trying to start a business....help

greatfloyd69

Im sorry this a long one....

Wanting to make money from a hobby, I've ventured into the small business world and over the last couple of months I've learnt a lot. From web hosting to shopping carts, HTML and sitemapping, I've done a lot of reading and inevitably made mistakes.... but I'm beginning to wonder if it's all just a waste of time and money.

Bear with me.... basically I made wedding favours for my step daughters wedding, I thoroughly enjoyed doing it and was complimented many times on them, simple favour boxes, ribbon etc.... I know its a saturated market but I am trying to do other things as well such as place name cards wine glass charms and wishing trees, my designs are handcrafted and very unique. I can offer matching products but not stationary.

I'm just feeling very... demoralised. I've put a lot of time into my venture, I've booked and paid for 2 stands at wedding fayres for later in the year, I've paid for advertising for a while to get me noticed (Im at the top of google ad words on a local search)....I'm ordering things from vistaprint (free!) I've done online wedding directorys and on one in particular I can review how many people look at my product.... 50 in a week but no enquiries.

Does this mean I should be worried, or is this perfectly normal. I work full time and between working and doing internet work on this and looking after family i dont have a lot of time left to do foot work, but I would be willing to make the time if i thought it would make an impact.

I just dont know if my handmade crafts are good enough to compete and I'm feeling very demoralised. Should i stop before i waste anymore of mine and my OH's hard earned cash. Is it just a pipe dream.

Oh and having just read a forum thread from a woman who had 5 orders straight away for her new cake business... Now I feel more worried.

Does anyone have any words of encouragement or been through a similar experience?

paddyrg

I think you may have hit the nail on the head with the word 'oversaturated', the competition is immense and only a limited number of weddings a year The market is tough out there even without a recession.

Can you talk to people in other parts of the wedding industry and cross-promote each others services (eg a photographer or caterer) when talking to clients?

What was cake lady doing differently? Was she supercheap, or had a style that was in fashion, or anything? Why not ask her what her secret is? Why not ask her if she will promote you to her clients?

steve1980

As you say, the market is saturated. Google wedding favours and you end up with millions of sites.

Don't forget people don't have the huge amounts of money they used to. I got married in December and instead of individual gifts to the guests, we saved up the various jars we used, bought 4 tins of roses (£10.00), bit of ribbon from hobbycraft (£2.00) and some superglue!

You've not linked your website to your profile so I can't advise on what you currently have.

As for the cake orders, that's a completely different market.

paulofessex

Have you visted your local Florists / Hotels to introduce your service. Also I'm wondering if some of your products are suitable for displaying/selling in local shops or even florists on a sale or return basis. You would basically visit the shop, place your display and products give the store a list of the price your looking for each item sold along with a RRP for them.

Also is your products / service ideal for party plan, it may mean you have to make a large amount of stock etc.

greatfloyd69

Thank you paulofessex, I think thats my next job, I've been so focused on getting the website up and running I need to focus on getting out there.

pitkin2020

All the above advice is good so far.
With regards to your website bearing in mind I don't really know the product at all so this is only my view as a consumer with no prior knowledge. Your items look great and i'm presuming from your opening post on here they are all hand made, but your site doesn't make that clear. Simply they could be bought in and resold, you need to promote the hand made, materials used etc to the max so people can see these aren't mass produced items. There are no additional details for the items, no sizes, materials used (Again) etc, is anything inside the box or are they are empty??
Whilst most people will know what they are getting just as many won't know so its best to be crystal clear, if the info isn't there they want its just as easy to go back to google and click the next company with so much choice out there.

The site itself is very clean and easy to navigate, was it done using wordpress??

Just to add I suspect this was never going to be a business that picked up over night, these aren't an item everyone wants to buy or needs for a wedding and I would suspect the market these are aimed at are planning more than a few months in advance. SO it may take this wedding to go past before people are looking for next years bunch of suppliers, if that makes sense.

Getting in with florists, cake suppliers, venues and photographers will also help to promote your business and you can promote theirs in return. You could also look at making something for them that could be tied in with the favour boxes and sold additionally, don't ask me what but rack your brain there must be something lol. I would also look at getting the stationary sorted if you can, I suspect people who are into these favour boxes would also be into handmade invitations, table name cards etc, which to be honest if your making the boxes a well made invitation card shouldn't be difficult for you. Try to offer a selection of items to encourage people to buy the whole lot from you as it makes it easier for them.

Final thought, it may look bad now but you have clearly put a lot of effort, time and money into this to just give up now. If your working from home there can't be any major expenses to continuing with this, just keep putting the effort in and hopefully it'll pay off

Best of luck

steve1980

Your site is ok, but doesn't give that WOW factor when I opened it.

It does what it says on the tin and that's about it.

There is no About Us page, nothing to describe who you are, what you are, or anything.

pitkin2020

steve1980 wrote: »

There is no About Us page, nothing to describe who you are, what you are, or anything.

http://www.fabfavours.com/About-Fabfavours.php admitedly it is very sparse but gives a little info

greatfloyd69

thank you for your feedback guys, I've taken your feedback on board. I'll do more work to promote the handmade side of things, and i'll improve my about us page.

Anything else I can work on?!?

Savvy_Sue

greatfloyd69 wrote: »

I wasn't sure if I was allowed to link my webpage...

Actually, it's not allowed, so please edit your post to remove your webpage. See the Forum Rules, especially this one. What was suggested was putting your home page in your profile, which is fine up to a point:

Users are allowed links in profile pages but please don't mention them in your posts or signature in any way.

pleasedelete

I looked at the site. I would say that you don't have a unique selling point. Little bags are really cheap on ebay and anyone can put a couple of packets of mass market sweets in them. I could see that yours had something added but the pictures were not close enough in to see what it is.

You need something that I cant get myself in 2 minutes on ebay. So think about the contents of the boxes/bags. Also think about what it is packaged in. What have you added to the standard box? It is quite hard to see from the pictures?