The story of a website

Shop news Website

In the week when we are officially launching our new Shopify website, it seems like a good time to reflect on the long and tortuous journey we have been on to get to this point. All epic stories need to start in the traditional manner so here we go...

Once upon a time, in a county far, far in the West, there lived an ethical trader called Jill. She was a passionate campaigner about single-use plastic and started a business called BagAge to promote reusable shopping bags and Fair Trade gifts. 

In another part of the kingdom, a wanderer called Lenshina had finished a legendary journey from big city life to a rural idyll. Suddenly she had everything she had hoped for - a country cottage, a vegetable patch, chickens. And then something else that hadn't been on the original plan - a beautiful baby girl! After an unsuccessful battle with a corporate dragon about part-time working after maternity leave, she was looking for a new, child-friendly, quest.

Then one day in 2012, while walking around a castle (yes a real castle, home of the last dragon in Wales) trying to get a baby to sleep, the two friends concocted the idea of working together on a website. Meetings were held, Fair Trade chocolate was sampled, photos were taken in beautiful local areas and the name Fair and Fabulous was born.

         

So far so fairy tale, right? Well, all good stories also need some trials and tribulations. The intrepid heroines did manage to cobble together a website, but it was never quite what they had hoped for and it was cumbersome to edit and update. Also somehow in the middle of all this Lenshina had started sourcing Fair Trade products of her own and then they had decided to open a new, bigger shop as a partnership, under the beady eye of their small managing director (who wasn't a baby anymore...). And in the day to day rush of having a shop open 6 days a week and doing festivals where possible, the website always took a back seat and was left neglected and unloved.

But it came to pass that in 2020 a terrible plague overtook the kingdom, forcing the shop to be temporarily closed and festivals to be cancelled. Surely this was the time for the website to finally come into its own? Well, it hasn't been easy, especially when combined with homeschooling the managing director. And although we are in no way damsels in distress, we did need to call on the help of our own handsome prince, who was locked in the tower with us and unable to escape! So, after 101 days of lockdown, we have done it - a brand new website that finally fulfills our original vision. We hope you like it and that this is a fairy tale that will have a very happy ending! 


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