Home, Garden Gifts Online Business Plan

The owners, E. Jane and John A. Prenuer, have had several years of management and business experience prior to self-employment. Ms. Prenuer was project administrator for an educational grant at a local university, overseeing annual budgets of several hundred thousand dollars over 10 years. She has operated the Web store for three years, bringing it to profitability in 2003. Mr. Prenuer was a production manager supervising several dozen employees at a technical electronics manufacturing company for seven years until the company was purchased by a foreign entity. He has been conducting his business of computer consulting since 1992, experiencing an annual growth of approximately 30%. He contributes objectivity, technical support, and in the first two years, financial support to the business. [Technical Computer Support operates separately from Country Crockery/J-J Enterprises and is not an instrumental part of this business plan.] Both have Bachelor of Business Administration degrees, with honors, from Western Michigan University. 

7.1 Personnel Plan

The personnel goal of the business is to provide employment opportunities to 8^th to 12^th grade students for after school and occasional weekends when we are not participating at shows. These students would be utilized primarily for packing and shipping web orders, unpacking and storing inventory, doing data entry for invoices and other non-private information processing computer activities. We would also employ certain students for lawn care and assisting in making the grounds more presentable to visitors and/or customers. Some shows are within daily driving distance, not requiring overnight accommodations and occasionally desirable shows occur on the same weekend. We would be able to “double-book” same-date shows with a competent assistant for break relief. Each individual would need to be adept at operating a cash register and handling cash, and also processing check and credit card transactions.

We expect turnover to be considerable due to conflicts of extra-curricular activities and personal schedules, as well as times when a student employee simply does not work out. Student employees would be paid a little better than minimum wage and receive additional benefits since they would not be eligible for insurance, etc.

It may be necessary to employ additional staff on a seasonal basis from time to time. Such will be determined on an as-needed basis.