So with much fanfare and blowing of trumpets, Park Lane’s step into the brave new world of online trade, is more of a crawl than a leap.  Still, much deserving of a champagne celebration and, from little acorns and all that…

Park Lane has been importing and supplying champagne to the UK under customer’s own brands for 15 years.  I started in 1994 and my brother Nick joined me shortly afterwards on leaving school .  Back then we felt we were cutting edge having our own web site and email addresses;  how things have changed!

Demand has also changed.  For all those 15 years, we have declined smaller orders from individuals or SMEs as the label origination costs and general logistics prohibited the ability;  we simply couldn’t compromise on the quality.  What we have noticed during the dreaded you know what but mustn’t speak its name is that the smaller requests have been increasing hugely while our regular customers have been having less to celebrate about - and have felt it inappropriate to follow Churchill’s advice and consume even more champagne in difficult times!

One of my best friends, Toby Treacher, is a new media guru and has been pestering me for years to embrace online sales, as opposed to using the internet purely as an advertising tool.  A million excuses later, Toby has project managed our move into online sales both to capitalise on demand and help grow the business.  His only issue is why we didn’t heed his advice years ago, and doubtless I can find a number of reasons why not; the truth probably is inertia and complacency.

All change now, then.  What a learning curve this is for me, with a new way of doing business and a new vocabularly to master - tweets and all.  So I see this blog more as jottings from the stump rather than a blow by blow reporting on the world of champagne.  Of course, there will be snippets of technical info, but really the intention is to chronicle how things turn out for us and what we learn along the way.

My business has been built around core principles of quality and service.  For me, it is imperative that we improve on those principles as we move into this new way of trading and with that in mind, PLEASE PLEASE send me your feedback.  If we can improve in any way, then we can only do it if we know it needs doing.

So to finish as I started, here we go.  For the first time, an internet site for Park Lane where you can buy online and in quantities from one bottle!  Fingers crossed and here goes…

Best Wishes