Angela Wilson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 29/02) - Grower Direct Fresh Cut Flowers has a new Web site customers can browse to help them determine what flowers they want to purchase. But the decision for a small business to create a Web site isn't one that should be taken lightly, says owner-manager Cheryl Walker.

"It's an expensive endeavour," she says. "And kind of a gamble."

Walker says some people have told her she might not garner a lot of business through the Web site, but it's a chance she's willing to take.

"I feel that a lot of people who purchase flowers and most people in the North are computer literate," she says.

While her site is not secure -- Walker says the cost to create a secure Web site was prohibitive -- customers can place their orders through e-mail and then call in their payment information or simply decide what they'd like by looking at the pictures online and calling in their order.

Walker says the idea to create a Web site for her business came to her at an unexpected time.

"I was jogging and the idea just came to me," she says.

"People from other communities buy flowers and it's a way for them to see what I've got and see pictures of all the flowers."

A lot of her business comes from people travelling to Yellowknife on business or leisure and sales to other communities rise around special occasions such as Valentines Day and Mother's Day.

Orders for flowers have come in from as far away as Resolute Bay, she says.

Deciding what to put on her Web site was the easy part. "I knew what I wanted," she says.

Brie-Anne Jefferson, the freelance Yellowknife Web page designer for the new Grower Direct site, says once businesses have a general idea of what they want on their Web site, she helps put those ideas online.

"Basically, with business sites, you want to make the business look good and tell what the business is all about," she says.

The new Grower Direct Web site can be found at www.ykgrowerdirect.com.