Pypog Personalise Your Present or Gift

I grew up with a strong business ethic and I always wanted to work for myself.

My mother is my mentor and she always has been. She started her business on a market stall over 30 years ago and soon her first shop. I worked alongside her at weekends and after school from the age of about 11.

She started selling make up at a stall in Acton many years ago but has been selling net curtains and ready made curtains to the people in our local area for just over 28 years.

As much as I enjoyed selling curtains, it was a few years ago I discovered my love for making gifts. It started with Christmas baubles with a photo inside. The feedback from the people who bought them was inspiring and I pondered about actually starting my own business making personalised gifts full time.

I started by going to you tube and watching videos of various people making various items and I soon discovered Sawgrass and their "Creative Studio". Problem was I did not have the initial cash to start immediately so I continued to study various subjects related to business and made full use of my time.

Sadly my partner was made redundant last December and with that came a payout, enough for me to buy the equipment needed to start my little business. I bought a few different types of printer including a Sawgrass sublimation printer which I love. I bought a 38cm x 38cm flat heat press and a mug press. I started with mugs, coasters and keyrings. My friends and family loved my designs and over the last few months I have managed to build on not only my designs but also the range of products I provide my customers.

I now stock, print, press and post 3 different types of 11oz mug, 2 types of coasters, 3 different types of keyrings, travel mugs, mouse mats, glass chopping boards, dog leads, ladies purses, men's wallets, pu leather placemats, mirror clocks, 4 sizes of rock slate and a variety of ipad and phone cases.

I built my own e commerce store after failing with ebay and amazon, I use shop builder pro via a company called ZPE-Commerce. I definitely recommend them as they are a small business based in North East England and have been very helpful every time I have needed their help. It cost me 75 for the year including security/ encryption to keep my customers information safe. I can list up to 20k products in my store if I wanted to. Their web builder has all the tools I need to build my website and e-commerce store and has been so helpful. I can add discount vouchers, loyalty rewards and so many other features. I accept bank transfer, paypal, stripe and square and integration is simple.

I have grown my Facebook page since January to over 800 likes and am currently working on using pinterest to the best of my ability. I have tried Instagram but I find it confusing and it hasn't as yet generated any traffic. I have traffic on my site quite small at around 100-190 per day. I have used Facebook groups to generate 90% of my traffic/customers.

I had no experience in making websites before I started and I had never heard of html or SEO BUT have self taught myself a few things and have a bit more knowledge which I work on daily. (I am not an expert, maybe one day).

I am NOT interested in joining any MLM companies as this is not for me BUT would be interested in working with others to backlink our websites to help reach.

So, if you need personalised gifts have a look at Pypog.

Anyone interested or who knows more about backlinks etc (I am just learning) and can teach me without signing up to junk mail I would love to hear from you so long as we don't sell the same things.

Thank you for visiting and reading my what seems like an essay, haven't done that since school.

Take care and above all stay safe.