Les Parfums d’IsabelleBased in Yorkshire, United Kingdom, Les Parfums d’Isabelle retails hand-made natural and couture perfumes. |
| Les Parfums d’Isabelle Customer Size: 10 employees Posted: March 2008 Software and Services
Microsoft Office Live Small Business Vertical Industries
Personal Care Products Retailing |
Turning a passion into a businessIn November 2006, Isabelle Gellé turned her passion for perfume into business, with the launch of Les Parfums d’Isabelle, a couture perfume company. Isabelle makes most of the perfumes herself, using ancient French methods of perfumery. The highly concentrated perfumes are made from entirely natural essences. Isabelle says: “Although many people want to smell beautiful and original, they can’t or don’t want to wear synthetic chemicals on their skin.” When Isabelle started her business, she created a small website with the aim of educating and informing people about her perfumes. But it wasn’t successful at attracting online visitors, and potential customers were unable to order or pay for products on the site. Microsoft Office Live Small Business is a free Internet-based software service, which provides small companies with a domain name, company email address, and easy-to-use tools to build a professional website. She says: “I thought Microsoft Office Live Small Business sounded like a wonderful opportunity to develop a website where people could buy my perfumes online.” Online purchases treble revenue in less than a yearIsabelle used the HTML module function in Office Live Small Business to set up a PayPal payment option for each perfume. Customers click the icon next to the perfume they want to buy, and are then taken through simple steps to complete the order with their credit card. “It was simple to do and works perfectly. More than 90 per cent of my sales now come from online purchases made using PayPal,” she says. During the festive period between November 2007 and January 2008, visits to her site skyrocketed - accompanied by a 20 per cent increase in sales. Isabelle attributes this solely to her use of Office Live Small Business search engine optimisation. In the future, she will use other forms of advertising and marketing to complement the site, but is happy with her business success for now. Isabelle says: “Revenue has trebled in less than a year and the company continues to average 10 per cent business growth every three months - I couldn’t have achieved this success without Office Live Small Business.”
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