About Us: A Passion for Wildlife Turned E-Commerce Success Story
The History of The Wildlife Gift Shop
In 2019 Deborah was made redundant from a position in the wildlife conservation industry that she had held for several years. Answering the questions from the public on wildlife, gardening, and helping people to enjoy wildlife and the outdoors through a variety of experiences, and running the e-commerce operation among other things she bought up the stock and started The Wildlife Gift Shop (TWGS). With support from family members particularly her mother TWGS has gone from strength to strength since then.
Having e-commerce, article writing, and content writing experience in subjects from wildlife, horticulture, and farming based on personal and professional experiences, it seemed natural to go back to helping people to enjoy wildlife through carefully selected wildlife-related products. From products depicting wildlife, or making your outdoor life more comfortable and enjoyable, to those items that help wildlife directly, TWGS aims to provide only those wildlife products that have a chance of being used by wildlife.
Today at TWGS
The current direction of TWGS is to increase the wildlife gardening products, currently, British-grown native seeds are available, however, we want to offer more species and include bulbs by autumn 2023 with the potential for plants and shrubs at a later date. As RHS Wisley’s research suggests pollinators are happy to forage in non-native species of plants as well as those that are native, we hope to widen the range while keeping pollinators and caterpillar food plant species in mind. We continue to seek new and innovative ways to help wildlife that wildlife will use and quality products that depict wildlife for use around the garden and home.
eBay and Amazon have been part of the sales venues TWGS has used since its inception and part of Deborah’s experience in e-commerce for many years. Due to the decreasing viability of Amazon as a sales venue, we have chosen to wind down the products listed and potentially looking to leave the platform later in 2023. eBay continues to be part of the business for the foreseeable future, TWGS has many great customers via eBay and knows many of them would prefer to continue to buy from us via the eBay shop rather than our website shop, we are more than happy to accommodate them. You can visit the TWGS shop and feedback and check us out and see what our eBay customers say about us.
TWGS remains committed to reducing single-use plastic, using recyclable and reusing packaging where possible. If we can find eco-friendly products that improve on previous products and match with the current product range we will do so. While it’s not always easy to find such products we are open to suggestions however it’s not in the plans to move much further into this particular range as there are many others who have a stronger focus on these kinds of products. There is also the consideration of product miles to take into account for eco-friendly products, we often find ourselves trying to find the balance between eco-friendly and product miles.
About Deborah
After a childhood spent gardening, and exploring the countryside, Deborah’s career took her around the midlands and south of England through farming, admin, horticulture, and more recently wildlife conservation. She has been involved in e-commerce since 1999 through her own business and for other organizations. She spends much of her free time in the garden with her poultry, plants, and the local wildlife or in the New Forest walking and wildlife spotting. To add to her qualifications in agriculture, bookkeeping and accounts, and teaching adults she is currently studying RHS Level 3 The Principles of Plant Growth, Garden Planning, and Applied Propagation.