Weekly Update #2

So this week was a bit of a quiet one, we updated some of the items on our website and increased our eBay footprint.

Note to self, check how big items can be for large letter postage! Our brine shrimp hatchery has caused us a bit of aggro as the CO2 bottle cap is a lovely 3cm in size and yet Royal Mail only allow up to 2.5cm to use a large letter, the problem here is the next stage up is a small parcel jumps from 83p to £2.90 so this CO2 cap we were selling for £2 suddenly has to cost atleast £4! Now you might say you should have checked that before putting up the item, and why would you show how incompetent you are in this blog post. You would be right we should have checked beforehand, and we did, as you see the CO2 bottle cap standing up is 2.5ishcm, we just didn't really consider that if at the time the person processing it, its on its side, then this would mean that it would be over the 2.5cm limit causing the buyer to then have to pay the difference in postage plus a £1 penalty charge. You might also say why don't you just hand it in yourself at the post office, make sure the CO2 cap is in the right position and post it through the slot. Yes, we tried that, however, that 2.5ish. It appears the CO2 cap when we put the bag around it and post it through the slot, the guy at the desk said we pushed it too much and we'd have to pay extra, as the "letter should be able to freefall through the slot" you may be able to get away with it, but in this instance we couldn't and in all honesty, don't want to risk any item getting to the buyer where they have to pay the extra postage, and a penalty charge.

The reason we're sharing this is that these blog posts are supposed to be everything we've learned along the way. Georgie and Myself started this business due to both a necessity and a curiosity. Mushu and Mulan had 400 Axolotl eggs which once they reached around 3 months old they'd be good to sell, however, Pet Shops only really buy from businesses unless you want store credit, which while we did consider, thought we'd take a chance and try to see if we could make something more.

We started out with no knowledge on how to run a business and while sure, there are plenty of guides for how to start up your business, none of them seemed to really fit with how we saw our business going, all of the home run businesses seemed to be for selling clothes from China, or doing Body Shop. 

So think of these blog posts as a (hopefully one day) guide to running a successful aquatic store from the comfort of your own home.