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'ASPIRING'
ENTREPRENEUR SELLS WALES TO THE WORLD
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 &
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.rudegift.co.uk, which sells a variety of
novelty and naughty gifts. He
has also helped launch Newport based Celtmyth's
personalised gifts online presence
www.celtmyth.com &
www.celtmyth.co.uk.
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 has set up
a new web and ecommerce design company called Miura
Design with his partner Tom Stroud.
www.miuradesign.co.uk. They
also have two additional ventures web and audio
conferencing with
www.miuraconference.co.uk and search
engine optimisation with
www.miura-marketing.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."
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