Its always difficult to know with a niche business where the next sale will come from and how best to market the business. This week I've had an order from the Isle of Man, and a sale to a Dutch chap on holiday who popped in on his way by. The shop is between Edinburgh city centre and the Botanic Gardens, so its on quite a popular walking route.

I had an American in last week who lives in Ireland and was again on his way to the Botanic Gardens. He bought two pairs of shoes and then came in again two days later to ask about socks as well. So at least the customer service being offerd is good enough to draw people back.

One customer who has bought from us three times now works locally and saw the shop in the passing. He has bought two pairs of shoes and a pair of walking boots and comes in for advice on foot issues, walking routes etc.

Advertising is a harder nut to crack though. So far we have tried Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, a newspaper website and writing to all of the sports clubs in Scotland we can think of where people might have big feet. I suspect we will do some of these things again and refocus the adverts or amend the copy text, but generally they have been pretty ineffective.

It seems so far that word of mouth seems to be the best method of attracting new customers along with visibility of the store in Edinburgh. So today we have some (paid) volunteers out and about in Edinburgh handing out flyers to likely prospects (i.e. people who look like they might have big feet and wouldn't be too offended by you suggesting as much). We're also going to try and see how, if at all, we can get any coverage in the local media for nothing or next to nothing. Fingers crossed