Germany launched yesterday – Pearlsonly.de extreme effort to localize a site but we managed it via outsourcing, and in-house skills. Very proud of everyone and how well they did.

Last week was also quite significant as after months of exploring I have decided to alter our strategy going forward.This week also represented a significant shift in strategy.    I have alluded to this in previous blogs, and now it is reality.  My email to all staff, explains the shift. Which is below.

The week ended of a on a high note, with the financial systems taking shape – we are now at SOP level and are some 100 hours of data entry from having a detailed financial picture for several years back.  Finally. 

Earlier this week, I have met with some serious legal people (best in Beijing I’m told – and so it seems) to address some corporate and upcoming corporate issues.  

And, the cherry on to, was my meeting with a potential mentor.  I have been looking for a A+ grade mentor for some time – and today had a 30 minute ‘mentor’ interview today.   Felt like a little kid applying for a job, which observing myself was quite cute.   This has been some time in the works, and I’m positive this will move forward in a good way.   I will identify this person later on, but for now lets just say that this gentleman trades Xmas cards with Michael Dell.   Different level, different phycology and amazing values.  

Early site design thoughts follow:

Shows a combination of Departments, Events and campaigns, sub branded sites,  providers area within the tab navigation , plus banner campaign

Left nav widget, example but obviously Redstores branded color , left nav changes when you click into tab category area

After you click for example Pearls tab, left nav changes

The left nav does not need to expand like in current PO sites because top level major department / categories are in the top nav tabs

RedStores

direction shift announcement.

Dear All:

Wanted to share with you a change in our focus for reminder of 2010 and 2011.

As you all know, so far we have launched SilverDevotion.com and MyJewleryCove.com sites – so far, we have had little ‘financial’ success with those sites.  However, launching these sites, and going through all the ‘tests’ – we have learned a great deal.

· From SilverDevotion we learned that products are important.

· From MyJewleryCove we learned that it’s also very important to have a LOT of products.

Further, as we worked on these sites, we also learned that:

· They take more time to build than expected

· They need more people to maintain than expected

We also learned that :

· It’s quite difficult to find all the talent we need to drive these sites for sales in Beijing

· It takes longer and is more expensive to ‘market’ these sites

So, with all this learning, it has become much more clear that one ‘large’ site is much easier to build, market, maintain and develop than a large number of smaller sites.

AS a result – moving forward we will refocus all of our energy on getting RedStores.com launched – and making RedStores the ‘central’ point for all of our jewelry products so far.   

What this means, is that RedStores.com will become the site where our Pearls, Silver, Costume, and in future (gold, diamonds, etc.) will be placed.

Moving forward over next  month’s we will do the following:

1. Finish PearlsOnly Germany, France and Japan

2. 100% full effort into RedStores.com.

PearlsOnly sites will continue to operate as before, but once RedStores is ready, we will make efforts to ‘move’ our customers from PearlsOnly to the RedStores.com site –  where we can potentially sell them more things things

So, in summary – it is disappointing that SD and MJC didn’t make millions and millions just by being launched.  It would have been nice! J  For all of us.

But we did learn a lot from these sites, and taking these lessons with us into the future, will help us get that much stronger.

Over next weeks, we will be putting together a comprehensive schedule for RedStores – with realistic timelines, product expansion plans, etc.   I will share those with you as those come available – as there will be some cool things that we will do both from technology, marketing and sourcing points of view.

I will keep you all updated as things move along.

If you have any questions, comments (or a good joke) – let me know.

Best,

Paul

Personal side is moving on a good trajectory.   Small acceleration of some schedules, but fortunately nothing that I have not prepared for.   I’m not clairvoyant, but sometimes it feels like it.  Predictable chaos!