I am the co-founder and owner of Letterbox Gifts. My responsibilities include market research, procurement of products, managing our website and other e-commerce sites, managing our team of staff, over-seeing marketing activities including SEO & PR, and day-to-day accounting.

Throughout a typical day I oversee our dispatching team who are dealing with stock levels and dispatching online orders from our Sheffield office. I will work with them to ensure we have the correct stock ordered based on sales forecasts and gifting occasions.

I may then liaise with partner organisations on our ongoing/upcoming marketing plans, whether it be through paid performance advertising (checking performance and spend), affiliate marketing, social media, and also research any PR opportunities that Letterbox Gifts may interested in.

I would then work with my business partner to discuss new product launches, researching new products and suppliers; always accessing costs and margins. All our products are made in Britain and must fit through letterbox, so product research can sometimes be time consuming, yet using small independent business Made in Britain is an important part of our business and environmental ethos.

I may spend some time maintaining our website, whether it be adding content, checking performance and liaising with SEO partners to ensure the website is working as it should.

I enjoy developing new products and everything that the whole process entails. From the ideas and market research stage, to researching suppliers, liaising with them to develop something bespoke, right through to the photography, product launch and marketing. It's rewarding to see an idea follow through to being sold on our website letterboxgifts.co.uk and also our third party sellers like NotOnTheHighStreet.

Owing your own business can be a lot of responsibility, especially when employing staff, but it's always a case of risk & reward. The changing nature of e-commerce means we always have to be up to date with the latest sector changes, from Google and Facebook updating algorithms to changing customer shopping habits etc, but it keeps us on our toes!

Owning my own business and working for myself has always been an ambition. The gifting and e-commerce sector happened by a happy accident. My business partner and I had a translation company for 7 years, as we both studied French at university, so had an interest in the language sector. While running the language company we saw a gap in the market for an easy, stress-free gifting service for letterbox gifts and the rest is history!

Skills such as project management, gained throughout my time at university, has helped hugely with running my own business. Excellent communication skills are crucial to managing a team and developing effective working relationship with suppliers and other businesses.

June 2011-June 2013: International Trade Co-Ordinator at South Yorkshire International Trade Centre (part of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce)
2013 - 2020: Co-founder and Director of Total Linguistics Ltd
2015- present: Co-founder and Director of Letterbox Gifts Ltd.

I would like to continue to grow Letterbox Gifts and expand into different markets.

Don't be afraid of starting small. Slow, organic business growth can sometimes be a blessing as it gives you time to learn (and make mistakes!) along the way.

Please get in touch with any questions.