Well three in 12 years. But these are proper websites,

Websites, in my case ecommerce stores aka trading websites, fall into two categories.

Websites made by Tom, Dick and Harry from darkened bedrooms for £500 on generic platforms like wordpress. They are not very good and you never sell anything

Website made by professional website designers using proper coding, they cost £3000 plus. Because they are of a far higher standard and far rarer that the millions of cheap websites Google and other search engines are more responsive to the content.

The expensive websites need an enormous amount of time for you to spend building and maintaining. So, it is a big project to take on.

I left the large antiques centre I owned in Eastbourne last July. Covid had ravaged the business which we essentially moved onto Etsy with huge success as the population sat behind computers and lap top bored during the lockdowns

Trading online during a pandemic maybe rich pickings but as the UK got back to normal so did trading and sales reduced dramatically to pre- Covid levels. Then as quickly as it realigned  the war in Ukraine and the Governments mishandling of the economy under the disastrous Truss saw our customer base basically lose a sizable chunk of their disposable income. Our goods are very much not essentials.

Etsy has also been undergoing sea changes to their governance I did not like which left me unsettled to have all my eggs in one basket. A month ago, we started selling on Vinterior, another embryonic vintage selling platform that is very good but not anywhere near the selling power of Etsy. I will continue to trade on Etsy as it is still a great selling tool.

So it seemed prudent to have another go. A last attempt to build a real site of gravitas to be proud of.

There is no guarantee of success. I’ve previously tripped over myself to foul it up, but experience is invaluable. There is far more competition now, but maybe that will be countered by a far more advanced understanding of social media and how it works? Of course, we are in a dreadful trading phase for vintage sales but this leaves me with some valuable time in my routine to build the foundations and get it off the ground and perversely starting when trade is rock bottom will stop me doing what I did before and getting way ahead of myself.