Yet another busy week, interesting too.
We have reserved a stall at a local charity fair in aid of the Haiti disaster. This will be happening on 11th April and we will be selling our sweets and baskets at this event - I will post all the details in next week's blog.
We are also in discussion with the organisers of a craft fair which is held weekly in Glasgow - again I will post more details next week when I have them.
We are delighted to have set up a facebook storefront which will enable customers to buy some of our range online, whilst the website is under construction. I think that this must be a fairly new facebook application, however, it is perfect for us to use to sell our items.
So, it is all beginning to come together, though all we can talk about is baskets and sweets and more baskets and more sweets. Its amazing that something can be on your mind 24/7.
Sunday 28 March 2010
Sunday 21 March 2010
This week has been busy for us again.
The website is coming along nicely and we hope to have it live soon, so please bear with us. Setting up a website is quite a task in itself, more than I think we realised. When you see it starting to take shape though you do get a nice sense of satisfaction.
We have set up a Facebook group and our numbers are growing daily - all our latest news will be posted here.
We carried out a poll on favourite sweets and old favourites like cola cubes and cherry lips were mentioned - these will definitely be included in our range. We would love any suggestions you have, please let us know.
We recently contemplated showcasing at our first wedding fair, however we decided to wait a bit before doing this as our priority now is to get the website up and running. 
Sunday 14 March 2010
The Sweet Basket
I got married in 2000. At the time the internet was only just starting to take off and I was one of the lucky ones to have a pc at home. This allowed me to plan some of my wedding online. To be honest many of the services I needed did not even have websites so I was forced to traipse round the shops looking for what I needed or spend hours going through telephone directories looking for wedding suppliers.
One of the things which was particularly laborious was wedding favours. At the time my sister and I started talking about setting up a company to make wedding favours as it was really hard to find what I was looking for. Over the next 10 years we continued to discuss this; all talk and no action though.
About 6 weeks ago we discussed this again. Now, I don't know what changed but we both said let's do this NOW.
And so we established http://www.thesweetbasket.co.uk/.
There has been much discussion about what to sell. The main theme of our company is selling sweets/chocolates for all occasions, including weddings and also gift baskets. We have spent hours trawling through the net, attending wedding fairs to see what was already out there, visiting wholesalers and refining our products.
What next? The website was under construction but we needed to test our products on the market.
An opportunity presented itself in the form of my niece's school fair in early March. Could we get a table? Were we ready?
We were apprehensive but excited too. On the Monday we found out we had a table reserved, so that was positive. What we needed now was to decide what we were going to showcase and go buy the stock - over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we did this. We had already found our baskets/bows/shred etc so that was already sorted.
Friday was D Day - we had to get everything packaged and ready for Saturday morning.
We started with the gift baskets, placing and replacing the goodies to find what worked best. When we were happy we then wrapped them in cellophane shrink wrap and put on our bows. They looked fabulous.
Next we had to package the less expensive gifts - those cute little Lindt bunnies. We placed them in Easter themed cello bags and finished off with yellow pull bows - wow they also looked amazing. We placed all 16 of them in a round basket which resembled a basket of daffodils when full - very eye catching.
We mocked up our presentation for the next day, took some photos and that was that.
The big day. Saturday morning arrived (don't think either of us slept much Friday night).
We arrived in plenty of time - our pitch wasn't bad, though it was right next to the cheap and cheerful sweet stall. We set up, placed and replaced items until it was time to start - I was apprehensive!!!
Customers started to arrive in their droves - I was worried we wouldn't sell anything. Then we had our first sale - phew, I felt a bit relieved. After that first sale we sold quite a few items. Our beautifully wrapped Lindt bunnies were a hit and we were complimented on how pretty they looked. We also sold a gift basket.
We had samples of cola cubes for our customers to try and for many of them they commented on how it took them back to their school days.
All in all it was a success - we took lots of positives away from this and also some learning points. It was an invaluable experience for us - we may well have spent the next few months planning, however this has moved things forward and we are now are looking forward to our next event (and getting our website finished, soon).
One of the things which was particularly laborious was wedding favours. At the time my sister and I started talking about setting up a company to make wedding favours as it was really hard to find what I was looking for. Over the next 10 years we continued to discuss this; all talk and no action though.
About 6 weeks ago we discussed this again. Now, I don't know what changed but we both said let's do this NOW.
And so we established http://www.thesweetbasket.co.uk/.
There has been much discussion about what to sell. The main theme of our company is selling sweets/chocolates for all occasions, including weddings and also gift baskets. We have spent hours trawling through the net, attending wedding fairs to see what was already out there, visiting wholesalers and refining our products.
What next? The website was under construction but we needed to test our products on the market.
An opportunity presented itself in the form of my niece's school fair in early March. Could we get a table? Were we ready?
We were apprehensive but excited too. On the Monday we found out we had a table reserved, so that was positive. What we needed now was to decide what we were going to showcase and go buy the stock - over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we did this. We had already found our baskets/bows/shred etc so that was already sorted.
Friday was D Day - we had to get everything packaged and ready for Saturday morning.
We started with the gift baskets, placing and replacing the goodies to find what worked best. When we were happy we then wrapped them in cellophane shrink wrap and put on our bows. They looked fabulous.
Next we had to package the less expensive gifts - those cute little Lindt bunnies. We placed them in Easter themed cello bags and finished off with yellow pull bows - wow they also looked amazing. We placed all 16 of them in a round basket which resembled a basket of daffodils when full - very eye catching.
We mocked up our presentation for the next day, took some photos and that was that.
The big day. Saturday morning arrived (don't think either of us slept much Friday night).
We arrived in plenty of time - our pitch wasn't bad, though it was right next to the cheap and cheerful sweet stall. We set up, placed and replaced items until it was time to start - I was apprehensive!!!
Customers started to arrive in their droves - I was worried we wouldn't sell anything. Then we had our first sale - phew, I felt a bit relieved. After that first sale we sold quite a few items. Our beautifully wrapped Lindt bunnies were a hit and we were complimented on how pretty they looked. We also sold a gift basket.
We had samples of cola cubes for our customers to try and for many of them they commented on how it took them back to their school days.
All in all it was a success - we took lots of positives away from this and also some learning points. It was an invaluable experience for us - we may well have spent the next few months planning, however this has moved things forward and we are now are looking forward to our next event (and getting our website finished, soon).
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