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When Lulu O’Sullivan returned to Ireland after a stint running a fashion boutique in Australia in the Eighties, she says she had no choice but to set up her own business as she couldn’t get a job - something that is bound to resonate with many of today’s nascent entrepreneurs.

“I had wanted to be a fashion buyer and when I left school I went into Arnotts and did retail studies at night. The training in Arnotts involved moving departments every six months and after three years I realised I’d be 50 years of age by the time I’d make it there as a buyer, so I decided to give it a skip,” she recalls.

O’Sullivan joined friends in New York for six months and then went on to Sydney where she got a job in a fashion store, part of the Country Road chain. “Within a few months, they promoted me and, at the age of 21, offered me my own shop to run. I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in Australia, so I decided to come back in 1986. After doing a couple of interviews, nothing was coming up and also I felt I had left an opportunity behind, so I didn’t want to sit around licking my wounds.”

While doing a start-your-own-business course with AnCo (now FÁS), O’Sullivan worked on her business idea. “My first choice would have been a fashion store, but I didn’t have the money for that and no way of getting it. I’d seen the idea of delivering teddy bears in the US, which doesn’t particularly need a store or much money. I found the course a great support, as I did the business plan, cash-flow plan and so on for my own idea – InterTeddy – and got help with approaching banks and tweaking my marketing plan.”

O’Sullivan borrowed IR£2,000, spending IR£1,000 on marketing and the rest on stock. She paid IR£16 a week for an office on Exchequer Street in Dublin with a phone line as her only equipment.

“What worked in my favour was that direct selling wasn’t known at the time and nobody was sending teddy bears. I did get a lot of publicity, so the brand name got out there quickly, but on the flip side I was introducing the public to a new way of buying. I had to build up people’s confidence that the goods would arrive.”

The power of word of mouth

From then on, every few months O’Sullivan added more gift ideas to the range such as champagne, fruit and hampers. She did advertise in the papers, but word of mouth has always been crucial.

“The big thing was, and still is, that I made sure every time someone placed an order they had a good experience so they would tell other people. In the first year on my own I had a little moped and used to do whatever deliveries I could myself.”

The company slowly but surely grew from there, winning the contract for Bewley’s hamper business, and becoming one of the first online shops to go live in Ireland – with the brand name 4giftsdirect.com.

“We were part of a Microsoft project to put a Christmas shop online – we didn’t do very well from it, but did better than the other nine companies, so we decided we might as well stay on the web,” says O’Sullivan.

“We parted company with Bewley’s when it started to close shops, so we then worked more on the website and the dotcom boom came. We were going to raise money as someone came up with a ridiculous valuation, but I’m glad now we didn’t. We kept things small and tight, survived the crash and continued on.”

Ahead of the curve

Now known as Giftsdirect.com, in peak season the company employs up to 100 people and 12 people full time and has recorded 12pc growth in turnover year on year, despite the recession. It sends a couple of thousand deliveries out each day from a 12,000 sq ft warehouse in Glasnevin. Nearly one third of the business goes outside of Ireland.

“We’re still the biggest online gift store in Ireland with most competitors copying what we’ve done. We constantly do a 360-degree analysis of our performance, focusing for two months on the product range for example, then maybe moving onto the usability of the site, and doing a chunk of work on that. We just try to keep a step ahead.”

The range has been extended to include wedding and anniversary gifts, as well as experience gifts, such as flying lessons, while a number of big Irish brand names were introduced such as Tipperary Crystal and Louis Mulcahy Pottery.

“In the early days of online selling, nobody knew what they were doing, but it’s all quite measurable so you can see what’s gone right and wrong. It’s a matter of learning every day. In our business, service is everything, so when we started exporting 14 years ago we had to understand the different customs rules in a lot of countries. There are some funny little rules, like Australia won’t allow honey through, for example.”

So, after setting up first in a recession and now going through another one, what is O’Sullivan’s philosophy? “I don't allow

myself to listen to or read many of the doom and gloom stories being splattered all over the media, or if someone starts talking to me about it at a party I politely find someone else to talk to!

“The big thing is not to panic and stay positive. Keep everything tight and make sure every overhead is accountable for and that anything spent on marketing is giving a proper return on investment. After that, customer service is vital, which a lot of companies lost sight of in boom times. Other than that, keep your head down, work hard and learn, learn, learn!”

This article originally appeared in Owner Manager magazine.