Picture caption: Brinley Williams of thewelshshop.com surrounded by some of the Welsh gifts he sells online.

An ambitious entrepreneur is using "dragon power" to sell 1,000 Welsh gifts and crafts around the world through an innovative on-line shop.

Brinley Williams, 42, launched www.thewelshshop.com and www.thewelshshop.co.uk from his Newport base two years ago after taking redundancy from NTL as a software developer.

He hit upon the idea of creating an online shop to sell Welsh products after being disappointed by the Welsh presence on the worldwide web when compared to countries like Ireland.

Although Welsh customers were at first slow to take advantage of the facility, thewelshshop.com has now taken off and he is predicting a bumper Christmas this year. The website offers Welsh gifts ranging from £2 keyrings to jewellery costing up to £450 as well as lovespoons, miner's lamps and flags, which are the best sellers.

He revealed that the Owain Glyndwr flag is currently outselling the Welsh flag, possibly because this year marks the 600th anniversary of the famous Welsh warlord proclaiming the first Welsh Parliament in Machynlleth. The fact that Welsh football fans were banned from taking the flag into the Millennium Stadium earlier this year has also added to its popularity.

"Everybody seems to want one of these flags at the moment," said Brinley. "They simply adore it. The demand first started in the United States but now the orders are mostly from England and Wales, including a lot of pubs and hotels."

The online shop's success has resulted in the launch of another web venture, www.dragon-power.co.uk, which sells a variety of designer gifts not limited to Wales.

He has already designed a range of Dragon Power T-shirts for surfing and skateboard enthusiasts, is about to go into partnership with a company to sell surfboards through the site and is soon to offer novelty mugs with "naughty" slogans.

He eventually plans to launch his own range of Welsh clothes with the Dragon Power brand name. "It's an area for me to express myself and gives me creative freedom to do whatever I want," he said.

He is also preparing to launch a new web directory for Wales, www.dairectory.co.uk, in October and is creating a new web and ecommerce design company called Miura Design, www.miuradesign.co.uk.

His business success recently took him to the final of the recent E-Commerce Awards for Wales sponsored by the Welsh Assembly Government, which he didn't win this time but plans to enter again next year.

"I originally gave myself four years to establish the business, so I am very happy with the way things are going and was really chuffed to have been shortlisted for the E-business Start-Up award this week," said Brinley, who has been supported by aspire business start-up programme.

Devised and managed by Newport-based CODA Business Management Group with Welsh Development Agency support, aspire offers mentoring and specialist consultancy to ambitious entrepreneurs in South East Wales whose business ideas demonstrate strong growth potential.

Through the aspire programme, Brinley was able to tap into 32 years of retailing expertise from mentor David Lloyd and has also received specialist marketing advice.

With the new business venture flourishing, Brinley is now branching out to provide web design and IT consultancy services himself and includes CODA on his growing list of clients.

"The aspire programme has given me fundamental business guidance and direction to keep me on the right road," he said. "You need to know so much when you are starting a business and without the support from CODA, it would have taken a lot longer to reach this point."

David Lloyd said mentoring had given Brinley the business know how to add to his considerable IT and Internet skills.

"Anyone developing an e-commerce site must accept that it is not going to build massive turnover instantly," he added. "It's a gradual process and you really do need to understand the needs of your customers."