Reflecting on the past five years of my business journey, there were three main lessons I come back to every time I think through the business strategy. These lessons have helped shape what my business is and continues to be today. Hopefully they can help you as well.
Wholesale is NOT it. My first year I tried wholesale to different cafes and restaurants. Wholesaling requires selling your product to other businesses at a far lower price than what you sell to customers. Depending on the business and whether or not you’re distributing your products yourself or signing up with a company to help you distribute, the wholesale price can be as low as 50% of your retail price or less. This is so that the businesses you sell to can also make money from using space and resources to sell your products in their store, cafe, etc. Little did I knew. I severely underpriced my products. I wasn’t pricing them enough to even recoup my own costs, let alone pricing to consider my time. Even though I don’t currently wholesale, it’s important to consider wholesaling when you create your pricing. From my experience, unless you’re willing to lose money with hand-made products, or if you know you can sell your product for astronomical prices, it doesn’t seem feasible for folks to wholesale a handmade product. I think it’s better to focus on direct sales to customers both to build your brand and also stay afloat financially.
Having a huge menu is a distraction. When I first started I only had one product. Over time, I ended up with four different mooncake flavors, three different pineapple cakes, almond cookies, and seasonal items. This was around year three. But I started burning out. I was prepping so many products but only some were really purchased frequently. That meant I was often playing catch up to make products that didn’t sell as many pieces when people would order them. This ended up distracting me from marketing and making the products that were doing really well. I eventually cut down my menu to the classics which helped me focus. Now that I have help in the kitchen, we've been able to expand our menu a bit.
Thinking experts could “solve” my business for me. It’s easy to see what people are doing on social media or just around you and thinking that you should do that too. Or to see someone with a lot more experience than you and think they have all the “right answers”. The truth is, we’re all experimenting and all businesses are different. Some businesses choose to focus on Instagram for marketing and post everyday. But that may not work for you if you’re content goes down in value. Or, some folks might be happy with a certain lifestyle that you are not, and that’s why they’ve decided to run their business in a certain way. At the end of the day, you are the expert in your business. Mentors can help guide you, but only you have the answer that’s right for you and your business. Consider advice and trust yourself!