Sorry for the absence, my first "shop" Christmas was a bit of a whirlwind of late night orders, fairs and frantic hair-tearing-out. But that's for another post!
Back on the story of my first year trading, this cute little bear above has caused me highs and lows all on its own. Let me elaborate....
Just before the Celtic Manor Show I blogged about before, I emailed the manufacturer of my Welsh speaking Tedi Bear "BB Bear" to ask what stock levels were like, in case I sold out. I didn't hear back straight away but that didn't ring any specific alarm bells.
I did sell a couple at the show but nothing epic. I also made a contact with a government backed agency promoting Welsh speaking at preschool age upwards, and we made a deal to offer a bear as a competition prize, as they couldn't directly promote me. Fair enough I thought.
Anyway, the Facebook promo started and the hits on my website went off the scale - so I hurredly emailed Adrian again and to my horror he rang me and said he had none left and wouldn't be making more for 6 months. SIX MONTHS!!! And the Facebook competition hadn't even finished.
What was I going to do? A cold sweat started as I got off the phone. What a fool I was for not checking first. What a missed opportunity. All those lost sales...
I needed have worried as it turned out - what I also learnt through this was that you can't control Social Media (shame some bigger companies didn't learn this earlier eh?). Someone posted on the company's Facebook page that people should be buying these bears in their local bookshop instead, the company themselves then promoted someone else's online shop and didn't mention me (not able to promote as a government-backed agency?) and basically I lost control of the whole thing.
But it didn't end there. I bought some extra bears that someone else was selling cheap - were they mad I had to wonder to myself - and its a good job I did because I had a massive Christmas rush on them and completely sold out. Everyone sold out of them this Christmas, just as they had the Christmas before according to newspaper reports at the time. So I shall be stock piling them this year as soon as they are available. My husband will be pleased....
lesson #641 - you can't control Social Media
lesson #642 - giving away your stock always seems like a good idea and never is
lesson #643 - check stock availability before any advertising
And there end-eth the lesson(s)
See you same time next week!!
www.rachelstoyshop.co.uk
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