Relocating - advice needed

[buspassjohn]

I can see the benefits of not having a shop, but for us its as much a lifestyle choice as a means of making some money.
Nick

Going online only was a lifestyle choice for us too, we've now got a life!
Monday to Friday only after 25 years of Monday to Saturday (plus Sundays in Nov/Dec), no shoplifters, no stroppy kids breaking the display stock, spitting chewing gum on the floor, etc., etc., We used to arrest all shoplifters until the day we caught 10 and occupied 2 staff all day, holding them for police etc., we then decided it was cheaper to just tell them to P off or not bother to catch them.
No £130000 static overheads! I better not go on, it sure is a lifestyle!
Having a shop would be great if it weren't for the customers!
Hope to be up your way shortly, I'm sure i've been in the shop years ago, judging by the stuff you sell.
Do I type in a London/Essex/Suffolk accent?

[Luddite]

Going online only was a lifestyle choice for us too, we've now got a life!

Thankfully, we love having a shop, but as soon as we are unhappy we'll give it up and go online only (or even better than that, i'll sell the whole business and have enough time & money to spend my days sailing round the norfolk broads sipping Bombay Sapphire)

can you detect my debonshire accent?

Had you down as Cornish, so not too far out (i'm sure you'd beg to differ though!)

I definitely type in a Scottish accent, in spite of my French surname and being in Turkey.

Had you down as sounding like Dennis Healy for some reason!

And while i'm at it, if George doesn't sound like Ray Winston i'll be really disappointed!

I've said far too much. Mods - please put this thread out of its misery!

[chris ashdown]

[QUOTE=Luddite] i'll sell the whole business and have enough time & money to spend my days sailing round the norfolk broads sipping Bombay Sapphire)

QUOTE]

Pop down the river to Greeeeat Yarmouth, and I will by you that G&T

[jont]

Norman - Had you down as sounding like Dennis Healy

Sean Connery surely????

[Miranda Stamp]

Not sure how your workloads pan out when you have physical customers, but I know they take up time we would otherwise be packing/answering the phone! Would love a bricks and mortar store but it's location location resulting in price price (Berkshire very expensive!).
We tend to discourage visitors as currently we are a (very nice inside) sublet of a grotty machine toolshop so there is a considerable H&S risk as our visitors have to cross a noisy factory floor where they make things from bits of metal - and the swarf works its way into our floormat by the door, just right for little toddlers to crawl on to...

What we do is run Actinic from the office by day for our day to day stuff, packing entering phone orders despatching, exporting the info to Sage. Then I either take a snapshot home on a flashdrive or transfer it to home via our VPN using PC Anywhere where I add items and tweak stuff on the site by night, transfer the file back or bring it in the next day with me. I can also log in to home or office from my laptop anywhere I can log in to a wirelsss hotspot, so can even work when away from home or a friend's house. Our bookkeeper also does the same with Sage, tending to work in the evenings at home with our pile of incoming invoices etc.

As I can see it the advantages are a regular off-site back up, rarely do we go more than 2 days without this, even if I'm on holiday, this means we don't loose a lot should either home or office get burgled or go up in smoke, plus the flexibility for mums to work at home in the evenings (we are a nice flexible workforce, office hours of course are scheduled around the school day with time off for inset days, school plays, harvest festivals and the like).

The only thing you have to insist on is a system whereby the user at the office knows if the file is at home or the office, we have the rule that it's at home first thing in the morning unless there is a message left on the screen to say it's back at the office - takes into account those essential Windows updates the computer has to do in the dead of the night and very kindly reboots your computer for you.