UK-Legal-Knives Background to The Business So far
Starting as a family business in 2004, we originally sold cycling gloves and leather jackets imported from Pakistan on eBay. Still trading purely on eBay it was time to sell the long treasured pocket knife collection. Then came the discovery of a massive demand from pocket knife collectors around the world.
Our first e-commerce website – Handy Niknaks ® was started in 2007 and has served as a showcase for a diverse range of products over the years. Trading through an independent e-commerce website instead of an online marketplace platform such as eBay means you have full control. We learnt this the hard way in 2009, when eBay UK banned the sale of knives. The high fees on these platforms also meant a reduced profit and many restrictive terms and conditions.
www.uk-legal-knives.com , now specialises in small penknives which have no legal restrictions on sale or possession. An independent e-commerce web store is ideal for promoting such niche products. There is a growing demand for work knives, hobby knives etc and from pocket knife collectors. The local countryside is a sheep farming area and farmers in Yorkshire have always carried pocket knives. There’s even a pocket knife design named after a sheep’s foot! Pocket knives have been manufactured in Sheffield for hundreds of years and we are very happy to be promoting and selling British products which are manufactured in Sheffield, not far from here.
We aim to provide a unique selection of pocket knives in one place, which are not available anywhere else on the internet. The website name was chosen because of the SEO benefits of having the product name in the URL. Recent Google algorithm changes have probably cancelled out this benefit. The name of the product being in the URL still helps to reduce the Cost Per Click (CPC) when using Google Adwords. The site name and logo has since been copied by another less successful website attempting to sell discount knives.
E-commerce is constantly changing and there are always new challenges. The challenge is to continually source new products which no-one else is selling on the internet and to have a wide range of products from low to high prices. This has to be balanced with not ordering too much stock. Recent changes to the web site now allow customers to sort products by price in real time for each category. Simple changes like this can have a major impact the conversion rate of an e-commerce site.
Having good quality product photographs is also crucial in ecommerce as it’s a very visual platform. It is worth investing in a digital SLR camera and taking time to produce good photographs. Using your own photographs instead of those provided by a wholesaler or supplier also makes your products stand out from the competition. We are still in the process of upgrading all product photographs on the site.
The recession of the past few years has meant customers are shopping around more and spending less. The cost of running a website is also increasing all the time. Postage costs have increased above the rate of inflation. Google shopping has changed from free product listings to an expensive pay per click service. Competition is increasing with new websites being set up selling the same products. Creative thinking is necessary to maintain profitability and grow the business.
