Name of your website?Mad4boxes
Your name?
Ben Palmer
Your Location (city, etc)
Burnley
Please give us a short summary of your website?
We are a cardboard box supplier based in the North West of England, we have our own in-house manufacturing which helps us keep our prices low and our quality level high.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Well the inspiration came when my wife was angry that i had come home late and said you're mad for boxes you are! The name stuck in my mind, then i decided to start a direct to customer website to sell our boxes.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
It was first launched in 2005 and included a tour of a house in flash, but this detracted visitors away from the shop.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
See 2 questions ago
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
The moving box market on the web in the UK seems to be flooded with fly-by-night websites that start up and just resell boxes. We make ours in house so we can keep the quality and the cost down.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Eventually i would like to sell the website on once i have enough to retire in Spain
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We found that Google Adwords help immmensely with our sales, it is quite a large cost a month but brings us in so much income we are happy to pay it.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Probably add more AJAX functionality to help make the website much more Web 2.0 looking but also a lot of great usability features.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Yes as we are also a manufacturing concern
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
I have already mentioned Adwords but this was a cost i had not even considered at startup, also unforeseen development additions like sales reports etc.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Getting the site up, i was awarded a grant from the local government but it took a while to come through
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Definitely PPC links
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Yes, it is a lot more work that i thought it would be but it is also very rewarding as you have constant sales figures at your disposal
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?
We have had it up for 3 years, if our traffic decreases we will probably look at different avenues of advertising like possibly social networks combining with free offers
What is your website address?
Mad4boxes
