Comments on: UK/Ireland Small Business News Round-up – 21/03/2008

By: Will - ArenaFlowers.com

Will - ArenaFlowers.com — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:23:05 +0000

Hi Stefan

Absolutely, I agree with what you say completely. We are always looking for ways to add incremental revenue off our existing fixed cost base and web site development, as well as look for new markets that we can enter, all while preserving the ethos of the business – namely a great product, at a great price, with a slick user experience and good ethical credentials.

More than happy to help sharing what we’ve been through and (most importantly) what we’ve learnt, if you think it’ll be of interest to your readers. I’m amazed how much I’ve learnt in the 18 months since we launched Arena…I’m surprised my brain hasn’t exploded with all the information being packed in!

By: Stefan Töpfer

Stefan Töpfer — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:50:26 +0000

Will,

I hope you can scale your business in terms of overheads and maybe you could find new markets.

I would love to rite about you – giving you some publicity – and maybe help some others in the process, let me know what you think.

Stefan

By: Will - ArenaFlowers.com

Will - ArenaFlowers.com — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:12:29 +0000

The SFA may be confident about the ongoing prospects but, if you work in the business that I do (flowers), it’s a bit of a scary time at the moment – we get a lot of traffic from the US (which is hurting due to credit crunch and the weak dollar due to slashed USD interest rates). Our own currency has slid painfully against the Euro for similar reasons, but we buy our flowers in Euros so that’s cost us a huge amount. The UK economy in general is cautious due to the reverberations and concerns about the tax burden. And half our business comes from London, which is hit by the same pain of the credit crunch and all the associate fall out. Interesting times!