Make yours a baby elephant!
If your Valentine is a mum to be log on to www.babyelephant.ie and order a range of prenatal treats.
Once the baby arrives, it’ll be the last chance she will get – for years – to relax in a bathful of bubbles and spend an hour slathering on body lotions and potions so we recommend you go all out with the pampering now. The Cowshed maternity range includes hampers from €65 – the products are organic and Fairtrade and next day delivery is available.
Check out www.babyelephant.ie/mama-gifts.html
Gillian Nellis, Sunday Business Post, 7th February 2010
January News
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January News
After a busy Christmas Baby Elephant is making plans for 2010 we are working on adding exciting new products including baby’s first art!
January Competition
Buy a hamper between now & the end of February and you could win a €100 voucher for www.babyelephant.ie
January Gift Ideas
For Valentines Day spoil a Mama in Waiting with the Udderly Motherly hamper or a New Mum and Baby with The Cub pampering treats for Mum and her new little Cub!
If you haven’t already be a pal and join us on Facebook for cute competitions and sweet savings!
Baby Elephant gets Gloss-iped!
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The gorgeous Gloss Magazine featured www.babyelephant.ie in this months Christmas Party issue with our lovely friend Paula Asple of the brilliant www.mabelandviolet.com.
December GLOSS-IP
Not wanting to turn down a party means going by whatever means, even if it does involve ringing up an old girlfriend, or flying solo. Right now, networking is key and there’s never been a better time to put yourself out there. When you’re a one woman show, it’s even more vital to have a few friends you can call on. MAEVE BARRY and PAULA ASPLE, two Dublin based entrepreneurs (Barry is MD of baby and maternity website www.babyelephant.ie , and Asple is MD of lifestyle shop www.mabelandviolet.com), met and started what they call their own “micro networking group”. They also came up with a clever solution for when one or the other needs a few days away from the office: the concept of ‘business sitting’. Both started their businesses a year ago and know that in order to weather the current storm, there’s no way they can let their customers down. “One of the most appealing aspects of e-commerce is being open for business 22/7/365″, says Barry, “but ironically, it’s one of the major drawbacks for businesses like ours that don’t have employees”. So if she’s called away, Asple will look after her online shop, and vice versa. They also pool their knowledge and resources, plus it’s a great excuse to meet regularly: “When you work in isolation and spend most of your time online, it’s all too easy to become withdrawn”, explains Asple. “So not only are our meetings helpful from a business perspective, but we both come away feeling positive and energised.” They’ll celebrate being in business one year on and surviving recession with some well earned cocktails at Venu.
December 2009 THE GLOSS MAGAZINE
babyelephant.ie and our lovely friend mabelandviolet.com featured in the Sunday Business Post with our novel approach to being self employed – Business sitting!!
Business-sitting taking off online in a big way
Sunday, November 15, 2009 By Catherine O’Mahony
For Ireland’s growing band of niche online retailers, the downside of running a small online business is the difficulty of taking a break from it, particularly when the economic downturn means every order is crucial.
This issue no longer worries Maeve Barry and Paula Asple, who run online businesses from their Dublin homes.
The two women, who were strangers until they got in contact via the Pigsback website earlier this tear, now ‘businesssit’ one another’s websites – checking mail and posting out product – when one of them is away on holiday or business. They are also sharing tips on marketing and promotions.
‘‘You can’t ask family members to do this for you,” said Barry, whose website is called www.babyelephant.ie and sells hampers for newborns. ‘‘It’s amazing to have someone you completely trust looking after things.”
Paula Asple, who runs online gift shop Mabel and Violet.
com, said: ‘‘Not only are our meetings hugely beneficial from a business perspective, but we both come away feeling more positive and energised about being one-woman online retailers.”
Barry and Asple both started their businesses in late 2008 and said they had had a difficult year. However, both reported their best sales in September and are positive for the Christmas season. Barry said she felt other small online operators could benefit from a similar business-sitting system.
‘‘You could develop a whole network of people, especially between people who live locally.”
Independent Mothers and Babies Magazine
By · CommentsWe know its early and a Baby Elephant’s not just for Christmas but some recommendations from the Independent’s Mothers and Babies Magazine included www.babyelephant.ie
Independent Mothers and Babies Magazine 4th November 2009
For a range of luxurious and organic, practical and pampering gifts for babies, mums and mums to be check out www.babyelephant.ie
Ranges include, Organics for Kids – Beautiful Clothes for Babies made from 100% Organic Cotton, Cowshed – Udderly Gorgeous Maternity & Baby Cow Organics, Green Baby – Natural & Organic Skincare for Babies and JJ Cole – Convenient and Fashionable baby travel products.
With prices starting from €33 www.babyelephant.ie offer a fresh and innovative alternative to flowers and teddies as well as being ultra convenient with next day courier delivery in Ireland only €5 and worldwide delivery using An Post registered post.
www.babyelephant.ie are offering Independent readers 10% off for November and December by using this code IMB10.
Baby Elephant getting caught in the web!
By · CommentsWe were delighted to be featured in Brian Skelly’s article for Computers in Business with the Sunday Business Post.
http://www.sbpost.ie/computersinbusiness/getting-caught-in-the-web-45378.html
Here’s the bit about us!
From Hairy Baby to Babyelephant. A gifting site aimed at new mothers and expectant mothers – and another website to make the IWA shortlist – babylephant.ie was set up by Dubliner Maeve Barry in December last year and since then has been steadily building an online audience.
For Barry, useability and appearance were the most important considerations when building her site. She wanted it to be warm and welcoming so that visitors would want to linger and hopefully buy something.
“Appearance is very important,” she said.” People should be happy to look around and browse. It is also extremely easy to use – an eight-year-old could use it.’’ A clear and simple shopping engine and payment system are other key features, she added.
Barry has endeavoured to make Babyelephant as dynamic and engaging as possible. She said every website should be a work in progress and continually upgraded with new content and features. She finds a useful way to guide development is to get feedback from customers about their experiences on the site and make improvements and tweaks based on what they say. She also uses Google Analytics to gather stats on the site.
“There are a few performance metrics that we pay attention to,” she said.” The first is the total number of people visiting the site each month. We are then able to monitor their path through the website – looking at how many pages they are visiting, what they are looking at, where they leave the site and, most importantly, what percentage of them go on and buy a Babyelephant gift.
“These stats then form the basis of future site updates and also inform us on what we can afford to spend on marketing.”
The Google game
Curious Wines, Hairy Baby, Baby Elephant and other successful sites have several success factors in common. First, they tend to achieve consistently high rankings on Google. Mulley believes that having a website that both looks the part and is Google-literate is the name of the game for businesses these days.
“When your website is well designed and well structured, it means that Google can go through your website, note everything that’s on it and when someone does a search, can bring that content back to them,” he said.” So, well designed websites mean that, as well as looking good, they can perform well on search engines.”
Baby Elephant shorlisted for 2009 Irish Web Awards
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We were pretty pleased to be nominated for the Best eCommerce Award at the 2009 Irish Web Awards – big shout out to our super designer!
Baby Elephant Spoiling Mummy in Image
By · CommentsWe were delighted to be included in the INSIDER in this months Image
Irish Independent Weekend
By · CommentsBaby Elephant chuffed to be included in License to Shop!
Baby Elephant feeling special with the Irish Times
By · CommentsWe were super happy with the response from the Irish Times who very kindly wrote about us in Saturday’s magazine!
The Irish Times Magazine
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Special delivery
Everyone wants to be generous to new mums but some gifts are just more useful than others. Maeve Barry started www.babyelephant.ie after she was inundated with bunches of flowers on the birth of her baby. Her idea was to offer presents that could be pampering and practical. Now in business for six months, she has started to deliver worldwide, and has added two new organic skincare brands – Cowshed and Mambino Organics – to her range. Next-day courier delivery in Ireland is €5. Baby gifts such as organic cotton rompers start from €33 and mama gifts start at €44.
