Building a subscription box business

[Stargazer]

Great. I can go to bed now in a restful state

Well done on getting going.

Dan

 

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[df1992]

Update 14.12.2020

Sales are now just over £400 in the 2 weeks since launch. It's been slower than expected and I haven't been able to work out why, so I posted out to my Instagram that I wanted to speak to people to chat to them in return for free product which got a great response and last week I had 11 x 30 minute conversations with people which proved to be invaluable with some great insights to take my business forward (also interestingly, 2 people also bought product straight after the call even though they were getting some for free as well)

Here are the top 3 insights that others might find useful:

1. Sample/Introductory pack: My product is priced between £13-20, which people think is a fair price but they aren't willing to pay that unless they know they'll like it. People don't want to take a chance, they want certainty. So we will be developing a sample/taster pack for people to be able to buy before committing to a larger amount of the product.
2. People love seeing a face behind the brand: I've shown people "behind the scenes" type of content on Instagram. People know that the business is ran by me, my gf and my dog and they love that. People love seeing the personality in a brand as it makes them feel warmer. It was also clear that people would much rather support independent business than a big cold corporate machine. So we are going to double down on showing our personality as a brand.
3. Environmental considerations and ethics is crucial: People want to do the right thing and they will happily avoid brands that don't take their environmental and ethical responsibility seriously. On the flip of it, they will happily pay that little bit more if they know that has a direct impact on doing good

The exercise of talking to people was really fun and I learnt a lot. I'll be doing it again as not only was it useful, I felt like people connected with us as a brand and they become our supporters after it as well. People really respected the fact we were asking for their help, and they were happy to offer it (and then share that fact on Instagram, giving us a nice awareness boost).

 

[df1992]

Update 26.02.2021

It's been a couple of months since I've posted so thought it was time for an update.

I've now reached a £1k revenue milestone with around 45 customer which has taken me around 10 weeks to get to (half of the revenue has come in the last 2 weeks) s. All these sales have been completely organic from my Instagram channel which is now 1,400+ followers.

The nice thing is some of these customers have come from referrals, which is a positive sign.

I basically put the business on pause for a month or so, whilst I built my sample/introductory pack, got some professional product photography done, leveled up my website, tweaked my packaging, learnt FB ads and refined the product.

Now it's time to level up.

For 90% of my audience they spend their time on Instagram, so for the time being I want to be laser focused on working on IG ads. I have 4 different audiences I'll be testing for my product and I am nervously excited to finally be in a place to start marketing.

I've been working on different creatives for based for each audience and at the moment will be optimising for engagement so I can build some data.

My next milestone will be to hit £1k in monthly sales.

 

[Andy Black]

Do you listen to The Subscription Box Show?

 

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[df1992]

Do you listen to The Subscription Box Show?

I haven't heard of that... is it a podcast? Would you recommend it?

 

[Andy Black]

I haven't heard of that... is it a podcast? Would you recommend it?

Erik speaks to lots of subscription box owners. He’s got lots of episodes. I’m sure some are good.

 

[Tiago]

Update 26.02.2021

It's been a couple of months since I've posted so thought it was time for an update.

I've now reached a £1k revenue milestone with around 45 customer which has taken me around 10 weeks to get to (half of the revenue has come in the last 2 weeks) s. All these sales have been completely organic from my Instagram channel which is now 1,400+ followers.

The nice thing is some of these customers have come from referrals, which is a positive sign.

I basically put the business on pause for a month or so, whilst I built my sample/introductory pack, got some professional product photography done, leveled up my website, tweaked my packaging, learnt FB ads and refined the product.

Now it's time to level up.

For 90% of my audience they spend their time on Instagram, so for the time being I want to be laser focused on working on IG ads. I have 4 different audiences I'll be testing for my product and I am nervously excited to finally be in a place to start marketing.

I've been working on different creatives for based for each audience and at the moment will be optimising for engagement so I can build some data.

My next milestone will be to hit £1k in monthly sales.

Keep going, it's picking up momentum.

 

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[tylerwilkinson]

Great work thus far. I’m watching this thread.
From your experience so far, what early actions and expenses were most valuable and which were a lesson in futility if nothing else?

 

[df1992]

Great work thus far. I’m watching this thread.
From your experience so far, what early actions and expenses were most valuable and which were a lesson in futility if nothing else?

Thank you!

Early actions and expenses that were most valuable:

1. JUST F*ckING DO IT - I've spent most my life talking about "what if I....." and this time I've just done it. It's going slower than I'd like, but I'm learning a heap and having fun with it. At the moment I'm probably down £1k of my own money which I'm confident I'll get back... I'm almost looking at this as my own apprenticeship course ha!
2. Social Media is important: A lot of my sales have come organically from Instagram. I now have a following of over 1.6k and it's a great way to get feedback and sales. You have to be careful though not to fall into the trap off "I'm working on my business because I'm spending 1 hour on IG". Use the tool, don't let it use you.
3. Speak to customers as quickly as possible: At the start my sales were slow, so I asked my IG audience who wanted to have a video call with me in return for free product. I had 30 minute chats with 11 of my followers and the insights resulted in my now bestseller product being launched 8 weeks later. People are genuinely happy to help small businesses and you can learn so much from just asking people you don't know what they think, rather than asking your family and friends who will just say whatever you want to hear.

Lessons in futility:

• Lesson 1: There's a lot to learn! This is my first ever time in building an ecom DTC brand. I was so excited and thought I would easily do 1k revenue in the first month. But it has been a much longer and harder slog. The reality is that selling can be difficult and for sure it's craft. Just building a brand, product, marketing strategy etc. takes a lot of work... I massively underestimated it.
• Lesson 2: Good design takes time: I've had delays for some of my products being launched because of just waiting on design and it being a bottleneck, which was frustrating as I was just expecting things to happen instantly.
• Lesson 3: "Saving Money" = no cash: I've probably got a little carried away with buying lots of stock (in the effort to get lower costs) but in reality, because my demand isn't quite there yet I just have lots of money sat in stock with very little cash to play with. If I was starting again, I'd buy half the stock and with the money saved try and drum up double the demand through marketing.

 

[Muller21QQQ]

what do you think about reselling of subscription boxes?
I mean to find a cheap subscription box company, buy boxes from them and then to sell on a more expensive price?

 

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[tylerwilkinson]

what do you think about reselling of subscription boxes?
I mean to find a cheap subscription box company, buy boxes from them and then to sell on a more expensive price?

umm...

I think you’d lose on shipping and packaging, plus you have no control over what goes out.

now a subscription box “subscription of the month” sampler where you ship a different company’s box every month might be something, but you still have a tough time making the same profit without an added gimmick.

 

[Kid]

umm...

I think you’d lose on shipping and packaging, plus you have no control over what goes out.

now a subscription box “subscription of the month” sampler where you ship a different company’s box every month might be something, but you still have a tough time making the same profit without an added gimmick.

Maybe a twist on idea would to offer white label service for other entrepreneurs to organize and send subscription boxes.

Similar to "Print on demand" for t-shirts and posters.

 

[df1992]

Update 23rd June 2021

Been a while since I've last posted. I've now made £3k in revenue and had around 180 orders in total. I'm still yet to make a profit and being honest I'm starting to fall out of love with it. I've been working on this for a very long time, put a lot of hours in but I feel like the traction hasn't really got going.

I really want this to work and I can see it becoming a sustainable side hustle for some nice income however I feel slightly stuck, in limbo land.

I've had great customer feedback, people love the brand and the product and share it all over social. The product I sell is in a commoditised market that is over saturated and I thought I had carved out a nice niche within it.

I'm at a bit of a loss of what to do next.. I'm struggling to see how I can grow further.

Part of me thinks I could probably sell the brand for around £5k, then take that to move onto the next thing.

Thoughts?

 

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[Brrr]

Hey, I had a little skim through your thread and I think you need to take a hard look at the growth of the business and what you are doing and decide if the issue is the product itself or the business model/way you sell.

Not to turn this about myself, but I made some assumptions about my business and its USP that took me 3 years to undo, result? I've completely changed the direction and core model of the business, on track to achieve a real revenue, and have a clear path to scale and grow.

Turns out that people loved the product that I was selling enough that I didn't need to wrap it inside a niche selling method to succeed. The niche method of selling was actually limiting my business!

Maybe the problem isn't the product, but the subscription model.
Maybe you have been able to get enough data from the last 6 months, to extract a product that people will want to buy without the subscription side of things.
You have an audience and think of all the experience and advantages you have now vs a year ago.

I would hang in there and wrestle with the business a bit longer, I may be wrong but I would start to ask some different questions, I think your business will be your biggest teacher and it would be a shame to miss out on some lessons it will have to offer.

It sounds to me that you have a lot of good things going on and a foundation to build. With that said, if it's going to continue to be a resource sink and limit your next step, don't feel too bad about cutting your losses. It just sounds like a familiar story to me of the beginning of something more significant.

 

[df1992]

Hey, I had a little skim through your thread and I think you need to take a hard look at the growth of the business and what you are doing and decide if the issue is the product itself or the business model/way you sell.

Not to turn this about myself, but I made some assumptions about my business and its USP that took me 3 years to undo, result? I've completely changed the direction and core model of the business, on track to achieve a real revenue, and have a clear path to scale and grow.

Turns out that people loved the product that I was selling enough that I didn't need to wrap it inside a niche selling method to succeed. The niche method of selling was actually limiting my business!

Maybe the problem isn't the product, but the subscription model.
Maybe you have been able to get enough data from the last 6 months, to extract a product that people will want to buy without the subscription side of things.
You have an audience and think of all the experience and advantages you have now vs a year ago.

I would hang in there and wrestle with the business a bit longer, I may be wrong but I would start to ask some different questions, I think your business will be your biggest teacher and it would be a shame to miss out on some lessons it will have to offer.

It sounds to me that you have a lot of good things going on and a foundation to build. With that said, if it's going to continue to be a resource sink and limit your next step, don't feel too bad about cutting your losses. It just sounds like a familiar story to me of the beginning of something more significant.

Thank you for this thoughtful post, what you've said has really made me do some serious reflection on your points made. It does feel wasteful to me just giving it up considering the foundations laid, but like you said I need to have big hard think to see which way I might be able to pivot to start achieving some real growth.