Pioneering Small Business Launches New Website

March 17 2004--MARCH 17, 2004 -- Chaplets & Chotkis, an innovative Arvin home-based business, announced today that their new and improved website has been launched at http://www.chotkis.com. The business' main product is the chotki - a prayer rope used by Byzantine Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. But Chaplets & Chotkis puts a modern spin on the ancient prayer beads by using beads of heirloom quality or artistic color combinations. "Greek chotkis are usually made of black wool yarn. Most Slavic chotkis are made of plain wood beads," explains Tammy Kelly, owner of Chaplets & Chotkis. "Roman Catholics have beautiful rosaries. Some are even made of gemstones. Why shouldn't Eastern Catholics and Orthodox have equally beautiful prayer beads?" While she does make and sell plain wood bead chotkis, she tends to focus more on gemstones, Czech glass, and specialty woods.

These prayer beads have fanciful names, like "Sky", a beautiful combination of dark blue fossil beads, blue and white sodalite, and gray riverstone. Many have been designed for weddings, baptisms, confirmations, or quinceaneras.

Some even have vintage beads. "I recently ordered some vintage carved ivory beads. You can't buy ivory new anymore because importing it is illegal, due to poaching. I'm making a rosary and a 50-bead chotki with these beads, and I'll be making a set of earrings and a necklace with the few that will be left over. It's going to be a beautiful bridal set," says Kelly.

Patron saint rosaries and chotkis are also available. "I'm collecting the beads now to make chotkis and rosaries patterned after the 'Our Lady of Perpetual Help' icon. In fact, this icon and the Eastern counterpart, 'Our Lady of the Passion', are the patrons of my website and business."

Each style is available for purchase on the site in 33-bead chotki, 50-bead chotki, 100-bead chotki, or Dominican rosary. Other chaplets and other sizes of chotkis can be special-ordered.

The old website, http://chotkis.t35.com, had been hosted on a free web hosting server. Tammy Kelly, owner and webmaster, explains: "Too many visitors to our site were complaining about the multitude of pop-up ads that were added to every page on our site by the free hosting service. They were locking up our visitors' computers. We never intended to stick with a free service anyway. We just started with a free service to see how well the business would do before investing too much money in it."

It turns out, internet sales are the bread and butter of Chaplets & Chotkis. The Bakersfield area has no Byzantine Catholic parishes and only one Orthodox parish - St. George Greek Orthodox Church. "The Greek Orthodox tend to prefer the knotted wool prayer ropes known as komvoschonia. Beaded chotkis are more likely to be used by the Russian Orthodox. So even St. George's isn't really a market for us," Tammy Kelly explains. "But we do make Roman Catholic rosaries, too. In fact, I hope to get advertisements into some of the local Catholic bulletins soon."

Meanwhile, Chaplets & Chotkis - the old url - has #1 ranking on Google searches for "chotkis". Kelly has put automatic redirects on all the pages of the old url so that the customer will end up at the new site.



This article courtesy of http://www.avebeads.com.
You may freely reprint this article on your website or in
your newsletter provided this courtesy notice and the author
name and URL remain intact.

Submit Your Article