Moneyboxes
We all had a moneybox as kids, and many of us still have one around the house even now, whether it be for decorative purposes (we have a pink piggy bank) or as a genuine place to put our coppers, or because we have kids, who we are teaching to save responsibly. The great thing about them is the number of designs available, there is something that will suit every taste and of course they are practical as well as nice to look at.
Distribution of a product like this should be fun, and there are numerous
ways of selling your product directly, or through other businesses. Some of
them are listed below: -
EBay
Website
Article Submission
Toy Fairs / Shows
Through other retailers
Schools, Boy Scouts etc
Charities
Shop
EBay has almost 2000 entries for moneyboxes ranging in price to more than $1200 for a rare British antique to a 1 Cent starting bid on a more recent item. You can definitely make sales here if you have something different. Having a range of items will help you to build a brand presence and buying in bulk from overseas will give you your profit margin.
Google has 104 million hits on the key words <money box> and a further 300,000 on <moneybox>. This comes down to less than 60,000 if you narrow it to moneybox shop, so it should be possible to get near the top of the Search Engine rankings using this, or similar terms. You will want to have a payment gateway to allow transactions on your site as well as contact details such as address, email and phone numbers. You should also aim to promote your site offline as much as possible to increase the number of customers who are actively looking for your site.
Articles about the benefits of moneyboxes, the value of them in teaching children about saving and investment, nostalgic articles about the moneybox you had as a kid and what it meant to you. All of these and more can be written and submitted to newspapers, lifestyle magazines, posted on your blog or made available to others for use in their websites using sites such as www.articlewheel.com. The benefit of this is that it gets people thinking about your product in a positive light, and then links back to your website or your contact details. For similar tips have a look at Steven Van Yoderˇ¦s site www.getslightlyfamous.com.
Toy Fairs and Toy Shows are the trade shows and exhibitions of the toy world and would be a great place to show off your range. As with other shows the cost of a stand may be prohibitive for a new business but you should attend and make contacts, hand out business cards etc. You may find store owners willing to stock your products, or suppliers able to undercut your current stock prices. Try to sponsor a program advert if you really cannot afford the stand, or find other ways to piggy back off of the event.
Toy shops, Kids' clothes shops, even Garden Centres may be willing to stock your money boxes on consignment. Other shops which may be interested in a "no-cost to them" kind of deal might include tourist, or novelty shops. Offer to help with display and make sure there is enough in it for the shop to make it worthwhile. Maybe offer a line or two exclusively to them.
Schools, Boy Scouts and other childrens' related groups often have educational talks and seminars, which you could offer to speak for. Topics covered might be motivational in nature describing how other kids have afforded the things that they wanted through saving, and how just a little put away often can soon mount up. Naturally at the end of the talk you could either promote your products directly, or your website.
Charities can be tricky, as no-one likes to feel that they are being taken advantage of. It is however a well established fact that those who supply to charities often do so at a practical profit margin. The trick is to make your product invaluable to them. Putting together a fundraising campaign using customised moneyboxes might be just such an activity. You would get to make a profit, whilst the charity gets to make money, possibly by giving away your moneyboxes to be filled at retail locations by customers, and then collected after which you would get paid (a kind of charity consignment deal). If you have the right connections it is certainly worth giving this some thought and then pitching it.
In the right locations a dedicated moneybox shop might just work, alternatively a stand or stall within a retail environment might work and would be a cheaper alternative as there are no fit out costs. I am thinking of locations such as Camden Market or Petticoat Lane in London but imagine similar environments exist in other countries. The trick would be to get an affordable rent, with high foot traffic to attract browsers.
Stock is easy to get in general forms, or manufactured to your own design. Have a look at www.alibaba.com which has 635 manufacturers selling money boxes. You can also look under <moneybox suppliers> on www.Google.com
It may be worth working with a number of suppliers to ensure sufficient variety of stock and materials used. It also gives you more leeway to play them off against each other of you suspect that there is room for cost savings on your bulk purchasing.
With innovative products this range could sell through other distribution techniques such as party planning, social networking etc. we have not covered every possibility in this email.
Moneyboxes are fun for kids and evoke fond memories for many adults. Whether you design your own, or find and sell on antique versions this is a business that you should be able to have a lot of fun with as a second income, or a mainstream business.