 By Les Floyd
A WHITEHAVEN fashion entrepreneur's investment in e-commerce has taken her business to the global marketplace with such success that she now plans to strengthen her online identity with a second website.
Jayne Lainé, who owns the Vanilla Designer Boutique on Strand Street, set up her Corsets-Lingerie website in May 2004 and says it now accounts for 20 per cent of her entire trade, bringing in sales from as far afield as Australia and Canada.
Jayne, 29, said: "I would like to set up another website to highlight the clothing lines we sell, and leave this one to focus on the lingerie and corsets."
She explained: "At the moment I am selling everything from just the one website and the name doesn't sound like somewhere you can buy a pair of butt lifting David Bitton jeans."
After graduating from university and taking time out to travel the world, Jayne returned to live in Whitehaven – something she'd sworn never to do, in her younger years – and, with a long interest in fashion and on discovering a gap in the local market, she opened the Vanilla Boutique in 2002.
She said: "I grew up a lot while travelling and decided that, even after all the places in the world I had visited and seen, there was never anywhere quite like home. So, I decided to open the shop just over three years ago and haven't looked back since."
Feedback from Jayne's male customers revealed that they were often embarrassed when buying lingerie for their girlfriends or wives, and though they felt buying from the shop was not as bad as they first feared, making purchases from the comfort of their own homes would make things much easier for them.
The Corsets-Lingerie website, designed by Loraine Birchall of Ulverston's Artemis Media, was launched in May 2004, and between February 1 - February 18 this year alone, it attracted an astonishing 60,417 page hits, with its Gift Finder among the most popular areas of the site.
"Ladies feel special if they are wearing nice underwear plus it is always a very intimate, personal and lovely gift to receive," said Jayne.
"Some men who buy for women have now branched away from buying solely lingerie and also buy jeans, dresses, camisoles and even corsets. As long as they supply us with the exact measurements we can have these ‘made to measure' and posted off, which avoids the blushes of buying in person from the boutique."
Jayne's university BA Management Studies skills have been used to great effect since founding her business, with innovations such as the Vanilla Catwalk Fashion shows being a star attraction of Whitehaven's successful biennial Maritime Festival.
"My prime interest at uni was in advertising, PR and marketing, so I know a thing or two about what works and what doesn't work," she explained.
"Over the past 18 months, after establishing our online presence and taking on more designer brand names, Internet sales have steadily increased - now accounting for 20 per cent of total trade - and we have about 700 regular customers on our mailing list."
"The proof is in the pudding," said Jayne.
The Corsets-Lingerie website is at http://www.corsets-lingerie.co.uk/Les Floyd is a freelance journalist and writer, based in Carlisle. He writes regularly for the News & Star, Cumberland News and other CN Group newspapers, as well as for Hollywood rock and film magazine, Mondo Cult. If you are interested in Les writing an article to help promote your business, please visit www.floydpublishing.com for details, email lesfloyd@floydpublishing.com or give him a call on 07841 408112 |
