Monday 29 June 2009

New Cottontails HQ

If you've been following the diary, you'll know that there have been some major changes at Cottontails lately, not least the closure of the high street shop and relocation of the business to Herefordshire. Although we took over new storage facilities straight away, there has been a delay in arranging the office space, and for the past few weeks I have been working from a temporary office in the house (i.e. the spare bedroom). And so I am thrilled that the new - permanent - garden office has just been put up. It'll be a few days yet before I can 'move in' as we are awaiting electrics, telephone and carpets, and there's a lot of landscaping to do outside too, but all the same the light is at the end of the tunnel and I can't wait to take over the new head quarters (or 'head hutch' as Mike, my partner, calls it!)It is a kind of moving in gift from Mike and I am so grateful to him (mind you he would be the first to admit that it's as much about keeping me out of the way as anything else!) He works from home too you see (he is a cider maker) and neither of us are even used to sharing a living space, let alone working together. It has a lovely, peaceful view over the barley fields too:
I am feeling very positive and lucky. It was hard and scary to close the shop, but with the new website and now the new 'head hutch' I feel things are really coming together.

Tuesday 23 June 2009

Nice feedback on the new website

It's been four full days since we launched the new website now, and so far I'm really happy with the results. Sales have been good, problems have been few and we've had some really nice comments. When customers place an order with us there is a field for 'How did you hear about Cottontails?' and, over the weekend, several new customers have mentioned the website, completely unprompted. Like this one from Holly in Norway:

Google search for UK companies supplying
Maileg bunnies! I liked your website :o)

I'm chuffed by the interest in the competition too - so far we have had twenty-something entries and some really lovely name suggestions. I am going to start a Moulin Roty competition soon too and will post about it here when I do.

That's it for now. Am having a very relaxed week - still working hard on orders and enquiries and so on, but not asking much more than that of myself. It's nice. And it means I have time to write on here!

Friday 19 June 2009

Win a Maileg bunny!

To celebrate the new website we are running a competition to win this Maileg bunny - all you have to do is visit the Maileg page on the website and suggest a name for her. We will then pick our favourite name from the suggestions and send out a bunny to the winner!

Thursday 18 June 2009

Lovely new website :-)

You cannot imagine how thrilled I am to be writing that we have finally switched over to our lovely new website. I am so, so pleased! If you have a moment, please visit it - www.cottontailsbaby.co.uk.

Anyone who has been following our (much neglected) blog will have heard me waffling on about the new website for months now, so it truly is a delight to have reached the point where it is finished, lovely and live! Of course the original plan was to launch the new site the same weekend that we closed our high street shop - little did I imagine that it would take the best part of a month longer. We have crashed through so many deadlines that I had actually stopped setting them!

My web designer, Tamsin, has been an absolute star. She has worked so hard, particularly these last few days when I think I have been emailing about her every five minutes with some display issue or other. I am so, so grateful to her and couldn't recommend her highly enough to anyone who is looking at a new website. Her site is at www.tamdesign.co.uk.

We actually met through our love of bunnies - she is the woman behind the fabulous Rabbit Rehome website.

Right, had better start catching up on all the things that have been neglected during the past website-focused couple of weeks...

Am determined to keep the blog up to date now though - as you can see it has been integrated much more fully into the website so that should be the incentive I need to keep on top of it!

New blog design

Everybody ignore this post - I am just testing the new blog colours / layout...

(Nearly there with new website... woo-hoo!)