Vicarage Farm Shop
Vicarage Farm Shop was set up by Gillian and Kim Courtauld in March 2006.
They have been farming at Wendron near Helston for six years and this is a new venture for them, providing an outlet for their own high quality beef, poultry, pork, lamb, turkeys, eggs and wool as well as many other kinds of produce that they source locally.
Broadband was installed in June 2006 and already Gillian is feeling the benefits:
“We have our own website for the shop now and we are really pleased as it has brought in a lot of enquiries over the summer. It is a way of raising awareness beyond the immediate area.
“With broadband, we are also able to carry out some of our ordering online, which saves a lot of time and means we can see to it whenever it is convenient for us. For example, I now order Helford Creek Apple Juice and do all our contact with the Cornish Chilli Company online.
“With broadband, it is also a lot easier to arrange purchasing. For example, I recently needed to buy a rack to display greetings cards. Because we have broadband, it was quick and easy to search through all the available suppliers, compare prices and make an order, confident that we had got the best deal available. It would have been a considerably more arduous process to have had to find a display unit the old-fashioned way.”
Next Gillian plans to make a broadband connection in her house so that she can have more flexibility and carry out business tasks from home, at a time that suits her.
Gillian says “I have young children and there is only so much I can do in the shop. It will be wonderful to be able to use broadband at home, so I can work in the evening when it is peaceful after the children have gone to bed. Then I will be able to make the most of facilities such as the online help centre that comes with the Sage Accounts package and really maximise the effectiveness of broadband for our business.”
