Can I save my failed gift basket business?
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Onecolegirl asked:
Hi everyone,my mother I opened a gift basket business, primarily home internet based last year. While we have had some sales, it has not been enough to keep us going.Most of our supplies expired and we are out of money to try to keep going. While we bought enough supplies to make a nice variety of baskets, we didnt go completely overboard…or so we thought. We thought we were doing everything right but I guess not.We have talked to other owners on forums like this one and it seemed as if we were doing the same things.We marketed the business in local newspapers, attended a tradeshow (home tradeshow…maybe not the best type to attend?), did a couple radio ads, handed out promotional pieces at major events and walks, donated to other events, did presentations at real estate office, etc.We have even priced our baskets below what most business are asking for so I cant see the price being the problem.We took out about a $10,000 loan and its all gone and we barely made 1/4 back.
The cost of maintaining the website, paying for merchant accounts, marketing, etc without much income has depleted the entire fund over a year. I have heard others saying that they didnt see profit for the first two years but I am wondering how they get by and keep going. We havent been doing anything for the past few months due to not having the funds to replenish our supplies on top of paying the loan back. Does anyone have any advice or any similar experiences? I really want to be able to save our business and make it work well for us but I honestly dont know how to do so. We have taken business marketing courses and I even used to work in promotional marketing but I just cant figure out how to swing this. Where do most of your sales come from? Should we try to attend gift tradeshows and if so, do baskets really sell at those shows? Should we focus on consignment? I just dont know what else to do. I hope someone can give us the advice to start us in the right direction.
Well we did do some counseling with SCORE early on and we have also read a few books on how to start a business. Im sure doing more cant hurt though. No, we havent done anything with the Chamber of Commerce, so I will look into that. Thanks
first home owner loan
Hi everyone,my mother I opened a gift basket business, primarily home internet based last year. While we have had some sales, it has not been enough to keep us going.Most of our supplies expired and we are out of money to try to keep going. While we bought enough supplies to make a nice variety of baskets, we didnt go completely overboard…or so we thought. We thought we were doing everything right but I guess not.We have talked to other owners on forums like this one and it seemed as if we were doing the same things.We marketed the business in local newspapers, attended a tradeshow (home tradeshow…maybe not the best type to attend?), did a couple radio ads, handed out promotional pieces at major events and walks, donated to other events, did presentations at real estate office, etc.We have even priced our baskets below what most business are asking for so I cant see the price being the problem.We took out about a $10,000 loan and its all gone and we barely made 1/4 back.
The cost of maintaining the website, paying for merchant accounts, marketing, etc without much income has depleted the entire fund over a year. I have heard others saying that they didnt see profit for the first two years but I am wondering how they get by and keep going. We havent been doing anything for the past few months due to not having the funds to replenish our supplies on top of paying the loan back. Does anyone have any advice or any similar experiences? I really want to be able to save our business and make it work well for us but I honestly dont know how to do so. We have taken business marketing courses and I even used to work in promotional marketing but I just cant figure out how to swing this. Where do most of your sales come from? Should we try to attend gift tradeshows and if so, do baskets really sell at those shows? Should we focus on consignment? I just dont know what else to do. I hope someone can give us the advice to start us in the right direction.
Well we did do some counseling with SCORE early on and we have also read a few books on how to start a business. Im sure doing more cant hurt though. No, we havent done anything with the Chamber of Commerce, so I will look into that. Thanks
first home owner loan
