Hey everyone,
As I promised earlier today, I am going to write up my progress or Journey report of the Urban wear brand that I launched earlier last year.
So, it started off horribly, we funded and produced huge inventory (oh, just so you didn't know, we own factories in Asia, also me and my dad can design stuff too), I am talking about 10 containers of products, that' about $1.2 million dollar worth of items. The reason behind that was, we had a partner in USA, it turned out he was just a con man and lied to us. The people or clients that he brought were all just his friends or people who were not even in fashion!!
We were new in US at that time, so believed everything that he said blindly, and then things started to sink in when he literally sold nothing for 2 months!! I still can't believe how that is possible, but he managed to do it.
Any way, I moved to USA, knew no one and didn't even know which department store or boutiques to approach, I was fresh off the boat. But I knew how to use Uncle Google
So started to looking for leads, first started to look for wholesalers, as we had so much inventory we needed to sell in volumes.
Also, because he didn't sell anything that dried our cash flow. It was so bad, our electric company was about to shut off our electric!!
So I needed money urgently just to stay alive. I started to sell things at loss price. It was hard, really killing me selling things at such a loss, but I had no options, the fact that we are paying the bills and staying alive, that was the only gratification I was getting.
Then we had another major problem, he was meant to sell and pay the customs charge to discharge the 4-5 containers which were coming, obviously nothing was sold and there was no money to pay, those containers were sitting in the port for 2-3 months!! In the end we had to pay $60,000 penalty!!! Yeah had to sell one of my car in UK to get the fund for the penalty, office rent, employees salarty etc, it was probably one of the saddest moment of my life, I had to sell that Bentley off. Yeah the Bentley that you see in my avatar, that WAS mine as I sold it off now.
I was really going through hard time emotionally. Despression, anxiety, panic attack everything was coming at the same time, you can see why, no money, no sales, selling off loved posessions just to stay alive, it was getting just too much.
But, I always knew I just have to weather the storm now. Sunny days are ahead. You see those Never give up videos, well I was watching them a lot, can't give up now, not after all these hard work, sacrifice and tears.
Any way, back to the sales part, most of the wholesalers were trying to low ball, I mean some of them were offering $1 to buy off 20-30,000 units!! I mean $1 f..king dollar?? Bloody Starbucks coffee costs more than that. But hey, they had the cash to pay and they will say any number they feel like.
So I had to stop looking for wholesalers online. Luckily I knew a guy in NY, he was director of a major clothing brand, the only problem is, he is simply crazy, if any one can put up with him then that person definitely have a lot of patience. I had no choice, I had to put up with a certified mental patient, he was forgetting things every hour, I had to keep sending him the same email 7 times a day, he doesn't know how to open up a PDF file so I had to take screen shot of all the 50 pages and message him on whatsapp!! Oh yeah, I did them alright. Because, he knew people and people trusts him.
Thats one of the biggest lesson I learned in USA, this big corporations, they don't give newbies a chance, its very very hard to break in as a newbie in USA. You need to go via some one who knows, people simply don't trust any one. That's why I was having trouble reaching the ideal wholesalers or companies who can pay be at least break even price.
Any way, I had to pay him in advance, he did introduce me various people, they were offering better price than those other low ballers, so we sold fair amount of units around end of last year, I think just in December we did about $100,000 sales.
Oh, in the mean time, that useless partner of ours sued us, apparently we were not consulting with him and making business decisions without him!! Yeah, he had the nerve to do that, it did dent us a bit as we had court injunction, so we couldn't sell goods for a month and half during christmas time, the busiest time of the year!!! It was really hard to take, we were just about to stand on our own feet and he had to kick us hard. Any way, we won the case in the court, so we got rid of him from the company, me and my manager was running the show from that time onwards.
Then we went to a small trade show in Atlanta, we found some sales people from there and also sold our items to some boutiques, those sales reps didn't perform much in the end, so kept looking for new sales reps, doing job advert, asking the stores about the reps that they know etc. I am still actively working on getting the right sales rep, but its really hard to find the right sales reps to represent your line.
I was visiting some stores around where I am in Philly and managed to get some sales. Now I am planning to hit all the Urban wear boutiques in NY, as thats where there are 100's of stores who can represent our line.
Earlier this year, we went to the trade show again, but this time the organisers really messed it up, they put us with discounted or off price items, we should have been with other urban wear brand, so that really effected our sales in that show, we literally got only one sales!! Yeah only one sales, but it was from a major Urban wear chain stores, so that was a lucky break.
Now, I am doing networking really hard and trying to find people who are representing similar lines as us or who worked for top brands like True religion, Affliction. Its hard to find them and when you find them you need bowl them over, as they are used to work with top players, so if you are not a top player or doesn't have the potential to be top player then they will not want any thing from you.
I have an commerce website that I built on shopify, honestly speaking, been so busy with everything else, I couldn't do any marketing whatsoever. So get 1-2 sales a month from it, which is really nothing, So I am looking to get some one or partner up with some one who is good at online marketing, so that we can grow the online sales, this will be really a game changer as I will be getting the maximum price for our goods, and I got 16,000 sqr feet full of products, thats over $5million worth of products at retail value!! If any one in here is in online marketing and wants to work together then let me know, will see how we can do something, as the potential is there.
In order to grow this brand and make it even bigger, I will need some major funds, mainly for marketing, trade shows etc. So I am actually creating a sales pitch for investors, as we have tractions, our sales are improving, but if we had funds then we could definitely boost up the sales even more.
I will be on the road a lot in up coming months, doing door to door sales in those boutiques, at the same time working rigorously to get appointments with buyers from the chain stores, don't get much email from them as they probably get 1000/s of emails a day, but I won't stop trying. Also approaching more sales reps that I can find online, multi line show rooms etc so that they can carry our line.
Looking back at it, if last year I knew all the people that I know in fashion now, we would have been in such an amazing place right now, we could have easily done $1 Million in sales. But there is no point speculating about what if, but etc. It is what it is. Life doesn't always gives you everything straight away, you have to fight and grind for it, thats what I had to do and still doing. Whatever doesn't kills you makes you stronger. And I am certainly much stronger that what I was last year.
In fact I am already thinking about opening a new brand which will offer goods at cheap price, as now I know the buyers of lot of discounted stores, know the sales reps of those discounted products etc. But I am concentrating fully on expanding my brand. Trying new ideas, new paths, new channels. One of them will hit the Bulls eye, so the Journey continues.
Thanks for reading.
As I promised earlier today, I am going to write up my progress or Journey report of the Urban wear brand that I launched earlier last year.
So, it started off horribly, we funded and produced huge inventory (oh, just so you didn't know, we own factories in Asia, also me and my dad can design stuff too), I am talking about 10 containers of products, that' about $1.2 million dollar worth of items. The reason behind that was, we had a partner in USA, it turned out he was just a con man and lied to us. The people or clients that he brought were all just his friends or people who were not even in fashion!!
We were new in US at that time, so believed everything that he said blindly, and then things started to sink in when he literally sold nothing for 2 months!! I still can't believe how that is possible, but he managed to do it.
Any way, I moved to USA, knew no one and didn't even know which department store or boutiques to approach, I was fresh off the boat. But I knew how to use Uncle Google
So started to looking for leads, first started to look for wholesalers, as we had so much inventory we needed to sell in volumes.Also, because he didn't sell anything that dried our cash flow. It was so bad, our electric company was about to shut off our electric!!
So I needed money urgently just to stay alive. I started to sell things at loss price. It was hard, really killing me selling things at such a loss, but I had no options, the fact that we are paying the bills and staying alive, that was the only gratification I was getting.
Then we had another major problem, he was meant to sell and pay the customs charge to discharge the 4-5 containers which were coming, obviously nothing was sold and there was no money to pay, those containers were sitting in the port for 2-3 months!! In the end we had to pay $60,000 penalty!!! Yeah had to sell one of my car in UK to get the fund for the penalty, office rent, employees salarty etc, it was probably one of the saddest moment of my life, I had to sell that Bentley off. Yeah the Bentley that you see in my avatar, that WAS mine as I sold it off now.
I was really going through hard time emotionally. Despression, anxiety, panic attack everything was coming at the same time, you can see why, no money, no sales, selling off loved posessions just to stay alive, it was getting just too much.
But, I always knew I just have to weather the storm now. Sunny days are ahead. You see those Never give up videos, well I was watching them a lot, can't give up now, not after all these hard work, sacrifice and tears.
Any way, back to the sales part, most of the wholesalers were trying to low ball, I mean some of them were offering $1 to buy off 20-30,000 units!! I mean $1 f..king dollar?? Bloody Starbucks coffee costs more than that. But hey, they had the cash to pay and they will say any number they feel like.
So I had to stop looking for wholesalers online. Luckily I knew a guy in NY, he was director of a major clothing brand, the only problem is, he is simply crazy, if any one can put up with him then that person definitely have a lot of patience. I had no choice, I had to put up with a certified mental patient, he was forgetting things every hour, I had to keep sending him the same email 7 times a day, he doesn't know how to open up a PDF file so I had to take screen shot of all the 50 pages and message him on whatsapp!! Oh yeah, I did them alright. Because, he knew people and people trusts him.
Thats one of the biggest lesson I learned in USA, this big corporations, they don't give newbies a chance, its very very hard to break in as a newbie in USA. You need to go via some one who knows, people simply don't trust any one. That's why I was having trouble reaching the ideal wholesalers or companies who can pay be at least break even price.
Any way, I had to pay him in advance, he did introduce me various people, they were offering better price than those other low ballers, so we sold fair amount of units around end of last year, I think just in December we did about $100,000 sales.
Oh, in the mean time, that useless partner of ours sued us, apparently we were not consulting with him and making business decisions without him!! Yeah, he had the nerve to do that, it did dent us a bit as we had court injunction, so we couldn't sell goods for a month and half during christmas time, the busiest time of the year!!! It was really hard to take, we were just about to stand on our own feet and he had to kick us hard. Any way, we won the case in the court, so we got rid of him from the company, me and my manager was running the show from that time onwards.
Then we went to a small trade show in Atlanta, we found some sales people from there and also sold our items to some boutiques, those sales reps didn't perform much in the end, so kept looking for new sales reps, doing job advert, asking the stores about the reps that they know etc. I am still actively working on getting the right sales rep, but its really hard to find the right sales reps to represent your line.
I was visiting some stores around where I am in Philly and managed to get some sales. Now I am planning to hit all the Urban wear boutiques in NY, as thats where there are 100's of stores who can represent our line.
Earlier this year, we went to the trade show again, but this time the organisers really messed it up, they put us with discounted or off price items, we should have been with other urban wear brand, so that really effected our sales in that show, we literally got only one sales!! Yeah only one sales, but it was from a major Urban wear chain stores, so that was a lucky break.
Now, I am doing networking really hard and trying to find people who are representing similar lines as us or who worked for top brands like True religion, Affliction. Its hard to find them and when you find them you need bowl them over, as they are used to work with top players, so if you are not a top player or doesn't have the potential to be top player then they will not want any thing from you.
I have an commerce website that I built on shopify, honestly speaking, been so busy with everything else, I couldn't do any marketing whatsoever. So get 1-2 sales a month from it, which is really nothing, So I am looking to get some one or partner up with some one who is good at online marketing, so that we can grow the online sales, this will be really a game changer as I will be getting the maximum price for our goods, and I got 16,000 sqr feet full of products, thats over $5million worth of products at retail value!! If any one in here is in online marketing and wants to work together then let me know, will see how we can do something, as the potential is there.
In order to grow this brand and make it even bigger, I will need some major funds, mainly for marketing, trade shows etc. So I am actually creating a sales pitch for investors, as we have tractions, our sales are improving, but if we had funds then we could definitely boost up the sales even more.
I will be on the road a lot in up coming months, doing door to door sales in those boutiques, at the same time working rigorously to get appointments with buyers from the chain stores, don't get much email from them as they probably get 1000/s of emails a day, but I won't stop trying. Also approaching more sales reps that I can find online, multi line show rooms etc so that they can carry our line.
Looking back at it, if last year I knew all the people that I know in fashion now, we would have been in such an amazing place right now, we could have easily done $1 Million in sales. But there is no point speculating about what if, but etc. It is what it is. Life doesn't always gives you everything straight away, you have to fight and grind for it, thats what I had to do and still doing. Whatever doesn't kills you makes you stronger. And I am certainly much stronger that what I was last year.
In fact I am already thinking about opening a new brand which will offer goods at cheap price, as now I know the buyers of lot of discounted stores, know the sales reps of those discounted products etc. But I am concentrating fully on expanding my brand. Trying new ideas, new paths, new channels. One of them will hit the Bulls eye, so the Journey continues.
Thanks for reading.
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