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With two young children, Rachael White dreamed of having a flexible job that would allow her to balance work and home lifeAnd that's when the former Morrisons trainee manager had the idea of selling things - including the children's used clothing - on eBay.Now ten years on, thanks to some strong business nouse and determination, the 43-year-old from Burnley, Lancashire, has turned her enterprise into a million-pound empire. Career start: Both Rachael and her husband Colin worked at Morrisons before joining forces and running their own business - now they are eager to share their story of success to inspire others Mumpreneur: Rachael White started selling things on eBay after starting a family- due to growing demand, she soon launched her own standalone websiteRachael, who now is a mother of three children aged nine to 14, reveals that she started her business in 2004 with husband Colin.With just £200 and a home computer, the mumpreneur created an eBay page with the user ID Thingimijigs.

To start, she specialized in selling second-hand items.However, as sales picked up, Rachael changed her product focus and decided to stock up on Disney-themed goods. All of a sudden she found traffic to her page increased ten-fold.The Whites kept ploughing all of the money they made back from eBay into their business and before long, they were both able to give up their full-time roles.Before taking on the role of 'boss', Rachael had left Morrisons and was working for BP in a management position.Meanwhile, Colin - who also previously worked at Morrisons - was employed by the gambling company, Skybet. Both he and Rachael - who met while working at Morrisons - worked their way up the career ladder without university degrees. Growing empire: Today her website features thousands of products that can be shipped globally , bearing the strapline: 'the shopping site for busy mums'.Rachael said that it was 'nerve wracking' at first, but the company is now at the stage where it has a purpose-built warehouse to hold all the stock needed. 

Today the eBay store accounts for around 40 per cent of Rachael's £1.5m revenues.  Half her products are shipped overseas, with far-flung destinations such as Turks and Caicos on her mailing list.The remainder of the business comes from Thingimijigs’ own website. Rachael says that running her own business is 'ideal' and her children love the things she sells. Occasionally, they even help her to spot trends and test out products.To lighten the load, there are six permanent members of staff on the Thingimijigs team. Temporary workers are also employed over the holiday season.Rachael puts her success down to 'graft and determination', adding that she and her husband 'don't have special skills'. Rachael told MailOnline that she has been shocked by her success. Source of support: Rachael co-runs Thingimijigs with her husband Colin (both pictured above)'If you had told me ten years ago that there would be eight of us permanently working in our purpose built warehouse, and that we would have a stock range of over 2,000 lines selling to over 120 countries in the last 12 months, I would have thought you had gone mad!'

Rachael now has plans for expanding trade overseas and adding to the product line.'The e-commerce world never stays still, and the world seems to get smaller and smaller,' she mused.But it's not all roses and Rachael admits that their are downsides to being self-employed. 'It is hard, that’s for sure,' she said. 'I joke at times that it is a good job I don’t need much sleep! I start work early in the morning from the home office - 5am at this time of year and 3am in winter when we are busy.'I stop when the kids get up, to make sure they all get to school on time, with lunch bags etc. We then work in the warehouse until home time.'Despite her hectic schedule, Rachael makes sure that she sits down for dinner most nights with her children as a family. She and her husband also take their brood to extra-curricular activities.The couple say that they work well as business partners and rarely argue.'We are both working for the same dream and both quite vocal, lively people,' Rachael explained.

For others wishing to replicate the mother-of-three's rise to success, here she shares her top ten tips to running an online business with FEMAIL: Popular picks: Rachael originally sold out second-hand children's clothing, but she later switched to Disney-themed merchandise We started with children’s gifts as we had young children and knew what we looked for in gifts. I could not have started with car accessories, as I have no idea about cars.Small steady steps are fantastic, it is better to grow slowly from a steady base than boom and bust. If you start with ten items, this is great, you can slowly increase your stock holding and your stock range as you move along. EBay is a great platform to start with as your items are seen by millions of people all over the world, this is far cheaper than starting your own website and paying to get high ranking in searches. There is no barrier to entry and you do not need to have a stock holding of thousands of pounds. Remember the customers do not know you, and cannot physically touch the item they wish to purchase, so you may have lots of questions to answer.

This will include weekends and holidays as the internet is a 24-7 business, and bank holidays in England do not mean other countries are on holiday. Non-stop fun: Rachael, pictured centre, got into the swing of things at a local business event On a white background is better, several photos from different angles is great for customers.Give the details of the products and appropriate measurements so the customer can understand what it is they are purchasing. Using a standard template makes this easier, and there are lots of different tools available to make listing on the major e-commerce sites as painless as possible.Within one working day is standard now. Customers expect items faster all the time and can get impatient if they are waiting several days for you to post the item. Offer a range of different postage options (for the UK this could be 2nd class, 1st class, Special Delivery ), so the customer can choose to upgrade and pay for a different postage option if they need it faster.

Looking ahead: Rachael now has plans for expanding trade overseas and adding to the product lineThere is lots about and it's free. Contact your local council to see what their business development department can do to help. Many will offer advice for new businesses, or run training sessions. We found Burnley Borough Council invaluable for helping in starting our business, and for looking for new premises when we needed this. Also look up local business groups. We are members of Burnley Bondholders - a fantastic source of knowledge from a wide range of business, large, international and small. are great for updating you on the e-commerce world and most of the third party sites. You can ask questions, get advice, look up different software package providers - again all this advice is FREE. You are not on your own! Just because you are not in an office with other colleagues, other businesses are there to help, you just need to reach out and ask.Do not think you have to be the lowest price on the internet, there is never a winner when people race each other down in price - (apart from the customers).