Starting a Subscription Website

mrawkward

You are right to focus on a proper business plan but you have much work to do to get a handle on the costs. The actual cost of the shampoo And conditioner will be very small. Costs for bespoke labels and nonstandard bottles will be significant. You then have freight, duty, Vat at point of entry, shipping clearance etc. You will need product liability insurance and face expensive international p&p charges ( would guess minimum €5 per sale).

How much do you think you can sell these products for, delivered?

You have not answered the questions as to how engaged your 31k users are, how many are actual real likely buyers? You need to test them, to validate the model. Top brand shampoos sell for €20 a pop online, you might get €10 if you are lucky but could never make money with your cost base in my opinion.

antoinolachtnai

I think those numbers would make it very viable if you got a bit of scale. You can find a way to being all these costs under control. The main question is whether you can sell enough stuff at a reasonable cost ('the subscriber acquisition cost'), whether the customers are sufficiently loyal or at least 'sticky' and whether you can get the capital to get started.

mrawkward

I look at the online discounters of big brand cosmetics/hair care like www.beautyfeatures.ie with free delivery and wonder why anyone would buy from a two product noname brand supplier.

Lauras Law

Hey all, I wanted to give an update since I last posted here. At the time I was looking for manufacturers in China. Since then I have found a company in Eastern Europe that manufacture private label hair products.

Samples have been shipped to me. Price per unit is very competitive and they will design my labels at no extra cost. So I'm hopful that this will work out!

I'm also going to include a "surprise" in the box each month. I am going to email less well known cosmetic companies to see if they would be interested in providing samples. I calculate the cost per month of the box will be €15 - €17.

From the research I've already done and because the products are private label & contain only natural ingrediants I should be free to ship to any country around the world. But I'm still investigating this! Actually speaking of selling globally, if I was to do that is there a recommended currency to use on the website? Should I use my own currency (Euro) or would I be better to display either Dollars/Pound Sterling?

And next thing I need to look into is getting small cardboard boxes made. The size I am thinking will be approximately 12CMx8.8CMx4CM. This is something I'd like to get from an Irish manufacturer if the price was right. Anyone here be able to recommend a company?

mrawkward

From the research I've already done and because the products are private label & contain only natural ingrediants I should be free to ship to any country around the world.


Have you actually checked this out for each market you intend to supply?

Have you costed international shipping charges for your pack?

antoinolachtnai

It is great that you are making progress.

However, the sector you are in is very 'sensitive' to things like design. Your product (by the sound of it) is not particularly unique, so you have to make it unique in some way, and a common way to do this in design. Procter and Gamble did not get to where they are by getting labels designed by their manufacturing partner in Eastern Europe.

It is great to say that the products only contain 'natural' ingredients, but you need to understand what this actually means. Alcohol is a natural product, as are arsenic and lead. It doesn't mean that you want them in your hair care. There are a lot of regulatory issues. Your partner should be able to deal with this, but you have to understand what you and they are doing and the liabilities you are drawing on yourself. If you are going to have these operations in Eastern Europe, why would you ship from Ireland? You might as well get the boxes or packaging there too. The problem with boxes and packaging is that it is hard to get anybody interested in supplying at a reasonable price if your quantities are very small.

Can you find a way to do market research on this, perhaps by selling small quantities before you commit to any significant quantities of anything? It sounds like a pain, but it is the thing to do. You will learn a lot.

Lauras Law

Bumping this to give everyone an update on my progress and seek more advice! Things slowed down a bit with this idea towards the end of last year but that was due to college exams.

After speaking to a lot of manufacturuers, testing more samples than I care to remember and more than once thinking I had found the ideal partner, I finally got a company who can produce exactly what I require to a very high standard and for a very compeitive rate. They're based in Budapest. I had originally wanted to go with a supplier in China for a very low rate, but considering my order sizes, shipping and import costs, I wouldnt have saved any money. And the manufacturer in Budapest is fully certified so I wont need to get any additional approvals to sell in Europe.

I expect to be receiving my products the first week of Feburary. So now I'm looking for a company to ship the goods. As I mentioned above for now I'm only selling in Europe. And I expect about 55% to 60% of my customers at the start to be based in the UK. As I'll be sending liquids I can't use An Post. So can anyone recommend a cheap and reliable courier that ships internationally from Ireland?

antoinolachtnai

There is an old thread somewhere about this.

Will your items fit through a letterbox? If so, to get the best rate, you might be best to find a way to send your weekly or monthly bag of items to northern ireland, and post from there via royal mail.

If it is more of a courier type item, how you go about this really depends on your quantity. You will ultimately have to choose one from 'cheap' and 'reliable' I'd say. If the cost price of an individual item is not that high, then 'reliable' might not be as important as you think.