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Yeah, I'm going to call BS on this one. Your business is not like TOMS. Maybe you think it is, but it certainly does not feel that way from your website. You should read, "Start Something That Matters", written by the founder of TOMS.<br />
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So I actually have a business like yours which donates to a cause. I have the same model as TOMS or Warby Parker. I donate 1 for 1.<br />
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Here is why your idea isn't working.<br />
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First, your donation is not very transparent. I cannot quantify some of your items. How much does it cost to provide one person 18 months of water? What do 10 life saving sachets of food cost? Is that an all in price, shipped to their location?<br />
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There's a reason I chose 1 for 1. It's because my customer can understand exactly what is being donated and where. There's no vague 10% of profits or a measly sounding $1 per sale. I wanted my customers to know exactly how their purchase was going to help. 1 of XXX is being shipped to XXX place so that XXX will have XXX.<br />
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Second, in order for this model to work, it cannot seem like you are inflating your prices to cover the donation. If my product were double the normal cost. People would say, well he's making the same profit, we're just paying extra to fund his donations. We might as well just save the money and send it to a charity that we want. So your pricing needs to be inline with others. I think your prices are too high because you haven't built a brand name yet. My prices are actually lower than others on the market.<br />
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Third, yes it's a for profit business, but it shouldn't feel like one. Do you really care about the Syrian refugees? Or did you just pick 4 causes that happen to match your hat designs? Show me you care and I might buy it. I support my causes daily and people at these non-profits know it. They invite me to their charity dinners as a special guest, I get thank you letters in the mail and on FB especially I get tons of friend requests from customers. That's sort of crazy.<br />
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Yes, mine is a for profit business too. I want it to be sustainable. But mine is a barely for profit business, because my main focus is the donation portion, not the profit. People at the non-profits ask me all the time if I'm doing ok, they hope I'm not losing money. The reason is that they don't want my business to go away because my business is helping. I get shares on Facebook weekly. If you don't go for the money, it will come, because people will want to support you.<br />
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Let me show you a few emails I received this week:<br />
"Hello – We just received a XXX donations from XX and were truly blown away! It is such an incredibly generous business model and we were so impressed by the quality of the pieces! Your team clearly put a lot of thought into the safest options and it absolutely shows. We were extra giddy about the XXX and are so excited about the XXX. I was completely shocked when I went online and saw how low your prices are, too! Just an all-around awesome experience and I’m so glad I found out about your business. "<br />
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This person sent me this after I told her that her non-profit would be put on my November list for donations.<br />
"I will see what I can do to push that up by having my many friends go on line and check out your wares. Thank you, and I look forward to doing business with you again."<br />
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How many hats could you sell if your customer base was like mine?
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I appreciate the in-depth feedback. Definitely going to go back and try to fix my prices so they are lower. Want to speak to a few of your points:<br />
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Firstly, I do care about these causes - I've reached out to over 100 charities and nonprofits to foster these impact deals. It is not a vague donation of funds - each hat sold has a specific and direct impact that was agreed upon with the third-party partners. The costs for how they can achieve those things is within their scope of work and not mine.<br />
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Here is a direct excerpt from an email received from water.org <br />
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"As for your request to donate one year of clean water for one person for each hat purchased, you would need to donate $1.25 per hat sold. You can learn more about how we calculate this by referencing the attached PDF." (willing to provide full email if you want)<br />
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so if you do the math you can figure how much it would cost to provide 18 months worth of clean drinking water per hat. I'm dropshipping some my margins suck - plus I'm providing free shipping which kills my margin even more. Going to try and find a cheaper product to reduce my price. <br />
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The designs were created AFTER I established the relationship. The only thing that is vague is exactly where it is going and I left that up to the charity to decide where its most needed. <br />
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Secondly - do you have any tips for displaying the legitimacy of the hats: how to display to my customers that I actually care about the causes?</div>
