A little hat history
Well hello! I'm excited to be back blogging for Practical eCommerce. It's been a while now, and much has changed for me. I have moved to Salt Lake Valley from Michigan.. HUGE change. I can't believe how beautiful it is here. It takes my breath away every single day. Anyone fortunate enough to live here enjoys views of mountains in every direction. One can't help but gaze up and take it all in. I've been here since January, and it still overwhelms me.
A lot has changed with my business since I blogged last year. The economy has hit us pretty hard and business has drastically slowed down. I own a business that sells red hat merchandise to women of the Red Hat Society, a sorority-like organization for women over 50. It's purely entertainment, and most likely one of the first things to go as anyone tightens their belt. We've lost a lot of business, and are trying to reinvent ourselves... which is no easy task!
I'm not sure where we'll end up in the next year. I could sit here and write that I'm going to do A, B & C but it all reality, I'm still trying to work through it. We've begun to drop and discontinue much of our product line, and carry only the product that moves decently, which includes clothing, predominately t-shirts.
Our t-shirt line moves consistently. Some styles are customizable with whatever text the customer wants, under the t-shirt design. Some are sold without any customization. All customizable designs are sold with a 12-shirt minimum, which creates a great order size.
My biggest challenge right now is to come up with the styles the women like, which means I have to tap into their hobbies. I designed a Bunco tshirt that moves quite well. For those of you that don't know, Bunco is a game played best in larger groups, so it suits the red hat women quite nicely. I've also recently added a cruise and garden party design to the mix. It's still too soon to tell if those will catch on or not. Once I post a new design it takes a while for it to circulate and generate orders. Since we are requiring a minimum on customization, the women have to get together and that takes time, it could be up to a month after we post a new design for orders to start coming in. That's frustrating! Eventually, it's our hope to branch out and put some styles out there that aren't red hat specific. In the past we haven't had a lot of success cross-selling. I'm hoping that if we appeal to interests they have outside of the red hat spectrum, they may bite. I believe that our future may be in the custom t-shirt business.
I will tell you that it's very difficult to maintain any kind of excitement with a business when you're in a downturn. This has really been a hard time to rally and refocus, especially in the middle of a relocation across the country. I think a lot of people would just walk away at this point, and say they gave it their best shot, and that's that. I'm not willing to let that happen, at least not without a fight. I am guilty of getting really frustrated and wanting to throw in the towel. I just really love having my own business and all that entails. I love the freedoms that come with it. We've been fortunate enough to not have this happen before now. It's time to get creative and hope our new ideas catch on!
I hope you enjoy reading as I write about how things are going. Hopefully I will have some good news to report soon! Wish me luck : )
1 Comment
tonyswatek says:
Michelle: Try t-shirts with a scrapbooking theme for that demographic. There's a large overlap within scrapbooking and red hat ladies. Good luck.
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