Original link: https://ourai.ws/posts/the-first-month-of-family-business-part-2/
After setting up a stall for the first time on “May 1st”, we all felt that we should develop online business, and the subsequent experience of setting up a few stalls further proved the correctness and necessity of our ideas.
increase sales
The fundamental factors that affect product sales are actually two very simple points-supply and demand and exposure. Therefore, if you want to increase sales and earn more money, you have to focus on these two points.
increase exposure
According to my current superficial understanding, there are three main factors that influence the exposure of offline business places such as setting up stalls and opening physical stores——
The most basic and important thing is the site selection, which determines the initial and natural flow of people. Only when more people pass through the radiation range of the site selection will there be a greater chance of being seen by passers-by.
If there is no problem with the site selection, various methods can be used to increase the chance of being seen within the radiation range, such as: it is more convenient and wider to attract the attention of passers-by through (human body) speakers; set up signs at key locations such as intersections.
The second is to establish a good image by providing high-quality goods and services, promote word of mouth among consumers, and expand the scope of influence by breaking through the physical limitations of site selection.
The last one can be considered an upgraded version of word-of-mouth communication-promoting in influential media.
In the era when the Internet was underdeveloped, advertisements were placed on TV, newspapers, radio, etc.; now, in addition to hard broadcasts, soft articles can also be published on various content platforms, and even use self-media to deliver value.
The degree of exposure only determines how many people know about it, and it is only by making those people actually purchase and become consumers that sales can be considered increased.
If you only sell offline, even if you have a good reputation and media publicity, the conversion will still be limited due to the constraints of location selection, and you will not be able to effectively increase sales.
Different from the enclosure operation of opening a physical store, the stalls are mobile. If the customers who have consumed want to buy something again, they don’t know where to find the person who set up the stall. Do not continue to consume for other reasons.
In other words, setting up a stall is more like a one-shot deal, which is not conducive to accumulating and serving loyal customers, and creating long-term value. Therefore, combined with our own situation, we use reservation-based group bookings to carry out online business.
Since then, we have reached a consensus—online business is the focus, and setting up a stall is just a means to attract traffic online, and it serves the online business, and we should not lose ourselves in setting up a stall purely for making money.
Expand category
Simply put, supply and demand is the provision of goods or services to meet the needs of others, which creates value.
As for whether to provide goods or services seemingly without a center in order to meet the needs, or to strike a balance between one’s own “paranoia” and the needs of others, it depends on the values of the operator.
At the beginning we only sold iced rice, many people would ask “what is this” or “is there rice in it” if they had never heard of it; 
With his kind explanation, some people will buy it with the mentality of trying it out, and some people don’t want to buy it when they hear (glutinous rice) rice.
Among the people who passed by our booth, there were many people who saw the word “ice” on the advertisement and asked if there were popsicles and ice water for sale.
This shows that our category is too single, some needs are not met, lack of market competitiveness, we have to expand the category! Having said that, we cannot expand blindly. After all, we are not a grocery store, but have a clear market positioning.
When adding new products, based on the consideration of cost control, there are restrictions on ingredients—the fresh ingredients between each other are as common as possible. Otherwise, the purchase quantity and price fluctuations of various fresh ingredients are problems.
In addition, there should not be too many new varieties, otherwise the question of “how many servings to prepare” before setting up a stall will really make people bald…
In view of the above reasons, in the end, only two new items were added: “Osmanthus Brown Sugar Ice Powder” and “Coconut Coconut with Taro”, which replaced the condensed milk glutinous rice in “Coconut Ice Rice” with taro balls.
branding
Some parts of the above are not elaborated because they are related to the brand-we will talk about them next.
Among the people who set up stalls, due to the limitations of knowledge and experience, many do not have the awareness and ability to build a brand; they may not have the willingness to do so, and only focus on short-term experience and benefits.
Although setting up a stall is likely to be a short-term transitional means for us, the goods and services provided by this means and everything derived from it are what we want to do in the long run, which requires brands to carry and spread them.
Brand Positioning
It can be said that all these things happened because of “May 1st” when I went out to set up stalls. Dominant, that is, her career.
Love life, like homemade cooking, such as home cooking, baking, sugar water, etc. The things she makes are not bad. In my impression, everyone who has tasted them say they are good, even a person like me who is a bit tricky thinks they are good.
s work
Therefore, the overall positioning of this brand is to allow more people to taste “Ginger’s Handmade Cuisine”, while ice rice, ice powder, etc. are the current season-limited “Xia Shuang Xinzuo” series of icy desserts.
That’s why we don’t choose products blindly and randomly when we expand our categories – if we go to set up a stall in this season, we are a mobile sugar shop, not a grocery store.
Branding
Our cost budget is very limited, so we didn’t find a professional team to carry out brand packaging and design, and we didn’t have the money to place advertisements or find KOLs and KOCs to write soft articles. We tried our best to do everything by ourselves.
After clarifying the positioning, a special web page was created, which was used as an entrance to gather and introduce information such as brands, products and services, and the follow-up publicity work was basically carried out on this basis.
Marketing must be both offline and online, but more focused on online——
Although there is no unique product packaging, we simply designed a sticker printed with the QR code of the visiting webpage, which will reach consumers with the cover of each packing box.
promotional stickers
As a “partner”, I took on the responsibility of online publicity and promotion, mainly posting soft articles in WeChat circle of friends and publishing self-media content.
I have a requirement for my advertisements in WeChat Moments, that is, they should not be too hard, otherwise it will easily cause other people’s psychological discomfort. When I was not so inclusive, I hated seeing hard advertisements. Block that person.
Moreover, after years of precipitation, people who are still reading my WeChat circle of friends probably accepted that I like to share my life, opinions, thoughts and emotions. Some people will be disgusted.
I am running my own self-media and have my own brand positioning , so the published content must also conform to the positioning, such as: articles and videos related to experience and thinking related to setting up a stall or starting a business at home.
customer accumulation
As our food and clothing parents, we will try our best to meet the legitimate and reasonable requirements of every customer, and provide the best service within the cost budget; we regard them as treasures and want to establish a long-term cooperative relationship.
In view of the limitations of various conditions, adding WeChat friends is currently the most suitable way for us to accumulate customers and operate in a targeted manner; at the same time, this way gives people a more cordial feeling on the basis of one-on-one communication.
There are The method of adding WeChat, and the web page can be accessed through the QR code on the cover of the packaging box, the link in my self-media content or the QR code.
When setting up a stall, if we encounter customers who express affirmation and praise for our products and services, we will guide them to add WeChat friends to keep in touch.
Summarize
This article roughly expounds the important improvements we have made to address the shortcomings of the sales method of setting up stalls. Together with the previous article , it can be regarded as a supplement and extension to ” From Creator to Entrepreneur “.
However, there are still many problems to be solved, one of which is fundamental——
The cost of time and energy is too high, resulting in a low upper limit for the number of semi-finished products that can be prepared at one time; if you want to prepare the goods before noon, I get up at four or five o’clock. If the number is close to a hundred, I won’t have to sleep. For the sake of health, I will set up a stall or take orders for two consecutive days at most.
At present, it seems difficult for our small-cost family workshop to break through the ceiling and expand the scale of production and operation. The money that can be earned is only so much, which is not enough to support the imagination of future life.
So, why do you use “family business” in the title of the article instead of “selling sugar water” or “selling desserts”?
That’s because the direction of our business is not just selling Physical goods such as hand-made cooking, as well as my series of virtual goods-I will elaborate on it when I have a chance in the future.
This article is transferred from: https://ourai.ws/posts/the-first-month-of-family-business-part-2/
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