Our Online Adventure

Our adventure into the world of Internet commerce came out of the frustration of trying to sustain a family of 10 in a state with the second worst unemployment rate in the US.

It has always been our choice that I stay home to raise our kids while they were young, and that decision has kept me out of the wage slave life until just recently.

Although my husbands Steve and Rich both worked for the same company, Steve had been there for over six years and had never had a raise.

The manager of Rich's department had tearfully laid him off, ostensibly because there wasn't enough work. Within a month, she had hired 3 people to take his place, two of whom attended her church, and one of which was a seminary student…but I digress.

So there we were. Ten people supported by 1 income. Over several months, our plan became to start a web shop. Rich had done enough research to learn that if we were careful, we could open a reasonably interesting site for very little money. We decided to play to our combined strengths, which put Rich in charge of the technical aspects of maintaining our site, Brigid's Cauldron, linking to others of like mind, and search engine placement. I became the seeker of interesting goodies, keeper of the inventory, and when I get the time, writer of our spiritual missive. Steve took on the mantle of Artist in Residence, and designed all the pretty bits. In the space of about 4 months, we pulled most of it together, and went online. We did not become overnight millionaires. As a matter of fact, at the end of the first month, we had made the mind-boggling sum of just over 7 dollars. We were thrilled. We were in the black!

In a very short amount of time it became obvious that most of our clientele were delighted with the site but broke, and we called a meeting to strategize. Being a Hedgewitch, my expertise is magickal, so I designed a ritual to attract not only our poor but loyal customers, but also those with money to spend. Because the time was auspicious, I also included Steve's retail sales and abundance for the household. I concluded the ritual on a Thursday. Rich honed his skills in keyword choice and html. Within 3 days we had more orders than we had previously to date, Steve's new General Manager had made the boss believe it was his own idea that a raise for Steve was long overdue, I was offered my current job at a local fabric shop, and I was asked to write my first article for this e-zine, and Rich was offered a full time union position at the grocery store at the end of our lane. Now, there's really no way to tell what it was that brought all these blessings to us so quickly. Since it could have been either Rich's efforts or my own, we decided to keep things the way they were. He repeats his efforts in the technical arena, and I continue to do weekly rituals and choose products instinctively.

I realize now, after having read this over that this all sounds amazingly easy. It wasn't. What I didn't include is that much of the research we did was between the hours of 11pm and 6am. Trying to choose product and capture gif files just doesn't work when you're in the middle of cooking a country breakfast for 10. Neither does keyword research, nor perusing other similar sites to make sure you're not carrying the same stuff as everyone else. Our business grew between laundry loads and movie night. It grew during kitten litters and sowing the garden. It flourished amid job interviews, and unpleasantness with the Unemployment Department, How dare we start our own business! It has been slow but steady, and we are as satisfied with it as we can be with the limitations inherent in the site design we bought. Our plan for the future is to learn enough about code to design our shop from the ground up. We're looking forward to the challenge!

By Boo