So here is a debrief from September!
We did pretty awesome last month! Thanks to our amazing customers and family/friends who have been so supportive, we were able to help more customers than any previous months and received a lot of great feedback and reviews in our collection, customer services, product packaging... and overall baum-kuchen experience.
The big leap of success definitely had a lot to do with the pop-up shops we created for the Rosebowl Flea Market and Art Center Trunk Sale! Pop-up shop is a true labor of love... but we get such a great exposure to new customers and the process of "creating" the physical brand manifestation is really helping me to define what baum-kuchen is all about. A lot of late night working hours after roo's bedtime and physical labor to pack/unload/display/pack again/unload again in a short amount of time... but it is totally worth it! We will be heading out to the Rosebowl Flea Market again this Sunday! This time we have scored a spot in an antique area (find us at JJ05) instead of right in front of the entrance gate. I am hoping that this spot will bring customers who are interested in our line of products and have a moment to enjoy browsing (on the contrary to the mad rush we had in front of the front gate). We'll see! Everything is a try and error here.
Also We are continuously upping the way we interact with our customers! This month, I ordered a new (old) German typewriter via Fab.com (are you as addicted as I am to Fab? it is kind of dangerous to receive a daily update of great products) so I can start typing thank you letters to my dear customers in an old school way. Putting together the thank you letter (it's more like the size of memo:) this way takes much longer than handwriting the same note but I love doing this... It makes me appreciate the process of packing/shipping the order and it totally reminds me that baum-kuchen is a very special place both online/offline..
Next 3 months will be my first real holiday season in the retail business and I am really excited and anxious at the same time. Most of my products come from Japan and it usually takes 2 months to get here... so projecting ahead about which items to restock now (so that they will be here around Thanksgiving) has been such an interesting process with a steep learning curve. As of now... all my shop items are either stocked or are scheduled to be restocked by the end of October. I have a confirmation that one of the Brass items will be featured on the real paper magazine in mid-October (hooray!!!) and possibly another feature for the 4th-market item next month or so... We'll see... these features can be a total curve ball for my inventory... but my hope is to make sure that we have everything just enough so we can help as many customers as possible without having too much inventory left at the end of the year.
I wish everyone a very happy October and fun and festive Halloween season (for friends who are celebrating the occasion:)
cheers,
=wakako
