Home working - My Little Wrapper

Yoppishka

I’ve heard of the company behind My Little Wrapper and I’m pretty sure that they are a very reputable company. They’ve won lots of awards :T and have some other big brands like www.thebestof.co.uk that one of my friends is involved in as a franchisee and his business is going like a train.

My Little Wrapper certainly appears to have been a success and I saw them at the Business StartUp exhibition at Olympia at the weekend. I went to the stand because I recognised the name and because of my friends connection with the main company (above). I have to say, the designs on their wrappers are really good. Apparently they sold over 120,000 bars of chocolate in November all through their network, which is a heck of a lot of chocolate!

My Uncle works in Trading Standards and he tells me that the difficulty with things like this is all the rules around food labelling (you have to list all the ingredienst on your wrappers and the weight must be right etc). Also, there are lots of copyright issues so that if you use a commercially available choc bar (e.g galaxy or kit kat) then you’ll get prosecuted. (that’s one of the reasons why Galaxy have a ‘G’ moulded into the chocolate apparently) Trading standards are v. hot on this apparently, spurred on by the big choc. companies of course, and there are several prosecutions pending of people selling wrapped Kit Kats on e-bay. I reckon that alone makes it a good idea to go with My Little Wrapper or similar - at least it keep you legal and out of trouble- and I tasted their choc at the stand and it’s actually very good.

The marketing material they give you looks very professional and I can see why people are selling lots of bars. One lady ordered 200 bars for her wedding in the 10 minutes I was at the stand. They had all the marketing on display at the exhibition. They also had a lady on the Stand who had been running the business since August and she said she's making good money.

The other thing they talked about was their software which makes it really easy, apparently, to get the personalisations in exactly the right place on the wrappers. I’m not an expert but it looked simple enough on the demo.

On balance, I reckon this is a good example, like many things in life, of you get what you pay for. Sure you could try and do this yourself but finding chocolate that you can use, paper that looks good as a wrapper (you can’t use copier paper (too dull) photo paper (too thick) etc) and then the designs to sort, then the printing, not to mention the marketing material etc – it will take a heck of a lot of time and effort. And there’s definitely a market for it

Caroline73_2

I think in theory it's a great idea, but I know a lady locally who does this herself, without a franchise.

The software Yoppishka talks of can be bought (or at least a similar version).

kelspicknell

google something like personalised chocolate bar and there are loads of american sites on diy and some examples.

there are lots of avenues to market this under - wedding favours, corporate functions, kids birthdays, adult birthdays!

make up some good templates and do it all yourself.

a lot of people is the USA use hershey bars as they allow over-wrapping. do the ingredients labels need to be shown on gifts or multipacks?? look at over-wrapping policies

get good advice from business link etc and you could be on your way!!

sarahs999

Nigel botterill and his wife started off with the My Mag business, which I bought a franchise of a few years ago. That was OK but high startup costs again - we sold our business a couple of years later and made a good profit but I found that they vastly overstated the kind of money you could make with them. They were also very pushy when we joined to try and get us to sign up to all the extra bits and pieces. They are experienced marketeers/advertisers but their magazines were very amateur. They really looked like provincial home-printer affairs. We took the idea and made it much more polished, also much more of a community magazine. They were more interested in making a business listings magazine which just wouldn't have had any appeal where I live, in London - people expect a lot more.

My little wrapper is just their latest money making venture. They're good at making themselves rich, and they're not scamsters, but neither will they make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Their schemes tend to be about hard work and to be honest, in the current climate, I would be steering well clear of any large upfront payment.

Maccatatt

I wouldn't say this business is a scam but having enquired into it the follow ups are from satisfied customers. My problem is that there was an offer made last week where the company was reducing the price of the smaller start up pack to £500 for a very limited time but there was no offer on the larger set up pack. Whilst I agree with Yoppishka regarding the paper and imaging etc. I do feel a number of large(ish) orders would needed to attempt to recoup your initial start up costs.

Marty999

Interesting feedback, thanks guys. We decided against it in the end, although the company seems professional and the idea sound, the start up costs are just too high for us.

qolwillclearmydebts

know someone who has a best of franchise. tread very carefully.

geordie_joe

Yoppishka wrote: »

I’ve heard of the company behind My Little Wrapper and I’m pretty sure that they are a very reputable company. They’ve won lots of awards :T

They claim to have won many awards, but it's odd that the banners they show for these awards don't link to the awarding web site.

Yoppishka wrote: »

and have some other big brands like www.thebestof.co.uk that one of my friends is involved in as a franchisee and his business is going like a train.

I would hardly call that a big brand.

Yoppishka wrote: »

My Little Wrapper certainly appears to have been a success

Appears being the operative word.

Yoppishka wrote: »

and I saw them at the Business StartUp exhibition at Olympia at the weekend. I went to the stand because I recognised the name and because of my friends connection with the main company (above). I have to say, the designs on their wrappers are really good. Apparently they sold over 120,000 bars of chocolate in November all through their network, which is a heck of a lot of chocolate!

There's that word apparently again. They were claiming, in July that 100 people had signed up. Lets say by the end of October they had 500 people signed up. I reckon 120,000 / 500 = 240.

So on average people are selling 240 bars per month. Hardly the Amazing Business they claim it to be.

Yoppishka wrote: »

The marketing material they give you looks very professional and I can see why people are selling lots of bars. One lady ordered 200 bars for her wedding in the 10 minutes I was at the stand. They had all the marketing on display at the exhibition. They also had a lady on the Stand who had been running the business since August and she said she's making good money.

It's easy enough to get people to do that. If you want people to sign up with you, you would hardly tell them you are only selling 240 bars per month, would you. Also, the oldest trick in the book is a plant in the audience to buy the first one. People are always willing to buy when they see someone else buy first.


Oh, and there's still no sign of anyone with a premium Listing on their site as per item 19. Does this mean they don't deliver what they promise, of have they just not sold any Professional Pack's yet?

19. Top Spot Premium Listing on the website

This is only available to purchasers of our Professional Pack and it will give you added profile and exposure on the website. It is not available to Mini-Business purchasers.

Savememoney2009

You should take a look at www.wrapchocolate.com I bought a pack from there recently as they have reduced prices as part of their launch. The My Little Wrapper prices are extortionate and you can only make one size of chocolate bar which you can't buy anywhere else than from them at 40p a bar.
With -Wrap Chocolate- you can completely customize the wrapper and you can personalise any chocolate bar regardless of size or make.
The pack I bought is 75% cheaper than the My Little Wrapper concept and I can now knock up personalised chocolate bars for kids parties and I charge my customers 40p a bar and make a tidy profit.

I couldn't be happier with it

If anyone needs any personalised / logo'd chocolate bars get in touch and I will give you my best prices.

BargainJunky

I did my own personalised chocolate bars for my little boys party last march. It was a little bit fiddly but impressed my friend as she asked me to do hers too! Plan to do them again this year and hopefully may get a few orders.