Launched our product. What now?

[Jax2218]

Hello,

For the past year we have been working on children's activity boxes that are based on the English and Scottish curriculums for 3 to 7 year olds with the main focus that an adult supports that learning and fun with the child who is completing them.

It has been a slow process and now I have to sell some in order to pay for a website and more advertising. We have jumped up on likes in the past week on Facebook and I am currently setting up a shop on Etsy and have applied for NOTH.

My budgets have meant we are too late to see a lot of revenue for christmas this year. It feels a bit like I have put the boxes out there and we have had some sales. But what can I do now? How do I promote my business or make it better?

I am scared my boxes at £16 are expensive but for a small home business our costs when buying to make (we do as much by hand as we can) or indeed stock the boxes aren't cheap.

Any advice would be brilliant.

Jackie

You have almost answered your own question. They may be too expensive. When I was an adviser, I would have suggested the other way round. Identify what you can get for the product, then work inside a cost that will alow you to make and sell them at a small profit. Not what you wanted to hear, but otherwise you may work very hard for little or no return.

Agree with above that a website doesn't need to be expensive - if you've the time and inclination to do it yourself, you can set one up for less than £50 (even an e-commerce one). PM me if you'd like some pointers! If you don't want to set it up yourself, you could start off with Weebly or the like for a basic site.

I wouldn't rush into NOTHS either as it's very expensive to join (£199+VAT) and the commission is high at 25%. It wouldn't cross my mind to check NOTHS if I was looking for an educational pack for my kids either.

Would love to hear more about your product though! Are you able to post a link to your Facebook page?

Have you thought about selling on Amazon? I have an education-related product (special needs) and sell more on Amazon than I do through my own website.

Also agree about trying to get in with schools, after school clubs etc. and reach parents that way. Hard to know what to suggest without knowing the contents of your boxes though! The primary school my kids go to had a local author in reading a bit of their latest book to the kids, who all came home with order forms to buy the book (I'm assuming the school got commission of some sort!). Could you pitch something similar around the activities in your boxes?

Hi,

Thank you all for your replies, m0nkeynuts thank you for the heads up about NOTHS. We are hoping by January to use our graphic designer to make up a small but great looking site. Im not sure, I might not be allowed to post a link, i'll stick it on my profile. But we only launched 2 weeks ago, so still a baby business.

We are hoping to inject more money into the box by selling the initial stock we made up ready to sell. I think maybe another year we can start expanding, refining the box and developing more styles.

We have done a few stalls, people were very interested. One woman just got in contact after meeting us about bulk buying for a group of children with special needs. Which is really interesting as we focused so much on parent and child interaction.

Jackie

Hey Jax2218. These look amazing. Do you have many local independent shops you could sell to? Even if you can only get a few stocked across a range of shops it will help raise brand awareness - and my initial impression of your design etc. is really good. I would say you need to get a website running asap. You've got the basics of branding etc. already, so even if you just set up a non ecommerce site, you can get a domain purchased so Google can start indexing it, you can get content about your product on it and then you can use social media to better effect as you'll have a more professional web presence than a Facebook page to point them at. Then once you've had your ecommerce site developed you can go just replace the old site. Like m0nkeynuts says, you can set up a basic site ever so cheaply but the sooner you get a domain set up with content the better.

Also, what area are you in? Do get in touch with your MN Local Editors (I'm one) I'm sure people will be more than happy to promote you a bit across our social media :)

Hi, I thought you might find these tips helpful -

Top Tips - Advertising your business for free or low budget

www.mumplusbusiness.co.uk/blog/top-tips-advertising-your-small-business-on-a-low-budget/

I'd second getting on Amazon. I didn't find it the easiest process - I don't find the web site the most straight forward but the call centre staff have always been great ( they call you back too so you can stay on for ages getting step by step help).

I reckon it accounts for 80% of my sales and I have great feedback for value for money etc whereas ebay customers (about 15%) moan a bit about me being pricey. It seems to be a very different cliental, lots of ebayers contact me asking me to break up multi packs or take out single items from various packs to make a new one etc. I know if you don't ask you don't get but its still a little tiring responding to all the requests (with a "no"). Never had a request like that from Amazon despite selling much much more there.

Amazon also have a fulfilment option where you send the items to their warehouse and they do the rest. I don't use in the UK but it allows me to sell the in the US and after the big parceling up day I just sit watching the money come in.