Hey Guys,
I'm new the forum, I've recently started a new Novelty toy product business. Being honest, it's a business I do not think will take me to the Fastlane, but I've been using it as a vehicle to reduce my fear factor and start learning through doing. Essentially I love coming up with fun ideas with the sole aim to make people smile and laugh (the world needs some of that right now and who knows, by doing I might get my creative juices following enough to find a product with huge scale).
Story so far:
Shops in the UK opened today, so hopefully this will breathe some life back into the business. Whilst the lockdown has continued I've been working on:
Feel free to ask any questions!
I'm new the forum, I've recently started a new Novelty toy product business. Being honest, it's a business I do not think will take me to the Fastlane, but I've been using it as a vehicle to reduce my fear factor and start learning through doing. Essentially I love coming up with fun ideas with the sole aim to make people smile and laugh (the world needs some of that right now and who knows, by doing I might get my creative juices following enough to find a product with huge scale).
Story so far:
- Around 1.5 years ago, I had a funny idea for a Novelty adult toy (based on a children's toy)
- I did nothing with it for a year whilst talking about it a lot but with no action
- I got a bonus with work, and with the money thought now is the time to take a gamble to see if it will work.
- Through Alibaba, I found a number of factories that created this children's toy
- I got the designs from the factories and went about modifying and designing an Adult take on it
- The minimum order quantity was 2000, but luckily the unit cost wasn't very high. So once I had finalised my design, I went and ordered 2000 units from a factory in China
- 1 month later, my toys turnt up (literally on my birthday, it was amazing). I jumped up and down in the air, and holding a product that I had thought off, designed and had manufactured was one of the proudest moments I've ever had. Then it was time to sell.
- I searched LinkedIn for all of the buyers at multiple retailers that I thought would be suitable, found their office address, created a funny cartoon which summarised my product, printed the cartoon on a card and I wrote a handwritten message in the card and sent it along with the product to multiple buyers
- Out of the 25 retailers I contacted, 20 ignored me, 4 said no and 1 said yes.
- The one that said yes ordered 450 units as a trial across their 45 stores. The trial sold out in 3 weeks. They then put in a new order for 700 units.
- At this point I have broken with a total profit off 10% (and 800 units remaining)
- I continued to send out more cards, samples and was lining up an order for 5000 units with the retailer and then BANG. COVID.
- So the business is on pause at the moment
- Selling to the retailer made me a 138% net profit margin (not including my time) and it took about very, very little time to fulfil.
- The unit price is very low, so with the cost of postage, packaging + driving traffic, it led me to think it wasn't worth my time. My strategy is for big customers, low maintenance, low time whilst still making a good margin
Shops in the UK opened today, so hopefully this will breathe some life back into the business. Whilst the lockdown has continued I've been working on:
- Developing a book
- Developing a board/card game
Feel free to ask any questions!
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum:
Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited: