Name of your website?Delarue opals - Opals direct from the miner
Your name?
jacky
Your Location (city, etc)
cardwell
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Online store of Australian opals and opal jewelry direct from the miner, at opal fields prices.Secure payments. Worldwide shipping.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
We are opal miners and opal cutters. With the sharp drop of visiting opal buyers to the opal fields these past 10 years, sales went down sharply. So, I decided to open an online store to sell our opals.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
In 1994, and still the same website but with regular updates and changes in the design as I am not a trained webmaster.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Just used our own family name as we are well known in the Australian opal industry for over 35 years.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
Our prices are very cheap compared to others, as there is no middle man,and we do not overcharge. Our prices are real value for the money we ask. We only want to make a living out of it, not a quick buck. We have an excellent reputation in the industry and we want to keep it.We offer a good old fashion service to people who write to us, by answering within 48 hours to any query we receive. We know what we are talking about and the description of our products is accurate and not misleading, or over the top.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To keep it to provide us with some extra money in our retirement in a few years time.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Not enough yet to live entirely out of it.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I would pay for advertising
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
yes, because I would not spend so much time to make changes all the time trying to find a better design or description to entice more visitors to buy
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
none, but it is a slow process to get sales
What has been your biggest challenge?
the design of the site as I am not a graphic artist
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Free listing of URL in directories
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Being what I consider a small business with limited funds, I always expected it would be a slow process
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?
Since February 2004; it has being growing very slowly but it is growing, and I will keep it up, as beside the small money return, I enjoy running it and enjoy contacts with people all over the world; I also enjoy the very positive feedback we receive from visitors to the site and from satisfied customers.
Replace this with a question of your own
beside spending money on advertising like adwords, what do I have to do to increase visitors and sales?
What is your website address?
Delarue opals - Opals direct from the miner
