My Catalog

I called about 5 wine stores yesterday and had interest from 2.  Not a bad rate, actually, although so far they've only asked for information.  As usual, it's one step forward, one step back, as I realized I needed to update and reformat my catalog.  That took me off sales and into marketing, but it was a necessary step as I'd promised my catalog to Pearson's.

It's done, at least as much as it needs to be to send to wine store buyers, because I guess they'll only care about those 2 pages.  (I do need to get some more samples made, though.)  But I feel like it needs a total overhaul before I go back to the bookstores.

I really want to get back to the original vision:  colorful, simple, and cheap.  Student budgets, right?  I want to refocus on a single layout - vertical, no shoulder strap - with crazy color and pattern combinations.  That's what's going to differentiate my sleeves from the others out there.  What I need is 2-3 samples in each size so that the buyers get a feel for the design, which they will then order by size and quantity.  No more trying to duplicate ones that I've already made with fabric resources that are often very limited.

Unfortunately, the samples in my catalog don't reflect this vision at all.  It's a hodge podge of old things that never sold and new things that I've made with the etsy market in mind.  There's kind of a unifying design - flap tucking into a front strap - but even that isn't 100% consistent and I have some with velcro, some with buttons.  Plus the combinations are too tame.

So, I think the plan is this:  I need to continue calling the wine stores and I should make up 2 more samples:  wine is the answer, and happy 21st birthday.  This I will do today.

Then, I need to make 10-15 sleeve samples with the new (old) design in 5 standard sizes:  ereader, ipad, netbook, notebook, and large.  These will go into the front of the catalog.  In the back, I'll put the old stuff which can be ordered, of course, but only in quantities of one.  I've got some time for this because back-to-school (BTS) ordering doesn't begin until June or July.  Making a bunch of them now, though, will let me find out what my rock-bottom wholesale price can be and still make a little money.

Too bad I already cut up so much material, and mostly for bags, not sleeves.  (The sleeves have to be wider because they don't have straps to provide additional width.)  Well, I can just cut down a larger size to make the smaller size; I don't sell many of the really large laptop sleeves anyway.

And what about etsy?  I guess I'll keep some stuff out there but really it's just too massive.  I posted a 25% off spring sale on FB (which goes to Twitter) but I'll be amazed if anyone uses the coupon code.  I'd like to get out of retail sales altogether.

Drop Ship

Every business has its jargon, and in on-line retailing the phrase of the day is "drop ship."  Meaning I just learned about it.  Basically, a person decides to open a shop but doesn't provide any of the merchandise; rather, s/he lines up a bunch of vendors who list their items on the site and ship the product to the buyer when it sells.  The site owner collects the money from the buyer and pays the seller, keeping a little something something for him/herself.  Either I discount to the seller (ecopartytime), or the seller adds something on (murraywines).

I've been contacted recently by two such sites and I'm going to give them a try.  Ecopartytime.com offers ecologically-friendly gifts for holidays and other celebrations (e.g., graduation) throughout the year.  They're interested in my laptop and ipad bags and my card wallets.  And www.murraywines.com (under construction, I'm told, but honestly it doesn't look as though the domain name has been purchased yet) likes my wine bag bottles.

I think this is a pretty safe bet and actually a fairly classic middleman retailer situation.  Murraywines isn't planned to open until April 1 but I've got my items picked out for Ecopartytime, however, they're targeted for Father's Day and Graduation so may not be posted for awhile.  Anyway, I'll update later when they're up and running.

Still Looking for My Market....

Looking back at 2010 - my first full year in business - to help prepare and plan 2011, I'm still a bit stymied as to what and where my real market is.  When Dom and I put the original business plan together we were convinced that college students would swarm all over these bags.  Of course, that's when we thought we could keep the cost to $20, which isn't possible.  Also, we forgot that we had to go through the purchasing staff first.  And unfortunately, my first 3 major wholesale orders were made before I'd switched from the big bubble wrap to the tougher stuff, so the quality wasn't where it should have been.  Hence the return, below, and the disappointing sales at Macon State.  On the other hand, Abraham Baldwin made a repeat order last year.

My other retail stores didn't work out.  Re-inspiration gave my bags back after only 2 months, saying that they were "too nice," i.e., didn't look as though they were made from recycled materials.  Uh, that was kind of my goal.  And The Gift Emporium, well, not sure how well it's doing overall - I know that at last look they'd only sold one of my items, a card case.  And the web site is a mess.  My apologies if you see this, but it's true.

Then there was the farmers market.  Hmmm.  Sharing a booth with mumuboutique made the registration fee $137.50, and I sold over $600 worth of stuff.  Good return on the financial investment, but what about my time?  4 hours of market, plus 45 minutes commute each way, every week for 8 months.  Not even going to figure out the hourly rate, that would be way too depressing.  Still, it was $600 that I wouldn't have otherwise made and got the word out that much more.

And finally, of course, there's etsy.  I had a pretty decent year on etsy, not brilliant, but the numbers are definitely going in the right direction.  And I made the contact with Matt Dilling of Lite Brite Neon which led to the Tiffany project which could lead...who knows?  I don't spend that much time on etsy and I'd have to take the photographs anyway for my catalog, so there's an acceptable return there.  Zibbet has been a total bust so far, and Zecosi wants nearly 10% commission!

So what does all this mean for 2011?  Well, I'm not giving up on the colleges, but I do need a more organized approach to them and better follow up.  To that end, I've scheduled 4 MailChimp campaigns to send out my catalog at strategic moments - 2 months before Earth Day, early summer for back-to-school, September for Christmas, and early December for 2nd semester.

Etsy will definitely continue.  As I post more items and become better known, I expect this venue to grow.  Especially if I can keep ahead of the holiday calendar.  That's been a big challenge for me, to plan 2-3 months in advance of a major  holiday and make sure I've got some relevant items to showcase.  Plus I'm going to do 4 retail MailChimp campaigns with features, sales, coupons, etc., and see what happens.

Haven't given up on the retail stores, either, but maybe it makes sense to focus on nicer stores and not just "green" ones.  I've started making card and passport cases from the store of silks and linens that I have, and I think some higher-end gift stores might be interested.  I'm going to contact one later today, and I've been in touch with Whole Foods for my sandwich bags and will see one of the buyers next week.  Overall, though, I need to be more aggressive in researching good venues.

And I need to decide soon if I want to do another farmers market, especially if I want to be at a good one like Norcross or Peachtree Rd.  I think Muriel would like to do it again, although commuting might be a challenge for her.  The personal contact with customers was nice.  We'll have to solve the tent problem (namely, we don't have one).

I don't see myself doing craft fairs - I hate craft fairs.  Ironic, isn't it?

Any suggestions?