Starting an Adult Party Plan Business - ideas

BIRDIE

Hi, I am looking for ideas and advice please.

I recently bought an adult toy & lingerie website and looking for ways to drive traffic to it. There are obviously so many out there. So yes, perhaps it wasn't the smartest move I have ever done :-)
I am not technically aware, so doing my own seo (which seems to me to be something of a black art to be honest. and the rules change constantly.
Don';t have the money anyway to pay for this type of service.
So I am considering the idea of setting up a party plan business with it.
Ideas so far would be to recruit people to host parties (ex ann summers types etc. Sort of pushing the whole run your own business and pay good commissions on sales.

My other half and I are sort of bouncing ideas around with this right now.

We were thinking of paying something like 30 -40% commission on profits.

Your thoughts, ideas, advice, etc would be good, what would you see as the pitfalls.

hope someone can help.
thanks :beer:

paddyrg

You have a website, do you have a/several suppliers in the UK? Or is it all drop-ship? I'd be wanting the goods pronto of sold in my house, not 4-6 weeks, arriving in battered packaging from the far East, with duty/import VAT to pay if HMRC didn't believe megamamba was truly a 'gift'. That means holding stock in the UK and fast delivery. You'll also need clear returns policies.

What can you do differently? There's a wide range of vendors and products and price points, so your collection needs something to make it a collection/interesting. Is it aiming for the cheap and trashy hens market, or the quality lifestyle choice market? Bored single mothers? I think you still need to find your position (cough) within what's available.

No doubt there's good money in this sector, otherwise specialist bookshops wouldn't line the streets of Soho. But good working capital may be important to land your stock and get established.

BIRDIE

My distributor is in the UK, delivery is max 3 - 5 days for the cheapest postal option. Overnight delivery could be used, for those who could not wait. :-)

Products are all well known branded items, so no fear of quality control, in that respect.

The range is large and I am updated daily for stock control purposes.

Therefore I have no fear or worries regarding my product or distribution control.

I am thinking of offering 'business in a box' type opportunities, you know how the whole mlm thing goes that people jump into, but with a huge difference.
I would give someone the opportunity to run their own parties, earning between 30-50% commission. However they would need to pay for the outlay of a demo pack, £200 worth of goods for £100.
No targets, commission paid as soon as products delivered,
don't have to recruit others to step up a rank, just a one 2 one opportunity.

As I said these are all ideas sort of playing around in my head.
I want to do this fairly and honestly and offer a real opportunity, which is why paying out high commission.
This is the only way i can think of promoting the site to the general public without spending huge amounts on SEO and other types of non guaranteed type promotion.
Social media is very restrictive, ebay also way too expensive nowadays. Amazon not yet letting anyone else apart from the big boys.

Any thoughts on this, what would you see as the pitfalls,
Any thoughts of other ways

paddyrg

That all sounds encouraging! I'd suggest maybe talking to a business advisor about how to structure it, and get all the terms watertight with a decent lawyer before recruiting people into it.

I suggest you'd divide the country up into regions, and maybe sell those. Perhaps you can offer a larger region for earlier sign-ups as an incentive, and offer a flat 'introduction fee' to anyone who introduces anyone. If you did that, you could offer the startup pack (£200 retail) for say £150, but give a £50 referral/introduction fee when the referred party signs up (paying £150 for £200 retail/£100 wholesale of stuff). Basically, your starter package would have the referral fee built into the price, so everyone is a winner :-)

Annisele

BIRDIE wrote: »

My distributor is in the UK, delivery is max 3 - 5 days for the cheapest postal option. Overnight delivery could be used, for those who could not wait. :-)

Products are all well known branded items, so no fear of quality control, in that respect.

...

I would give someone the opportunity to run their own parties, earning between 30-50% commission.

I've no idea what the profit margins are in this sort of business. But generally speaking, if products are from well known brands, then I (as a retail consumer) can buy them from a website somewhere in the UK. If you're paying 50% commission on sales, that suggests the end customers are going to have to pay a fair bit over the odds. The end customers might just check prices on their smartphones during the party, and order the product from elsewhere.

Before you start selling the "business in a box" plan, I'd have a go at running some parties of your own. If it works, great - think about how to expand. If it doesn't, then it may not work for other people either.

paddyrg

Annisele wrote: »

I've no idea what the profit margins are in this sort of business.

Staggering, in a word. The embarrassment factor of going into a specialist retailer or having a credit card number related to an online purchase means customers are not fully rational. Complaints and returns are low, also.

Lingerie isn't cut for comfort, size ranges don't need to be too detailed as the clothes are worn briefly. It's a profitable business.

This, basically, is how come David Sullivan (publisher, shops) owns West Ham with the Golds (publishing, daughter owns ann summers).

Stevie_Palimo

I think you would also be worth while driving your own traffic to the site with maybe email marketing that is quite cheap and would be a small outlay for a test set, If it works well then maybe move into other marketing areas.

BIRDIE

Annisele wrote: »

I've no idea what the profit margins are in this sort of business. But generally speaking, if products are from well known brands, then I (as a retail consumer) can buy them from a website somewhere in the UK. If you're paying 50% commission on sales, that suggests the end customers are going to have to pay a fair bit over the odds. The end customers might just check prices on their smartphones during the party, and order the product from elsewhere.

Before you start selling the "business in a box" plan, I'd have a go at running some parties of your own. If it works, great - think about how to expand. If it doesn't, then it may not work for other people either.

I have a UK based website, this is a means to drive traffic and increase sales. I certainly wouldn't be selling at prices any different to anyone else. Maybe I am naive, but, I believe that paying up to 50% commission would be a fair deal, ok I am only getting 50% of my normal profit on a item. But they would be sales I wouldn't have got without someone else promoting it. So look after people fairly and you get something in return.

BIRDIE

Stevie_Palimo wrote: »

I think you would also be worth while driving your own traffic to the site with maybe email marketing that is quite cheap and would be a small outlay for a test set, If it works well then maybe move into other marketing areas.

How do you do that without spamming?

I basically bought a fully loaded website, (UK distributor as I said)
and have seen some of the products good quality and fast postage.

So I now need to make changes to the site, for the life of me can't work out how to do that.
I ran a check on the performance through some SEO checker website and found numerous improvements that could be made. So I guess I need tech help. Where to go for that?:D

I am looking at ways to drive traffic to the site. Parties was one way, but open to suggestions for others.

thank so much for your help so far . ladies and gents

lilmiss1982

Running promotions and competitions can drive people to your site, these often get posted on sites like this or similar. You should notice an increase in traffic not sure if that relates to an increase in sales though.

BIRDIE

I had thought of running a competition, on Facebook probably.

Though I did competitions through MSE for 2 years, having a rest for last 6 months, never bought a thing from any of the sites I visited.
Won some fantastic prizes though.

That's why I am now looking help here. I know that people are very supportive and helpful on MSE. A great community.