rescue and lent us a small amount of money. We took the leap and haven't regretted it.
Although we have had traffic to the website we have generated all the sales via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, word of mouth, personal contacts. I am now looking to change our website to Wordpress, to pay a one off fee and be done.
Do look on your local council website BEFORE you set up - we were told we weren't eligible for any grants because we had set our business up already. Even if they can't help financially they can put you in touch with business advisers who may help.
Wishing you the best of luck,
PM me if you want.
Megan

fc123

paddyrg wrote: »

Just for info, Google search results don't have a first, second, third page, they only have those pages *for you*. What you see on the first page of results isn't what I see isn't what the next person sees. There is no absolute 'first page', it is tailored by your browsing etc history.

This is crucial to understand for two reasons. 1) when an 'SEO' company calls you with a bunch of technical sounding mumbo jumbo saying they can get you on page 1 for xyz search terms, they get it there for you, not necessarily Mr random punter. 2) most 'SEO' companies don't realise this, which makes them either useless consultants to spend your money with, or they do know this and are knowingly ripping you off.

I don't have a high opinion of 'SEO' types, especially when in reality Google know and render ineffective all their supposed tricks. Some Muppet who has read a few web articles and maybe paid for some dumb eBook can call themselves an SEO master. Almost all are parasitic.

Great post....they also 'buy' FB likes, Twitter likes and so on in bulk. They then tell you that they can boost your page and attract more customers but 99% of your new 'likes' or 'followers' will be non customers.
Some can charge 1k + pcm to do this.

You can spot a company who has been sold fake followers by the comments / shares under their posts. A company who has 180k FB likes and only gets 3 likes on a post is suspect.

We did see a funny one recently whereby her likes would drop from 90l down to 45k...and a couple of days later go back up again.


We get approached by bloggers etc who boast large followings and want us to pay them to promote our product. A lot of these have fake numbers too. Once you know what to look for, they are easy to spot.

sugarwalsh

I was must looking for an interesting blog post I read about SEO and all that jazz, but the blog I found it on is currently being rebuilt.

One thing it suggested was to search for your company from a different company - not logged on as yourself - and then you will get a different result. As stated above Google is clever and knows what you are looking for.

Megan

GolfBravo

As others have said before: don't spend £2500 on a ecommerce website!

Register a domain and webhosting (one.com, around £10 for 12 months, unless you need SSL), and then install a Wordpress and WooCommerce plugin. Then to make things simple buy a WooCommerce template that you like. Try to setup the web store yourself, or hire a freelancer. There are lots and lots of free online Wordpress/Woocommerce instructions.

Just keep in mind that you still need a merchant bank account compatible with online payments, unless you want to use PayPal Standard.

carrot-cake_2

Thanks for everyones replies they have been very helpful!

The good news is that Princes Trust have put me on their enterprise program with possible funding. If I don't get the funding for whatever reason I can then apply with MSIF/Start up loans and again if this falls through there is the New Enterprise program with the jobcentre and by that time I will have been in receipt of ESA for 13 weeks which you need to apply.

I have had a look at wordpress and found it really confusing so I fond webeden and designed a lovely page which I am really happy with but it doesn't really have the functions I would like such as newsletter sign up, more payment options, discounts, customer log in etc and once I pay for the website I have no idea if people would actually be able to find it because I am useless at SEO/hosting stuff.

I sent the webpage design company a link to the website I had made to see if they could give me a price on this as it is pretty basic. They then quoted £2000 :eek:

I have told them I won't be going with them anyway.

The thing is is that my website is the only way I can sell because my suppliers won't allow me to sell via ebay/amazon without signing a contract and paying a fee so selling through facebook isn't an option.

GolfBravo

carrot-cake wrote: »

I sent the webpage design company a link to the website I had made to see if they could give me a price on this as it is pretty basic. They then quoted £2000 :eek:

Well, this is the thing: web design really isn't rocket science, but it really takes time to first learn and then code. That £2K would just cover their time, plus some software licensing fees.

Take a look at this - a $99 Wordpress theme, and it can have all the functionality you want. That $99 is just for the template, then you need to customise it, plus product images, etc. So you either can develop it yourself and save a fortune, or pay somebody else to do all the work for you.

I think the other option for you would be shopify - you can easily design a ecommerce website using their templates, and they take care of payment processing, etc. They do charge a monthly subscription, but there is also a 14 day free trial. Why not give it a go?

Carer

Have you looked at Create.net? You get a month's free trial and it has everything you asked for including stock control and blog feature.
Very easy to build. It also connects your shop to facebook and ebay if you want.
I pay £99 a year for each site.
I am using it to run 2 sites, both are just using Paypal standard as the checkout system and the tutorial to set it up is easy to follow.

I looked at quite a few options before I settled on Create, wordpress completely confused me and some of the other build yourself sites were really basic.

I have no connection to Create by the way, just a satisfied customer.

Percy1983

I would say I will build it for £2k for you, but I admit I will just use one of the wordpress templates and customise it.

GolfBravo

I can build it for £1995, also with Wordpress templates and plugins.

Prothet_of_Doom

Have you tried the PRINCE's TRUST ?