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Products Overview
General Thoughts
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In general, keeping products no larger than 10"x10"x10" makes for easy shipping. Later on, larger and customized products will arrive.
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In fact, the very accuracy of computer controlled machines makes products shipped flat for customer setup without issues.
- Although we will make a low-priced line, most of the emphasis is utilizing automation to make products have more customer value. For instance, all the TV reporters working from home seem to live in very nice places with nice bookcases, furniture, and accessories. We need to give them something to buy for these nice housing. Lawyers need quality products in their offices for displaying their sports memorabilia.
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I have very particular markets I want to address: memorabilia displays can be a very large vertical market which needs automation to be irresistible to collectors. Much nicer picture frames - I hate commercial wooden frames and you probably do too. I have some ideas for kitchen wooden products. And lots more.
- We do not make anything that resembles these products - click here
Ease of Production
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Products need ground-up designing for low cost. Keep in mind these are small products easy to visualize.
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I'm hoping not only for you to have all the right equipment, and, furthermore, a bit of space too
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To keep inventory low we won't promise "tomorrow" delivery.
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I think the knock-down products should come first - can't think of anything else as easy.
Size
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Small products enable using bits of scrap to do prototypes. I don't see wasting much, if any, money proving a concept to make more.
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Small is good; especially on the internet as shipping is part of the process.
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Small means lower prices resulting in impulse buying.
Wood
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The main problem with wood is finding the right exotic/non-exotic woods and keeping using the wood for at least a couple of months. Internet commerce hates things that change everyday as it takes an hour or so to put a new product online. With a different wood, new pictures need taking and formatting. If you sell 100 a week and you run out of a wood, that won't be a problem I assure you.
Pricing
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Prices should start at $20 retail for a nice, but un-decorated box for index cards. Adding a decoration or name to be 3D cut will increase the price to be determined by the vendor. I don't know how easy a name change can be done, for instance. I'm sure it would not be hard, as well as being totally worth the decoration to extensive up selling. Think of gifts..
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As the various brands become good sellers we can introduce more expensive and customized products.
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You get 50% of the retail price so adjust your production cost to account for manufacturing, not custom work.
Product lines
- Gifts, Gifts, Gifts
- Sports Memorabilia Displays
- Entertainment Memorabilia Displays
- Kitchen/Dinning
- Awards
- Garden
- Desk Sets
- Gifts, Gifts, Gifts
- Sports Memorabilia Displays
- Entertainment Memorabilia Displays
- Kitchen/Dinning
- Awards
- Garden
- Desk Sets
Gifts, Gifts, Gifts
Gifts Overview
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We all know everyone will spend more on gifts than for themselves.
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Gifts range from cute and cheap to expensive memories.
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I'll put up photos of gifty things soon. On the other hand, as a woodworker you are intimately familiar with making gifts.
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Everytime I purchased a new tool while I was a car mechanic turned into gifts, such as a newly bought set of acytelene torches. I made steel birds, flowers, and even the little wagon to hold the cylinders. A friend of mione still has the wagon 50 years later. If you never had time to make gifts before, this is your opportunity.
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I suggest asking everyone you meet what would be a great gift for them. Say this: "Today, yes this very day, what gift would be really a pleasure to receive?" Then we make it out of wood using automation for a very fair price..
Gift Examples
Any form of dresser-top boxes for all ages of people who use dresser-top accessories. Automation should be able to kick out really nice frames without blinking an eye. How about trivits for serving hot plates? Complex candlesticks?
I'm sure someone in your family has taken on themselves to find gifts. Ask them.
Sports Memorabilia Displays
Sports Overview
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I actually have a business plan for creating and supplying displays for the sports memorabilia. More importantly, the market is always replenishing itself with younger people, many of whom can not only afford to attend expensive sports events, but further has the money to buy the memorabilia like lawyers and business people. The excpansion of women sports means another market with money and now an interest in sports.
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I looked for online competition and found very little that was interesting. Most people just pay some shop to make a display similar to all other displays.
- Do any of you use matte cutters for the framing process for tickets, scorecards, etc.?
Kitchen/Dinning
Kitchen/Dinning Overview
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Recipe boxes and more. Cooks will tell us what they want. It's a large market.
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Wooden bowls and glasses, candlesticks, dish displays, Napkin holders, etc.
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I know I want something to stand a printed receipe with a plastic sheet overlay to check off ingredients as used. Or how about a stand to hold a note pad.
Awards
Awards Overview
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Unless you win a national championship the awards really need help. Big market for better wood products.
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Here's where flat shipped kits like Ikea furniture can work. Either the purchaser is a professional award maker or a high school with plenty of students around with good hands. Keeps every student as part of the winning team.
Garden
Desk Sets
Desk Set Overview
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Louis Tiffany was the top maker of desktop accessories. You can see them at the Met Museum in New York City. Or in the Neustadt Collection at the New York Historical Society.
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I have no faith in the idea one doesn't have a permanent desk in an office. Desktop accessories is an area for competition, making our products highly desireable.
Desk Set Examples
Pen holders, paper holders, phone holders, flower vase, calendar stands, business card holders, etc
Branding
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Branding translates into customers requesting our products by name. Remember: People will not die if they do not buy from us, just sorry they didn't.
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Since no real competition exists for the products we make.
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We'll put our brand names on every product.
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Hopefully our brands will become both a verb and an adjective. Sort of like you will google our brands to find out our website name.
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Clever packaging helps a great deal.
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The lowest cost and the best marketing is "word of mouth". That's why we continually need something good to be talked about. We should star a product line each few weeks. And the reviewing would be available in archive.
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As soon as I can retrieve the business plan for sports memoriablia displays lot of other branding issues are covered. Just ask yourself if you would have your products in your house.
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So will you be producing quality the customer will remember? Will our brands mean actual usability with unusual designs? Will the customer think of us FIRST? If they do, then the branding is successful.
Customization
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Customization means an estimate. If a woodworker needs to do some construction the price could increase rapidly. Profits are cost plus just with any custom job. No reason to have pity for the lawyers, business people, and doctors who can afford luxuries: charge them what is necessary. The website gets 10% of custom work for the lead.