So why have I titled this Big isn't always Beautiful?! Well, it certainly isn't connected to my little ones as they were all 8lbs + (for me they were big babies!) and are my world, this is connected to manufacturing. Since setting up this business we have worked with over 9 different manufacturers. Many of which were large manufacturers who relatively speaking saw us as 'small' and not in a positive way; we would often be given low priority delivery slots, be frowned at when we kept asking to enhance quality on certain aspects and then the final straw... 'stop chasing perfection, it doesn't exist'. That may well be true but you should never stop chasing it as a Small Business owner as it helps you make purposeful choices e.g. we first started off with mass produced cotton and quickly moved to certified GOTS organic that is produced by someone we have grown to trust. Our new Baby clothing manufacturer is 'small' and because of that she cares therefore we have a mutual respect. If our business grows then her business grows and to do that we need to hold up quality in every aspect. We understand she may need to increase prices (another learn - cost of materials are soaring!!!) to maintain our expected levels of quality but rather than be compromised she will speak with us and we together find a way forward. It has never felt so empowering as a Small Business to know you are helping others...Whether it be the local post office, the small business that now produces our cards, the small manufacturer who is now like part of the Baby Beautiful Co. family or even our designer who again is an incredible small business artist. So what is the common thread that runs through everything I have talked about - SMALL ! Small matters, Small cares and most importantly Small does not want to let you down because they know what it means.
So next time you go to shop, source or even collaborate just remember small cares - why? Because it makes a difference! And even more, small can be beautiful and in this case Baby Beautiful :)
Hope you have enjoyed reading. Thank you to anyone and everyone who has supported this business, I can personally assure you I will never stop caring and myself and my small team will always strive to deliver the best experience.
Lots of Love
Hayley & Baby Beautiful Co. xx
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1. Products
This sounds really simple but i assure you it really isn't or hasn't been for us. There are so many beautiful pieces of baby clothing out there so the decision between retailing existing products vs designing and manufacturing our own has (and still is!) a hard decision. You are faced with the desire to create great quality baby clothing, you really want unique and amazingly cute designs, you ideally want it produced in the UK and want someone to realise your dream and give confidence in a way that isn't so technical you then question it. We set off initially wanting to design and manufacture Baby Rompers and Muslin Swaddles. After all who doesn't love a super cute Romper or All-in-One and the versatility of a Muslin Swaddle (we take them everywhere....As Baby's are often very Refluxy :). So you've got your designs, first question from manufacturers - do you have it in Vector, do you have them in numeric colour codes, whats the MOQ. Sounds technical but honestly, we found after hours of research you can get a lot of free software to convert into Vector so worry not on that front! Then you have to build a relationship with a Manufacturer - this is really hard....We want quality and a fair price so it can be affordable to customers however, many factories want very large quantities or MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) and once you try to certify the quality to ensure things are ethically sourced and 'are as they say they are' then you see the volume and price creep up further. So after many, many discussions with different factories we found two that seemed to hit the mark - one in India and one in the UK. You may have an ambition to sell 30 different designs of Baby Rompers but honestly, the best advice we can give is to pick 5-10 of your best designs and manufacture in an array of sizes otherwise it doesn't become viable anymore. By no means is this a plug as it isn't even live yet but you'll see if you check out our Instagram page @BabyBeautifulCompany our recent post with Giraffe design....We made it! The purpose of sharing it is to say if we can do it anyone can but you will be faced with challenges just keep going - you will get there! We are now producing our own clothes alongside retailing anything else we like from customer testing around Baby clothing. Big point is that ONLY if it is a) Quality b) Affordable
2. Marketing
I could spend about a week writing about the do's and don'ts of Marketing. There are some huge players in this space....Google (automated, very few people to speak to when in goes wrong IMHO), Instagram, Facebook etc. Once you've decided the best medium/channel for you, you will then be opened up to the world of collaborations (this was very new to us!)....How much do we pay? What will they help us achieve? How quickly will we see results? The truth of all of those questions is it really depends. In the first few weeks many people reached out wanting to endorse our Baby Rompers, some had lots of followers and therefore rightly (we thought) could demand more free products. What we learn't very quickly is that some (not all) of these have attracted followers through a 'follower loop' meaning lots of people agree to follow each other to grow. The problem for us was that it looks like they have say 20k followers but then there is very little engagement because of the way they were attained. So lesson for us - always ask have they used a follower loop or can they confirm/give you assurance they have grown their followers organically. This may not sound a big thing but it will make a massive difference to engagement and therefore the results you see! As for us we have used mainly Instagram to drive marketing and social awareness; it is tough, you have to be creative and it is relentless. Plus be prepared to enter the world of paid promotions in the early days.
When we started this company we always said that whatever happens we would help others, whether thats to understand what is going well and why, along with any pitfalls we've experienced. I have to finish by saying we had our best month ever in November, we are listening all the time to customers and responding quickly to any issues! That goes a really long way.
So until next time....We hope you liked reading, if you need any help at all drop an email across, even if you're not buying anything and want any help/support at all we want to help other small businesses - customer@babybeautifulcompany.
Finally, please do check out our giraffe design baby romper that went into manufacturing recently. High quality, affordable with personalised service - Baby Beautiful Co. xx
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