After many late nights over the past 4 weeks, Oz Fair Trade is up and running. I’m glad that I made the move. Global Handmade was a great name, but it lacked clarity of what the organisation stood for. After 10 months of running Global Handmade, I have learned a lot about e-commerce, business, marketing, social media, web building, accounting, etc.; the list goes on and on. I felt that I could devote my life to the promotion of fair trade and alleviation of poverty. So the first thing I did was choosing a new brand name that better represented the mission and value of the organisation. Then the real job begins.

Here, I wish to offer my two cents worth of advice to anyone who is thinking of rebranding an e-commerce business or any small business in general. Some of these might not be applicable to your situation, but I hope you’ll find something useful here.

In summary, the steps I undertook were:

1. Consider pros and cons of rebranding. Make a decision. Document a rebranding strategy.
2. Choose a new name. Design a new logo. Purchase a new domain. Set up new emails.
3. Build a website.
4. Order new business cards and promotional materials.
5. Update brand information at all social media platforms, blog, external review websites etc.
6. Create a new Paypal account.
7. Create a new google analytics account.
8. Redirect traffic from the old website to the new website
9. Inform all past customers about the move
10. Build SEO for the new website
11. Spread the word!

Coming soon – How to rebrand an e-commerce store (Part II)

Please check out our new website http://www.ozfairtrade.org