| From Idea
to Reality: |
| The Story
of Expatboxes Start-up |
| Last summer
I was in the Nuffield hospital about to have an operation, having just
been given a dose of tranquilizer, when the idea for Expatboxes suddenly
came to me - the name, the concept, the whole picture (could it have been
the Valium?). Before being wheeled into the operating theatre I made
a call to my brother to buy the name on the Internet. On coming round
I telephoned him and he confirmed that he had purchased the name Expatboxes.com
for me.
The idea
of Expatboxes.com was to sell British expats living abroad the things
they miss from home, ie. Marmite, Colman’s mustard, Branston pickle, PG
Tips tea, Mc.Vities Digestives etc. Having been an expat myself for
nearly twenty years I well know how Brits abroad crave the things no longer
available to them.
Having had
this flash of inspiration the ground work was about to start. |
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My Father
kindly agreed to help financially and the rest I put up myself. My
friend and Expatboxes Manager Karen Knight joined us and between us we
started on the road of discovery.
| Search
4Escape - The International Lifestyles Search Engine |
| -
4Escape is a search engine that searches our network of websites each of
which shares a common theme: International relocation, living ? investing
overseas, overseas jobs, embassies, maps, international real estate, asset
protection, articles about how to live ? invest overseas, Caribbean properties
and lifestyles, overseas retirement, offshore investments, our yacht broker
portal, our house swap portal, articles on overseas employment, international
vacation rentals, international vacation packages, travel resources,
every embassy in the world, maps of the world, our three very popular eZines
. . . and, as they are fond to say, a great deal more. |
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To work:
Firstly I turned the dining room into an office and bought a new, fast
computer and got onto the Internet. Sorting out a website was the
first priority. As an Internet newcomer it was all a new world to me full
of jargon I did not understand, but not for long. |
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| I started
looking through the options available.It became clear that setting up an
ordinary website was relatively easy and something one could do at home
with all the various tools available. The problem I came up against was
that I had to offer an on-line purchasing facility, so that customers could
actually purchase the products directly from the website, ie. an electronic
store.
I looked at
several of the package type deals available, such as Shopcreator, Sage,
Actinic etc. Most of these were fairly cost effective and included
a shopping facility.
Unfortunately
most did not offer joining up with a merchant bank for accepting on-line
credit card payments such as WorldPay.The number of products one could
offer was also often limited, with monthly hosting costs rising dramatically
with over 10 products on offer. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| Eventually
I decided on VirginBiz – an excellent all round package, not particularly
sophisticated, but offering good simple website design and setting up the
WorldPay account as part of that package. VirginBiz offer several options.
Either you can design the website yourself using their software (which
I tried and found too complicated and time consuming), or the next
step up is what they call the Gold option, where they will design the site
to your specifications and present you with a fully functional e-commerce
shop within 2 days – however you then have to maintain and make any changes
to the shop yourself, or the Platinum option, where they will fully design
and set up the site, and also maintain and implement any changes to the
shop. There is also a huge support package with VirginBiz, such as search
engine registration, marketing advice, technical support, all the tools
one needs when starting out in the world of e-commerce..
Having sorted
this option out, work began on photographing the products.I decided to
offer 15 ready made up hampers of British goods. The weather was fine so
I did all the photography outside using a Sony digital camera with 2.1million
pixels. The images were e-mailed to Virgin in jpeg format, and they incorporated
them into the website.(Here I should thank my brothers Simon and Nicholas
for their fantastic support and advice.) |
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| Almost as
an afterthought I included a souvenir section offering pens, bottle openers,
fridge magnets etc, in the Union Jack design, and also a ‘Pictures from
Home’ section with photos of the Devon countryside – both these sections
have proven incredibly popular, especially with Brits in the States, which
goes to show that what you think is going to be popular is not necessarily
right.
I have found
that I have started out with offering a basic set of products which have
been either phased out or developed according to feedback from customers.
I then had to provide shipping weights and costs. Each hamper was
weighed at Parcel Force with packaging, and the shipping price to all the
various country zones deduced.
That brings
us to yet another new area: Packaging. I would have liked to have had
cardboard hampers made up with the Union Jack pattern all over them. |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| Escape
From America Magazine - The Magazine To Read To If You Want To Move Overseas |
| - Began Summer
1998 - Now with almost a half million subscribers, out eZine is the resource
that expats, and wantabe expats turn to for information. Our archives
now have thousands of articles and each month we publish another issue
to a growing audience of international readers. Over 100 people a
day subscribe to our eZine. We've been interviewed and referenced
by the Wall Street Journal, CNN, The Washington Post, London Talk Show
Radio, C-Span, BBC Click Online, Yahoo Magazine, the New York Times, and
countless other media sources. Featuring International Lifestyles
~ Overseas Jobs ~ Expat Resources ~ Offshore Investments ~ Overseas
Retirement - Second Passports ~ Disappearing Acts ~ Offshore eCommerce
~ Unique Travel ~ Iconoclastic Views ~ Personal Accounts ~ Views From Afar
~ Two things have ushered us into a world without borders... the end of
the cold war and the advent of the world wide web of global communications
? commerce. Ten years and over one hundred issues! We're just
getting started - Gilly Rich - Editor |
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| After contacting
many packaging companies I realised that this was going to prove very expensive
(2
colours), so had to re-think this as customers would probably not want
expensive packaging, but I wanted to offer quality packaging which was
unique to us. Eventually the Sales Manager at SCA packaging in Exeter
came up with the current design of a white box with our logo printed on
the lid in a stable cardboard grade (yet another world, single wall,
double wall – I now inspect every package I receive with different eyes!),
and an outer transit box. I made an initial small order of 1.000
boxes and when they were delivered to my house on the back of a huge lorry,
the first thing the driver required was my (non existing) fork lift
truck to remove the palettes from the lorry.
Expatboxes
went on-line in November 2000.Our work is now getting our name known in
the UK and abroad. We have links on many expat-related sites and have been
featured in the Weekly Telegraph, but a lot is word of mouth from our satisfied
customers. We will be expanding and diversifying according to our
customer feedback. The souvenirs have proven an amazing success and
we will certainly be adding to our range in the near future.Our job is
a joy, knowing we are bringing pleasure to so many British expats out there!
To visit the
Expatboxes.com website - Click Here
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