Red Rufus – Optimise Case Study
See how one SME benefited from participating in our OPTIMISE programme. Grow your sales with e-commerce, it is the future
Where it all started
Christina started making sock animals for her children when they were small, as a present from their dog, Rufus. People loved the sock animals and began ordering them. She was getting a good response so her husband encouraged her to set up her first website, which was e-commerce enabled from the beginning. All Red Rufus sock animal toys are unique and all handmade in Ireland, something which Christina is very proud of.
Building online sales is key
Christina Sanne, Red Rufus
As Red Rufus is a small one-person craft business, it was important to get external expert advice to take her digital presence to the next level. One of the biggest challenges of being online is understanding what it all means, especially what’s required at the back-end of a website to improve its visibility. Christina also wanted to focus on building her online sales, which allows her to sell her products at full price, rather than through wholesalers.
Tailored recommendations
The OPTIMISE digital healthcheck gave Christina a detailed report which was tailored specifically for her. It recommended exactly what she needed to do, under specific headings such as coding and e-commerce.
There were simple things that she was able to implement herself such as adding more content in the menus at the top of the website. This encourages people to spend more time on the website. Tagging all the images on the website so they are described appropriately helped her content to be found online.
“The only way to get educated is to have these professionals telling you what you need to do.”
Online sales rising
Otto Sock Monkey
Christina’s online sales are rising and have definitely improved since OPTIMISE. A programme like this has been perfect fit for a small business like Red Rufus, where being able to sell products at the full price, as opposed to wholesale price, is key.
If you want to sell and get the full retail price, where else are you going to sell but on your website – it is the future, you have to have a website and it has to be e-commerce.
Christina enjoyed the programme and implementing the recommended changes. It opened her eyes to things she hadn’t thought about. Christina is currently working through the remainder of the recommendations and will apply for the Local Enterprise Office Trading Online Voucher.