Finally, our new website is now live! Whoop Whoop!

Finally!

After many months of hard work our new website is now live, phewiee!

It’s been quite a ride. As we embark on yet another exciting chapter in the long history of SHOP21, one of the UK’s first independent online shops, we would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and every success with your business, career and happiness through 2019 and beyond.

SHOP21 has been supplying creatives with the technology they have needed to maximise their productivity and to help them achieve their design objectives since 1999.

We started selling offline in 1998, but being involved in the web since its very beginnings in 1997, we wanted to explore the potential for selling on the web as soon as e-commerce became a ‘thing’, and launched our first website at the turn of the century. We took our first online order in 2002, so we have been selling online for 17 years now!

Our webstore then was simply a basic shopping cart selling one product from a Japanese company called Ratoc, This product we sold first was a firewire to scsi converter, and whilst very specialised, was very popular since it provided the connectivity and data transfer speeds required by creative and multi-media studios who produced and created everything from Music, TV, Film, Graphics and Computer Games.

It was also required by some Photography studios, as well as a few scientists and laboratories needing it for various applications. We achieved number one rankings on Google for it and soon expanded the website to include the whole range of Ratoc and related products, and ranked number one for all of the search terms being used to find those too.

After adding a few other manufacturers product ranges, and literally before we even knew what was happening, we were ranking number one for every keyword we targeted and quickly became one of the UK’s leading online suppliers of technology to the creative sector.

We were earning regular business from everyone from freelance graphic designers working from home buying a single Pantone Swatch book, to the likes of the ‘BBC’ making big volume purchases of fast data cabling to kit out their studios with.

Things soon went nuts and before we knew it we were being honoured with orders from our musical heroes via the likes of ‘Air Studios’ (set up by ‘Sir George Martin’, the producer of the Beatles) requiring specialist studio items for everyone from George Michaels (R.I.P.) next album to a new Beatles compilation album.

Things were looking good!

Then they went even better when we added specialist scientific equipment that crossed over with our existing lines, such as the ProScopes portable/handheld Digital Microscopes and Forensically sealable hard drives, an addition to the drives we already selling to our creative customers. Next thing we knew we were getting orders from Scotland Yard as well as special investigations Police teams such as the Cyber Crime Unit.

Whilst we do still sell the digital technology products we are traditionally known for such as the ProScope, we also sell many ‘traditional’ analogue products such as the full range of Colour Charts and Guides, which the new website really focuses on, but our product focus and the website will evolve as the requirements of our customers evolve over time.

Since we have just re-launched our Social Media pages are brand new and lacking in followers & fans at the moment so we would be most grateful if you would quickly head over to our pages on any of the Social Media platforms your active on (listed below) and give us a quick like/follow etc.

When you look at our Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn pages you will see that we have already been posting some great creative content on there so you can get an idea of what to expect.

If you're any kind of designer (Graphic, Fashion, Product, Interior, etc) or other type of creative professional (Architects, Artist, Creative Directors etc) then we will be sharing content tailored specifically for you, as well as originating our own high quality content whenever we are inspired to do so (no blogging for bloggings sake here you will be pleased to hear :). Please follow us here:

Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
YouTube (coming soon)

We have gone ‘live’ with a limited product range at the moment but will be adding many new products to our existing long-established lines that we are already known for over the coming months. If you are a manufacturer or top tier distributor of creative products or related technology and/or services that you think will be of interest and value to our customers and hence will be a great fit with SHOP21, then please get in contact to discuss adding them to our store.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and we look forward to working with you and your colleagues in the near future. It would be a great help to us if you could share the website with anyone you know who may be interested in its content and products. Also, since we have just gone live with our new website, if you spot any bugs or issues, I would be most grateful if you could let me know via any of our contact methods. 

Very Best Regards!

Dan Lawrence (Founder/Owner)

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