It looks very nice.

I suggest youpublish morearticles to atrract more visitors to your site and if possible, use more text links.

Submit to www.digg.com, www.prweb.com, use www.overture.com(Yahoo! search) and Google adwords to promote.

You might consider selling on Ebay UK because a lot of UK users might be visiting your site from there.

shulta any updates on your site and business?

how is it going

@okaforworld
Cheers for your feedback much appreciated!
I've written 2 Press Releases and submitted them to PRWeb - the first one received a 3 but the second one received a 4 rating which is supposed to be really good. I've submitted to Overture and http://www.digg.com seems more on the IT angle but hey I can jump in there (as an ex-IT analyst) with the fact that the software I'm using and the ecommerce is Mambo/VirtueMart ie: GNU software. So I may just do something along those lines.

@LadyDay
Well I've got a page & a half of editorial about anitagrant.com in this month's Black Beauty & Hair magazine. I've been contacted by Fox TV Studios in the USA requesting a Press Pack and samples. Must ship those out tomorrow morning.
There will be another write up about my business in another VERY popular magazine with a mostly white readership.

The thing that I find really sad is that it's really difficult to get anywhere with the Black media here in the UK. With the exception of Black Beauty & Hair.

I have contacted some of the most well known Black UK publications (which I am not going to name) but they just don't seem to want to know. They will accept my samples but some won't even accept that. They just don't want to know or they will hang the phone up on me.

This is my intro..
"Hello, my name is Anita Grant and I would like to send you a Press Pack and sample of my Goodies.." or
"May I speak to the Beauty editor, please? My name is Anita Grant and I would like to send a Press Pack and sample of my Goodies"

One replied with "Yes send me some samples" the others either hung up the phone or sucked their teeth.

Meanwhile, I would contact the white UK publications and well known Black publications in the USA and they are seriously probing me for more information and asking me all sorts of questions.
What's a girl to do?
I live in the UK and most of my customers are in the USA or France...

I just contacted another online Black-UK eZine who accepted my Press Pack & Goodies and loved them but I haven't heard back from them since January 2006. I know that she has read my email because I just received a Read Receipt.
I didn't expect it to be easy but then again I didn't know what to expect ... anything except rudeness would have been fine with me.
confused2
I'll keep on trying

Any suggestions as to what I should do would be much appreciated...?

hi shulta

thanks for the update

i read your thread on nappturality all the time and i am a customer

but um i am gonna speak to my friend who works in the media to see if she can give tips

i will think of ideas for you which i love doing putting my media head back on

keep at the black media in the uk....

who knows maybe we can set up a black media pressure group

oh yeah have you been the blackprofessional site? http://www.blackprofessional.co.uk/

Oh THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU so much for your words of encouragement & assistance!!! I feel sooooooo extremely humbled!

I even contacted a Black journalist who works for a UK national newspaper (telephoned x7 and emailed twice) but nothing!

Your words of encouragement makes me want to cry tears of joy.
I was thinking of retracting what I typed yesterday because maybe some Black journalist may read it and think... "Well I ain't gonna contact her now that she wrote this...!" But DANG.. it's rough for a Black start up breaking into the Black UK market via the Black UK media!
However, I'm not going to give up..niceone.gif

I will submit my press release to The Black Professional TODAY!!!
I have come across the site before but that's when they only had a few articles up there, BUT NOW there's a whole lot more...
Cheers for the heads up...
...and thanks again...
@BlackBeauty
There are some recipes under the Free Tips & Tricks page that you may want to try.
If you need any assistance just holla, ok.
Right, now I need to go and update my front page and get selling...

im waiting on the shampoo bars too

i ask on nappturality so just twiddling waiting fore curing which i dont quite understand

@shulta: Sorry to hear that. Being a start up can be hard. Do you go to business networking events? This has been a blessing to generate contacts.Nex generation magazine may be a good place to put one of your articles in and also get in touch withhttp://www.efbwbo.net/ if you're interested. I'm telling you we have a bigger prescence than it may seem.

I would say to chose more than one way to get yourself out there and never doubt the power of word of mouth. To this day it is still the best form of advertising and is FREE.... Also how aboutsending a "tell a friend" note with your business card/flyer with your orders I've already been telling people about your products but don't have anything to give them.

I think those brand name companies who have looked down on you should get exposed.....first impressions count and if you as a general member of the public got a response like that it's not good.

When I was trying to break into travel I was shocked at how rude who ever answered the phone at Air Jamaica was. You would think that I called the womans house at midnight! That hurt because I suppose I had the expectation that this is a good company that I wouldlike to work for. Well I called back in the hope that I would get through to someone else but nooo she was still there on the other end as miserable as she was the last time I called. Well that was that. I looked else where....anyway I'm confident you'll do ok it's early days but there are big things ahead for you sisniceone.gif!

Yes, the shampoo Bars are still curing. The reason why I put the bars on my site in the first place is due to the fact that you can be notified the moment they become available also it gives me an idea of numbers - the amount of bars I should make. I still haven't priced them up yet and won't do until they have cured.

@Maat
Thank you ever so much for the contacts and the support much appreciated!
I'm so sorry to hear about what happened to you at Air Jamaica.

When I tried to access next generation all I got was:
" This is the placeholder for domain nexgeneration.com. If you see this page after uploading site content you probably have not replaced the index.html file.

This page has been automatically generated by Plesk."

However, I will be submitting my press release to http://www.efbwbo.net
Cheers again - gotta go and post a dozen orders.