Name of your website?Gothic Gallery - Specialising in alternative rock & punk clothing, and High quality jewellery
Your name?
Sue Ashford
Your Location (city, etc)
Swansea
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Build on the back of a highly successfull tattoo studio called skin and ink we've now opend an on-line store (Gothic Gallery) specialising in Gothic, Punk and Retro clothing. Stocking top brands from Sinister, Dark Side, Pen and Lolly, and footwear by new rock
What inspired you to launch your own website?
We were attracting a high amount of visitors to out tattoo studio site mainly the gallery where people could view high quality examples of our work. So we saw this as an opportunity to utlise the intenet to sell products whihc were selling well in our shop in swansea to a much wider audience
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Skin and Ink (www.skin-n-ink.biz) was launched in 2000 and an online photo gallery which visitors could explore the various artwork from each of our highly qualified staff.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
The shop Skin N Ink has been open in Swansea for sometime so the choice there for www.skin-n-ink.biz was staright forward. Gothic Gallery (www.gothicgallery.co.uk) was suggested by my husband john, and although we thought it may have gone we were lucky to get such a catchy domain which sits well with our current buisness and branding.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Also we do not rely on a third party for maintaing the Gothic Gallery site. The site has been set up so we have full control of stock, featured products, latest items, categories etc and can define costs for products and delivery. This combined with the easy to use navigation and straight forward secure payment (paypal) present the user with a simplified shopping experience.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To build on the current stock introducing more brands, based on customer feedback as to the type of product they are looking for and would expect to purhcase from a Gothic/Punk/Retro site.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We're still in the early stages of the Gothic Gallery site, but if we can tap into the Rock, Punk, Gothic, element that currently visit our Tattoo Studio site (Skin n Ink) then the investment will be well worth it. We already had the stock it's just opened another channel by puttin the Skin N Ink Shop stock on line and making it easy to purchase.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Not really sure yet, once we've processed morethan 250 orders and consulted with each of those customers, we'll have a better indication
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes. It's build on a stable ASP.net and SQL foundation and could easily updaged as bandwidth etc increases with demand. Skin N Ink has over 100,000 visitors a year so we're in a position to deal with this.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Unexpected costs have mainly come from changes to the original spec, and the admin interface. These have been reletively low cost as our provider Infraweb is understanding and quick to respond.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Promotion and search engine rankings...that's why I'm typing this. I'm currently trying to promote the site aas much as possibly in a time when the credit crunch is taking hold. A very challening time for me, but I aim to get the site and sales moving asap and making a success of Gothic Gallery (www.gothicgallery.co.uk)
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Not really sure to date as we've only just gone online..will update shortly.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Lack of orders at the moment we're getting teh visitors but no orders are being made, our wed designer Infraweb is currently analyisng the stats to determine why
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Gothic Gallery (Rock, Punk Clothing) has been up for 2 months and will run for several years minimum as it our high street shop run form the Tattoo studio - Skin-n-Ink.
Tell us what you think ?
Have a look at our site...tell us if you would buy something ? If not why ? Is the site design ok ? Usable ? Accessible ?
Gothic Gallery Rock, Punk clothing
What is your website address?
Gothic Gallery - Specialising in alternative rock & punk clothing, and High quality jewellery
