Castles and Rainbows

Organic Kids Clothing now in

2008-06-18T15:30:00.002+01:00

Well I've decided to take the plunge and start stocking clothing. Well sort of stocking! I'm working with 3 suppliers of funky organic clothing to supply clothes via my site on a drop ship basis. The organic products we had at the babyshow were the first things to sell out so I'm hoping it will be a big hit.

The other exciting thing is that we have just had our first week with sales on every single day! Sounds minor but it means we are starting to get some real traffic to our site and my ebay shop so fingers crossed this is the start of things really starting to take off.

Mid Season Sale & Baby Shower service

2008-06-02T10:12:00.002+01:00

We've decided to run a mid season sale now to get ahead of some of the big summer sales where we just can't compete. I'm not sure when to run this until as this is our first experience of Sale time marketing on any scale (we were so new after Christmas that the only thing we discounted was Christmas specific stock). I'm thinking of running it for about 3 weeks but we will have to see how it goes.

I've also launched my baby shower service which I am really excited about! This is a growing business and hopefully with the products I already offer I should be well placed to tap into this. Fingers crossed!

Well that was an experience!

2008-06-02T10:00:00.002+01:00

Well the babyshow was an experience! Incredibly hard work and you can definitely tell that the credit crisis is in full swing both from our own experience and from comments by other exhibitors who have done the shows before.

Physically it was exhausting - 4 very long days, 3 of which were in the public eye so best smiles all day. It has taken a couple of weeks to get back to normal, especially with half term but now we need to focus and move things forward again.

Success on the day was definitely driven through offers. Everyone at the show was looking for bargains which we honed as the 3 days progressed such that the final day was by far the best day. We also had over 2000 entries to our competition which was great as this also helps to build our database.

Will we do the next babyshow at Earls Court? Well the jury is still out on that one. We are going to see how the credit crisis progresses and how things go in general. Earls court will be much harder to do logistically as we were able to rope in family and friends (thank you!!) for the NEC show which won't be possible in London. If we do take part we will probably take a much smaller stand and only take the smaller items with us. Watch this space....

One week to go!

2008-05-09T14:34:00.002+01:00

Well the Babyshow is upon us... this time next week, we will be halfway through our first day (Stand L30, NEC). Preparations are nearly complete even though my to do list still looks rather long.

I'm only waiting on 2 more deliveries to come in. One was planned to be this late as I have a big sale or return order coming in. The other I am a little annoyed about as I have been let down by a supplier. It remains to be seen whether they fulfill the order or not. Fortunately, other suppliers have been brilliant so even if they do let me down then we should still be fully stocked for the show.

Our new moses basket ranges are fantastic and just as good as I remember. I just need to sort the cot / cotbeds out to go onto my site.

Extra Stock on order!

2008-04-23T22:29:00.005+01:00

Well things are going well. The Babyshow is 3 weeks on Friday which is all feeling a bit soonish! Having had a bit of a panic that I don't have enough stock I have been ringing round my suppliers and I'm taking some additional bits and pieces. I have a range of very cute kids clothes coming in made by Lipfish (thank you Magical Playtimes!) and some additional toys.

I've also ordered more of the sleeping bags I featured in my last post so fingers crossed they go down well too. I just need to get some more toddler bedding ordered in as I seem to have had a run on it lately (which is of course good news).

Other preparation is steaming ahead. I have ordered another 5,000 flyers today. Having previously ordered A5, we realised that the A6 ones we had for the competition are just as nice so have saved a few pennies and gone for the smaller ones. I hope the images look just as good on the smaller scale.

I've started hanging the bedding on the rail. We did the LittleOnes fair in Wigan a couple of months ago and left the bedding in the packets. This time round we are going for a different approach and I want to get the actual product out in front of people so we have bought a rail. Hopefully if we can play on the tactile side of things and get people to see the full thing we can pull off some more sales. I also have a bid on a 'martian' mannequin on ebay but we'll have to see how that goes - we can't afford the full rrp for one of those even though it would look fab for displaying the clothes.

New Stock In

2008-04-13T14:51:00.006+01:00

Well the textiles from Germany have arrived and they are georgous!

I'm really pleased with them and hopefully they will go down really well at the NEC show in May (although it would be nice if I could sell a few before then!!).

Planning for the show continues... I've been doing a bit of market research and looks like my target audience are looking for a bit of a discount at the show or special offers so we are going to have to work out a way to incorporate this. I already have flyers with a 10% discount off a first online purchase so hopefully this will work too.

I'm off to Ikea tomorrow for some more shelving for the stand. If you can't beat em join em! All of the quotes I've had from the stand specialist companies require another mortgage so we're going for good quality that we can re-use at our next show. There seems very little point paying the same or more for stuff we will have to give back.

I'm also looking at getting some more graphics printed off for the walls to include getting the website address out there a bit more on the stand. Currently I have a fab banner stand that I got from ebay and the company name is on the fascia. I feel that we need a couple more well placed graphics of bedroom settings to help to sell the products.

My other little project is to upgrade the images on my website. To further this I am just waiting on delivery of a light tent to improve the pictures. I want to try to cut out a lot of the background and hence get a better quality image. As we are quite restricted on photosize due to the package we bought initially for the website, this is vital.

Anyway, enough for now... this is turning into a to do list!

Creating a blog

2008-04-09T15:11:00.002+01:00

I've finally got around to doing it!

I wanted somewhere to gather my thoughts and keep track of the chaos that is starting a new business.

At the moment we are in the process of setting up to go to the Baby Show at the NEC in May. A pretty daunting task.... There is so much to get my head round and organise. It would be heaven except its still the school holidays and I can only multi-task so far!

I have new stock coming in all the time which is exciting. I'm currently waiting on a new range of moses baskets coming from the US, funky textiles from Germany and dinky sofas coming from China.