Bags of opportunities

For Kate Waugh, a lifelong love of handbags has helped her get a handle on an enterprising business venture that’s also a hobby

I’ve always loved handbags and often bored people with my plans for a handbag shop, so last year I stopped talking about it and gave it a go.

I’m sure my passion for handbags comes from being so small that I can never find that perfect pair of shoes, but I can always find a handbag I love!

Having put together my website brief and discovered web designers who “got me” and patiently put up with my pernickety demands, I got a lovely site that does everything I hoped for.

This includes automatically updating stock so our customers won’t experience the irritation of ordering a handbag we’ve sold out of. Excellent customer service is very important to me.

I visited trade shows to choose stock (serious self-control required for a handbag addict), learned how to take good quality photographs (having shamelessly milked several professional photographers for tips), found a little unit to keep all the lovely bags secure in, and lo, www.emotional baggage.co.uk was born. The name comes from the experience of finding a handbag you love: you just know you can’t go on without that bag…

I’ve had lots of help from family and friends, for which I’m very grateful – especially my parents, who set up the unit we run the business from. They now run it on a daily basis, as I work full-time as Disability Support Manager for Birmingham City University, which I really enjoy. In my spare time I do admin for the website and look after the content: I love the handbags so much I don’t see it as work!

Business is good, despite the current economic situation. We keep our prices as low as possible and I’ve noticed that despite the trends in accessories that fashion magazines tell us about, customers buy the handbags they like and that suit their lifestyle, so we have a wide range of shapes, colours and styles.

Thanks to expert advice from my PR consultant brother, I’ve generated lots of great publicity. Media coverage has included Radio 4 and the local press and radio. Emotional Baggage has a Facebook page and I also love to tweet on Twitter. I’m sad to report that I haven’t yet managed to get those famous Twitterers,
Wossy and Stephen Fry, to follow Emobag but I’ll keep trying.