Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

See how YouRenew has revolutionized the recycling world

YouRenew was recently showcased on All Things Considered segment NPR.   After frantically going to the website to determine the value of my drawer full of out-dated gadgets, I contacted YouRenew to tell us their adventure story.   David Walker shares the exciting chronicles of the YouRenew journey with KikScore…

1. Tell us about YouRenew and who you focus on serving?

YouRenew is an electronics re-marketing and recycling company that allows individuals to sell back their used mobile electronics and keep them out of landfills.   Customers across the country visit to find their devices, receive an instant price quote and download a free shipping label to send in their devices – once the devices arrive at the YouRenew facility, customers are sent a check within days.

We recently launched CorporateRenew, a service that allows businesses and other organizations to sell back their used cell phones and smart phones to enhance their environmental credibility while adding to their bottom lines.  We have been gaining significant traction across the country with business in a wide variety of fields via our website.

2. How did the YouRenew website and recycle service come about?

YouRenew was founded in March of 2009 by Rich Littlehale and Bob Casey who believed that given a convenient opportunity and proper incentive, individuals and organizations want to do the right thing with their used mobile electronics.  As only 10% of the discarded cell phones in the US were recycled in 2008, Rich and Bob saw tremendous opportunity to grow a business and make significant social change.

3. Where will YouRenew focus most of its energy in 2010?

In 2010 YouRenew and CorporateRenew will focus most of their energy on reaching out to individuals and organizations to let them know that there is a better alternative than the trash can. Both businesses and individuals are able to receive significant value for their used electronics and can take pride in knowing that they won’t end up in a landfill.

4. If you had 2 lessons learned from your business that you could pass on to others about offering an online service, what are those?

The best lesson we can pass on about having an online business is to be fully transparent to the customer. Individuals and business clients want to know exactly what we do with their used electronics, and we show them! Any business that believes in their service as we do at YouRenew and CorporateRenew should be transparent with their customers.

5. As 2010 begins, what do you see as 2 new trends in your business this year?

As 2010 begins we see a lot more individuals and businesses putting significant emphasis on environmental responsibility.  This is a great trend for us as we offer a service that proves that being green is not just an environmentally beneficial decision, but is a financially beneficial decision as well.

6. If your business/store could be any movie or movie character, what movie/movie character would it be and why?

We would have to be Tom Kelly Jr. from Tommy Boy as we are young, creating jobs in Connecticut, and Tommy Boy is simply a great movie!

7. If YouRenew could have a token spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?

In the midst of the Winter Olympics, we would have to go with Apolo Anton Ohno as he revolutionized a niche sport and brought it to national fame.  With e-waste just becoming a significant issue, we are revolutionizing the way individuals and organizations dispose of their used mobile devices.

8. Do you have any parting thoughts for our readers and the small business community?

This year alone 1 billion cell phones will be created world-wide. Help us keep them out of landfills and bring you significant value for your used devices through YouRenew.com and CorporateRenew.com.

Thanks YouRenew… now back to searching through my drawers.  Please share any other recycling tips you’ve discovered.

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

Send Us Your Questions For Social Commerce Camp DC

As many of you know tomorrow  KikScore, Network Solutions, and MyBusinessAssistant.com will be putting on a first of its kind event in Washington DC from 8am-noon called Social Commerce Camp DC.  As we mentioned before this first time FREE event is getting some serious buzz with the recent coverage in Techcocktail and the Washington Examiner.  It has also been covered on multiple blogs including WomenGrowBusiness and GrowSmartBusiness. We are excited to announce that the event is now completely SOLD OUT!  Thanks to the more than 100 small businesses, social media enthusiasts and online sellers that have signed up.

Since this event is more about the participants than the organizers, sponsors and the speakers we want to know what are your questions that you would like covered during the morning sessions.  Please leave us your thoughts and questions in our comments section below.  We will make sure they get them to Shashi B, Shonali Burke and Steve Fisher.  Or find us on Twitter at @kikscore, @shashib,  @shonali or @stevenfisher.

If you have any questions about the agenda for tomorrow’s Social Commerce Camp DC, please visit the event page we set up.

On behalf of the organizers, sponsors and everyone else involved with pulling Social Commerce Camp DC together we want to convey our thanks to the community as we prepare for tomorrow’s event!  Bring your questions and get ready to participate and network.

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

At What Point Should a Small Business Call in the Lawyers?

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.  It’s a oft-repeated phrase from Henry VI (and from many former clients).  Love them or not, at some point, every small business is going to have to work with (or against) a lawyer.  Some do it early, some later.  Think about just setting up a business.  Do you do operate as a sole enterprise, and LLC, a corporation or (if working with others) a partnership.  What are the implications of these decisions? 

You get past formation, now does your business have a special product or process that should be protected with a patent filing?  Is your business name something you want to protect (or at least prevent your competitors from using) — if so, looks like you’ll have to consider filing for a trademark. Your website is up and running…do you have a site agreement, terms of use, etc?  What about a privacy policy?  Where do you get a good and enforceable service agreement?  Now your business is growing and you must hire employees and contractors to help, what agreements do you need in place and are you aware of the relevant employment laws and regulations.

I’m not making this post an advertisement for the legal practice, but with all the potholes out there, it’s scary.  If your business is fairly straight-forward, you can take advantage of commercial forms (take a look at LegalZoom).  But that won’t get you all the way there.  For example, we here at KikScore have a couple of lawyers as part of the team (myself included).  You’d think we wouldn’t need to hire outside lawyers for our start-up.  Well, it may be because we don’t have the brightest lawyers on staff (myself included), but we have a patent lawyer and an outside corporate lawyer helping us out.  I’m not saying this is the way to go…I’m sure because of our backgrounds we over think a lot of the decisions.  In fact, my dad has operated relatively lawyer-free for the past 30 years and has handled most of his business disputes in small claims court.  But he’s also heavily armed, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison.

What’s your opinion on when to call in the unfrozen cave-man lawyer?

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

Small Business Interview with CardSauce.com owner Kevin Hoyle

It’s February 15th… How did you celebrate the weekend with your Special Valentine?   Chances are high you sent or gave a card.  So, how long did you stand there in the card aisle, climbing over other sentiment seekers, trying to find the perfect one?  Our KikScore interview today is with a unique online card company that not only offers one of a kind designs and sentiments, but will also print and mail it for you! CardSauce has surely spiced up the greeting card industry and we are excited that owner Kevin Hoyle took the time to share his story.

1. Tell us about CardSauce.com and who you focus on serving?
CardSauce.com.comis a new online hub for quality, physical greeting cards and we’re here to spice-up the industry by offering a unique, user-driven experience! At CardSauce.com, we cater to…
– Buyers: When a customer places an order, we print the card(s) and mail it to the recipient(s) for them.
– Sellers: Artists (or graphic designer, photographer, etc) have the opportunity to upload original sauces (greeting cards) and sell them. Each time an artist’s design is purchased, he/she makes $1. It’s a true user-driven experience. While we do feature some original CardSauce.com designs, the cards featured are mainly “by the people, for the people”.
 

2. How did you get started selling online?
When the amount of times I found myself staring at unoriginal, unexciting cards at traditional stores and reseller outlets began to add up. I realized I was spending more time looking for an appealing card than I was on celebrating the actual event that the card was intended for. So I thought, why not move the future of greeting cards away from the mainstream corporations and place it into the hands of everyday people like you and me? Whether physical greeting cards are given to remind of an old memory shared, create a new memory, serve as inspiration, or spark a laugh, they all serve a common purpose: to relate or connect in some way to the recipient. So by allowing everyone and anyone the opportunity to create and sell original designs – not only does it generate creative cards for buyers to choose from – but it adds a level of authenticity to the industry as well. Sellers from various backgrounds, cultures, religions, etc can put a little piece of their life into their designs – building a portfolio of cards that offers something for everyone.

Why is CardSauce.com physically online, you may ask?  Well, in addition to it being more cost-effective to start (I’m a “one-man-band” with limited funding), it adds convenience for buyers and sellers.  Buyers can quickly browse the database of designs by category or key word, and can purchase and send cards from the comfort of their own home (plus let’s face it… gas money and stamps add up).  Meanwhile, sellers can pursue a hobby they may not have otherwise had the opportunity to pursue – all while making a profit, or royalties, on each sale.
 

3. Where will CardSauce.com focus most of its energy in 2010?
In 2008 we focused our resources on web development and software.  Once CardSauce.com went live to the public in 2009, we realized we were not yet where we wanted to be and continued our focus on site enhancements.  Now that we feel comfortable with our offering from a web standpoint, we’ll focus our energy toward generating awareness and site traffic in 2010 – while continuing to enhance our core offerings.

4. If you had 2 lessons learned from your business that you could pass on to others about selling online, what are those?
My two lessons would be more about business start-up than CardSauce.com.  First and foremost, technology – computers and the web in particular – is not as accommodating as people may assume. Sure, technology continues to advance at an incredibly fast rate and there are gadgets and software that exist today that people never assumed possible.   But that doesn’t mean you can “do whatever you want” with a website (remember, I’m not the IT guy here).

When I was first scoping out my idea to potential web developers, I lost count of the amount of times I heard “that’s not doable”, “there’s no way to build that”, or “we can do that, but it’s going to be incredibly time-consuming and will cost you thousands of dollars”. I essentially had to change the blueprints of the website throughout the process and it was very educational.  Things seemingly as simple as having PayPal split a single payment to two recipients is not doable, and that altered the entire make-up of the CardSauce.com checkout process.  It’s really incredible – though sometimes it causes some road bumps.

The second lesson I learned is don’t rush it, no matter what “it” is!  For example: Card Sauce, Inc. was incorporated in the fall of 2007 based on expectations set by my original web developer that the site would go live to the public within the next four months.  The site didn’t go live to the public until the summer of 2009! That’s two years of paying federal and state taxes without any source of revenue… NOT cool! 

Another example is when CardSauce.com.com finally did go live in June of 2009, it was not ready from a visual standpoint or a functional standpoint.  I was forced to hire on a new web developer and start from the ground up behind the scenes, while the original site just kind of took up real-estate on the web. With first impressions being so powerful, it’s important to capitalize on potential customers (buyers and sellers) immediately and we were unable to do that. There’s no telling how much business we lost in those early months.

5. As 2010 begins, what do you see as 2 new trends in your business this year?
Growth and revenue. With ’08 and ’09 being all about web development and 2010 being all about generating awareness and site traffic, it’s difficult to imagine any other trend(s) taking over one of the top two spots.

6. If your business/store could be any movie or movie character, what movie/movie character would it be and why?
Great question; I think I’ll go with Finding Nemo.  With industry powerhouses like Hallmark and American Greeting Corp. around, CardSauce.com is a classic “little fish trying to make it in a big pond” scenario – but in the end I think we’ll be able to pull it off.

7. If CardSauce.com could have a dream spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?
Not really sure; greeting cards aren’t exactly the type of product or gift that fall into the “seeking celebrity endorsements” category. I’d imagine we’d probably work the humor angle and find someone witty and original to exemplify the user-generated designs available for purchase.

8. How do the folks at CardSauce.com let loose after a busy day working?
Well, I’m currently operating a “one-man-band” that is only just beginning to focus on generating awareness and site traffic (revenue), remember? So, until CardSauce.com starts to pick up, it is my “after hours” gig. I currently work full-time during the day and spend many a late nights trying to perfect the sauce. When I’m not working, I enjoy letting loose in a variety of ways – whether it be dabbling in some physical activity (the gym, ice hockey, etc) or a frosty beverage with friends/family. Now that it’s ski/snowboard season here in Boston, I hope to be able to make a few treks north as well.

9. Do you have any parting thoughts for our readers and the small business community?
Only to support the CardSauce.com revolution and buy your quality, physical greeting cards online, of course!

So, get out the calendar, outline your greeting card list this year and surprise someone with a unique CardSauce.com design! And, share your spokesperson ideas with Kevin and CardSauce.

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

American Idol and Our New Start-Up

I’m sitting on the couch, watching the latest American Idol episode.  Two things cross my mind.  First, if Simon Cowell is going to leave, I only plan on tuning in next year if Howard Stern is the “honest” judge.  And, by all accounts, there’s a decent chance that may happen.  The second thing that occurs to me is that there are some decent correlations between start-ups and American Idol.  What are they?  Here’s a fun list:

1.  Talent is only Half the Battle:  In Adam Smith’s finest hour, efficient markets rule the day and ours is a completely idea/concept driven economy.  But this isn’t Mr. Smith’s ideal economy and style often overrules substance.  Often times with American Idol, those with the best voices don’t advance.  Instead, those with a “story” or a “hook” advance.  The best example of this is Sanjaya — no real talent other than creating buzz that advance far into the competition.  The same is true with start-ups.  You can have the best concept/product in the room, but it won’t matter unless you have an excellent marketing plan.

2.  Hurry Up and Wait —  People stand in line for days to audition for 30 sec0nds.  Painful boredom leading up to small windows of defining moments –you live or die within those moments.  The same is true for new businesses.  Your concept lives or dies by how you do in a call or meeting. 

3.  Balance of personalities.  You have Randy Jackson (the technician), Kara (the nicer one) and Simon (the honest voice).  Most businesses have a similar balance of views — as no single view can best handle all situations. 

4.  Talent Comes from Anywhere — Kelly Clarkson was an unknown before AI — she is now an industry force because of the opportunity given to her.  Similar with business, Silicon Valley doesn’t have a monopoly on technology or new concepts.  The next big thing can come from anywhere, including Farg0-Moorhead.

Those are my 4 paralells — feel free to share other similarities.

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

Issues Escalation and Support Guidelines in a start-up environment

You may have noticed a pattern here at KikScore where feedback and the question of when is a product ‘ready’  are hot topics. So, how do you define, measure, and enforce quality in a start up product? Once the product is ‘live’, how can you effectively support your product and react to customer issues and concerns? There are a few key software quality assurance guidelines to follow that apply to products of all shapes and sizes.

During the development phase you must test, test and retest. Depending upon the complexity of the software being developed, this could be a short or lengthy venture. Testing in phases, as pieces of the application become available, is highly recommended. This allows you to not only find major issues early, but also helps ensure you aren’t building upon sub-par code as the product continues through the life-cycle. Also, find a means to track and report status on any and all issues found during the test cycles. A spreadsheet can work if you don’t have a bug tracking system and there are a few free/easy to use ones available.

Even if you had ample time to test everything you could think of, upon release to the general user community, they will find issues you never dreamed of. Once you are ‘live’, your team needs to gauge the severity of any issue that is uncovered or reported to assess the impact and allocate resource(s) accordingly to address it. This is critical in the case where there are limited development resources and you need to prioritize their work so as not to affect other focus growth areas.

Severity can be broken into 3 levels – this also gives the entire team a common terminology when discussing issues.

Severity 1

— Core functionality is not working.
— There is no available work-around to perform the requested action.
— Error messages are displayed.

Severity 2

— Basic functionality is in question.
— There is a work-around to gain access and perform the requested action.
— The system handles the situation gracefully, either with a general ‘logged out’ message or other user-friendly notification.

Severity 3

— General usability items.
— Application is functioning fine, but confusion is raised throughout the display or general system navigation.

Once you’ve qualified the issue, how do you support it through the process and keep the customer informed?
Let’s assume you have a Severity 1 – how do you deal with it? In a small start-up shop, where most of the team has day jobs, creating an on-call or support tier works wonders.

1. Create a weekly on-call support staff that rotates and consists of 2 resources per week.
On a weekly call (or other avenue that applies) — Identify the 2 on-call resources per 1 week interval

2. During the support week, the 2 resources on-call are responsible for researching issues reported and be point of contact for:
— responding to the customer(s) who reported the issue
— involving other team members as needed to escalate/resolve the issue(s)

3. Support resources are required to provide daily updates to the rest of the team on progress of reported issues.

4. Where a code change or update is required, the support resource(s) schedule a team call to outline next steps and expectations

5. If 4 happens, the entire team should discuss the response back to customer(s) on the fix.

The Golden Rule – If a customer found the issue and actively complains – always treat as Severity 1. Be open and honest with your customers surrounding errors that are found and get a fix released in a timely manner. This builds trust in not only your product and support but builds integrity into your brand. What is your quality cycle or lessons learned?

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

KikScore Update: Acting on Feedback, Our Product Enhancements for Online Sellers & Ecommerce Stores

As a startup with  a new product, we at Kikscore have mentioned here a number of times the importance that we and others have stressed on taking user feedback and comments and then acting on them.   If your business and management stick your head in the ground and think you know the market better than your customers, you have a very low chance of succeeding as a business, especially a startup.  We know our product may not be perfect, but as we mentioned earlier this week instead of waiting for perfection we decided as a company that we wanted to push Kikscore out to market in beta form in late 2009 so we could get feedback from online sellers and e-commerce users that had stores.

So here we are in early 2010.  Where are we with the KikScore product? Well here is an update on some of the recent key changes and enhancements we have made to the KikScore product.  These changes came directly from our users, the community and other generous friends, family members and colleagues that took the time to sign up and use our product or take a look at live users of the KikScore product.

1. Load & Uptime Improvements – We improved response and load times of every KikScore seal and KikReport that resides on an online seller’s site.   Uptime for the seals is now the best it has ever been and we will continue to monitor KikScore seal uptimes as we know the importance that has for our customers.

2. Updated User Interface & Look and Feel – We updated the look and feel of the tabs on the KikReport.  This included making the look and feel of Management and Shopping Security tabs easier to read and to include even more easy to use information about a seller’s business, website, background and track record of trustworthiness.  The user interface for the KikReport and some of these tabs was also updated based on feedback so shoppers could easily recognize and interpret the information and data presented in the KikReport of a seller.

3. Updated Comment Platform – We modified and enhanced the comment management platform on the merchant’s KikReport making it even easier for comments about a shopper’s experience to be displayed to online visitors to a small business website.

4. Updated Seal – The KikScore seal has been updated based on both seller and shopper feedback to make the initial KikScore seal that resides on a seller’s website easier to read and interpret.

5. Easier Sign-Up– We listened to our beta users and have made the KikScore sign-up process for merchants more intuitive and easy for merchants.

6. Scoring Model Updates – Based on the data and feedback we continue to receive, we are also making enhancements along with updates to our scoring model that analyzes the trustworthiness and reliability of small businesses, online sellers and merchants.

These are just some of the enhancements and updates to the KikScore product.  We continue to solicit and receive feedback.  During the coming months, you will not only see more enhancements and updates but also much more.  We cannot go into too much detail in the “much more” but the next few months will be exciting for our customers, new customers, the community and the market (and us too!).

Let us know what you think about our enhancements and updates. Also feel free to send us more feedback on KikScore. We love it.

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Posts Tagged ‘ecommerce’

Top 5 (and a half) Reasons You Should Attend the Social Commerce Camp

Do you love lists?  Do you want to learn more about the Social Commerce Camp (February 20th) in D.C.?  Do you wish Steven Segal would do another Hard to Kill movie (not related to this post, but I really miss those awesome Steven Segal movies).  Well do I have something for you…here are the Top Five (and a half) reasons you need to come to the Social Commerce Camp (sponsored by Network Solutions, Mayer Brown, KikScore and MyBusinessAssistant):

5.  Learn the Social Commerce landscape and trends from Shashi B. — a top mover and shaker in D.C.’s tech community (and social guru for Network Solutions);

4.  Let Steven Fisher walk you through how to set up website for your business — and ask him about his movie (at www.browncoatsmovie.com)

3.  Wondering how to get some positive publicity?  That’s Shonali Burke’s specialty, as she’s a  leadingPR professional and editor of WomenGrowBusiness.com  . 

2. Did we mention free breakfast pastries and coffee?

1.  Network with similarly minded small business owners looking to  tap into social commerce to start and/or grow their business. 

1A.  Sign a petition to Steven Segal and implore him to begin working on a new karate movie.

Looking forward to seeing you at the Social Commerce Camp — I know it’s a Saturday morning, but if you stay up all night, it will feel like the middle of the afternoon.

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Small Business Interview with SJ Trotter from Exclusive Clothing Retail (www.exclusiveclothingretail.com)

What best defines ecommerce? The lack of boundaries in searching for the best goods/services at the best price.  We here at KikScore came across www.exclusiveclothingretail.com  and its owner, S.J. Trotter on Twitter and have been following ECR for a while (despite the fact we’re on the opposite side of the Atlantic).  We’re a fan of ECR and asked Mr. Trotter to give us a few minutes to talk about the economy, lessons on business, and who is his favorite Beatle.  He obliged.  Here’s our interview:

1. How did you get started with your store and selling online?

As soon as we started our company, Exclusive Ent, we knew we wanted to start by selling online, with the amount of free advertising you can gain from social networks an online store is a must.

2. How would you summarize your survival strategy for the past two years?

Not throwing money into the company! One thing we agreed from the start was to slowly build up our company and not take out a massive loan to try and kick start it. Word of mouth and social network promotion was our route rather than spending thousands on advertising. Resulting in us being in 0 debt at this current time which I believe is an achievement.

3. Have you seen any recent uptick in business activity

Because we are a fairly new company we have had a steady increase in sales since we began 2 years ago.

4. What will be your focus for 2010?

Artist’s endorsements & finalizing plans to open our own flagship shop.

5. What are 2 things that you would pass along as guidance for a business just starting out today?

Just do not allow yourself to built up a large amount of debt. As good as your idea is to you, your never ever know if it will be a reality and sell well so test the waters for a while before you start piling money into your business. Also take full advantage of all social network and free Internet advertising.

6. Have you seen any sales deriving from social media?

50% of our sales come from social networking sites, the chain reaction you can achieve from them is priceless.

7. If you could have dinner with any person, present or past, who would it be and why?

Richard Branson, I think I could write a list of 100 questions to ask him in seconds!

8. Better Artist: John Lennon or Paul McCartney?

John Lennon for simply ‘Imagine’, But really I’m not sure you can pick between them they are both world class

9. One informal economic indicator that you watch more closely than anything else?

Although it may not be an economic indicator what I watch closer than anything is my competitions prices, not necessarily so we are always cheaper but more that we show our customers that we have more value for money.

10. Any favorite piece of advice you’ve received?

Built your company with what you earn, not what you can borrow

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Small Business Interview with Natalie Moody from The Designer Express

Today’s KikScore Small Business series features an interview of Natalie Moody from The Designer Express.   We came across Natalie and The Designer Express on Twitter at the end of 2009.  Natalie is the quintessential online business owner that makes a living selling one of a kind apparel from the world’s top designers. She is also a veteran eBay seller.  We were excited that she took the time to give the KikScore blog an interview and share with the small business community her wealth of experience and also pass on some guidance for online sellers and ecommerce merchants.

1.Tell us about The Designer Express and who you focus on serving.

The Designer Express is an online designer boutique. We supply savvy shoppers worldwide with 100% authentic designer items at incredible prices – savings are up to 85% compared to buying retail. We also provide our clients with top-notch customer service.

Geographically speaking, the majority of our business is serving New York, Florida, California, Texas, Europe and Australia. We are currently selling through our new website TheDesignerExpress.com and on Ebay as The Designer Express.

2.How did you get your start selling online?

The idea for the Designer Express originated in a thrift shop, where I purchased a pair of woman’s jeans for five dollars, and sold them on Ebay for a substantial profit. I continued to sell items on Ebay as I moved from thrift stores to retail stores, where I bought items at clearance prices. I began to focus on selling new clothing, and my Ebay store evolved into The Designer Express. I have to give credit where credit is due, and looking back, Ebay really was the tool which enabled me to reach a productive global market. Due to our success on Ebay, we are currently expanding sales venues with the opening of our new web boutique at TheDesignerExpress.com.

3.Where will The Designer Express focus most of its energy in 2010?

The Designer Express was founded on customer service, and customer satisfaction will continue to be our main focus moving into 2010. We plan to spend significant time marketing the launch of TheDesignerExpress.com. We would also like to attract more international clients to our Ebay store, but the new website will be taking center stage.

4.What have you learned from your business that you could pass on to others about selling online?

Customer satisfaction is the most important part of selling online and creating a reputable business. If you make a mistake, be honest with your client. The bottom line is that satisfied customers will continue to shop with you, and will generate new business as well by word of mouth.

Not every new sale idea will be successful, so be prepared for some trial and error. The market is unpredictable, creating many peaks and valleys in sales. Don’t get discouraged. Perseverance and patience will be necessary.

Use slow times to fine tune your shop and research new inventory. Keep focused by following a daily schedule.

5.As 2009 just closed, what do you see as two new trends in your business this year?

We are seeing more International buyers taking advantage of the favorable exchange rate and weak US dollar. Domestic buyers are cutting back on luxury items as they wait for the economy to recover.

6. If The Designer Express could have a dream spokesperson for your company who would it be and why?

A dream spokeswoman would be Oprah. The exposure gained from being featured as one of her favorite things would be second to none.

7. Do you have any parting thoughts for our readers and the small business community?

This year is a great time to expand or start your own small business. Take a chance by making your business dream a reality! There will be hard work involved, but there is nothing better than being your own boss!

Please tell us what you think about this interview or if you have any questions for this business?

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