A marketplace made by students, for students!

I started this project in university to make some extra money while exploring my creativity. On this page, you’ll find the results from the past 3 years of running the project and ideas for future growth as a small business.

The report is split into 3 sections:

1. 2017-2018
   • Marketing
   • Results & Conclusion
2. 2019
   • Shopify
   • Marketing
   • Negotiations
   • Results
3. Gallery
4. UNITOAST (2020-)

Attract, Engage & Convert

The project started as a side hustle in 2017. I created a design to surprise my flatmates with for a Christmas party. In light of their enthusiasm for the product I decided to sell them to other University of Birmingham students.

In the first year, I used TeeSpring to fulfil orders. The campaign was marketed through Facebook community pages to gain organic leads. .Considering the success and demand of the small campaign, I decided to apply for a fund through the university.

With a successful application I was awarded £500 to carry out the project.

The report walks you through the process I took during the three campaigns, 2019 being the one of focus.

2017-2018

Between these two years, the platform ‘TeeSpring’ was used to manufacture, sell and deliver the products directly to the customers. In the first year (2017), 30 sales were ordered, between the 19th of November and the 10th of December. Below is a mock-up of jumpers:

Marketing

The product was marketed using Facebook, under a popular student page called ‘Edgy Memes for University of Birmingham Teens’. This was a free and organic marketing strategy. The post reached 79 likes and 89 comments. All comments showed a very positive and supportive light to the product. Comments showed that the product was ‘needed’ as a Christmas present and people wished they saw the post before in time to order it before term ended.

Results & Conclusion

In 2017, the Navy color was the most popular for jumpers, while Jade was the least popular. Medium-sized jumpers were the most frequently ordered, but there was a surprisingly high demand for extra-large jumpers. The sales distribution for sizes was fairly balanced, with extra-large and large jumpers both accounting for 10% of sales. In contrast, Jade only made up 7% of sales and could potentially be eliminated as a color option. Moving on to 2018, there were 17 sales between November 4th and December 2nd. Although marketing efforts were minimal, green jumpers emerged as the most popular choice, while no black jumpers were sold. Large-sized jumpers were the preferred size. However, the relatively low number of sales in 2018 makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. Nonetheless, the popularity of green and large-sized jumpers should be taken into consideration for future campaigns.

There were many drawbacks to using Teespring as a selling platform. The majority of the project from manufacturing, selling and delivering the product was in their hands. As I was not looking to expand or make a real business out of the project, this wasn’t my biggest concern. Below are the various factors that reduced the potential of the project in the previous years:

1. Timing of the post– The Facebook post was posted on the 1st of December, a week before students broke up from holidays which didn’t give them enough time to think about buying the product. One of the comments on the post stated that his friend should have been quicker in ordering the product, so that he would have got it in time to show it off in University.
2. Delivery time– The manufacturers stated that there would be a delivery time of 7-12 days for the product. Due to the lateness of the post, more students were reluctant to buy it as it would be delivered after term ended.
3. Whether students wanted to pay delivery charges– there is a £2.75 delivery option posted by the manufacturers which could not be wavered. As a result some students didn’t choose to pay the fee on top of the £19 pounds. One student pointed out that there were delivery charges and “that’s gonna be hot”.
4. The reliability of the source – The manufacturers ‘teespring’ is a print on demand service. I know from printing from them before and reviews that they are legit and quality assuring service. However not many people know of this platform, hence they’re less likely to trust it from a simple post online.

All of these reasons would be nullified if I manufactured the products or had a local manufacturer make them. This way I can have more involvement in the process and sell, package and deliver the products myself.

2019

I was able to negotiate with Tom from tom@inkkingstudio.co.uk and get 50 jumpers for £600 (£10+VAT) which normally would have been £660 (£11 +VAT). Personally, I could have gone lower but he was the only local company I knew that could produce the jumpers 4 days after the order was put which was amazing. As stated before, I did make 30 sales online however I had a new plan of selling 20 extra jumpers on campus, hence why I bought 50 jumpers of Ink King Studios. Quantities and colours are shown below:

Size_Colour	Sold	Size_Colour	Sold	Size_Colour	Sold
S Black	6	S Navy	5
M Black	15	M Navy	7	M Forest Green	8
L Black	1			L Forest Green	7
XL Black	1

Marketing

Shopify was used to create the website. Given that they offered a 14-day trial and for this project I was aiming to sell all the jumpers I can from the 26th of November to the 2nd of December it made sense to go with the platform. Shopify allowed me to create the website, add on an ecommerce section to it; billing the customers and sending all the information I need to deliver the product.

Contrary to previous years I used a new Facebook public page called ‘Fab N Fresh – New’ to market the product (starting 28th November 2019). With a 29.8k following I was hoping to get a huge turnover of likes and comments. At the end of the campaign (02/12/19) the post had 57 likes and 42 comments. The post did get a lot of attention with the majority of comments being that people wanted to get matching or ‘twinning’ jumpers.

This is something I can take into account for next time; such as having a discount for buying two jumpers. Most sales were made on the day of the post (11 products). This decreased as expected so I used ‘Edgy Memes for University of Birmingham Teens’ page to promote the post once more. This page actually had a much higher reach ratio. Similar to the last page the post got 47 likes and 20 comments even though the page had a smaller audience (7k following). The page admins were also nice enough to send over a reach report for the post. By the end of campaign I made 30 sales totalling to £725 in revenue. On the last day of sale, I messaged a group interested in getting 5 jumpers with a discount (get 5 for the price of 4) which they took.

The Birmingham Tab approached me through social media with an interest of writing an article about the jumpers I was selling. The day after the article was posted allowing a larger audience to view my product page. The results can be seen in the graphs below with the sudden increase in sales on the 5th of December.

https://thetab.com/uk/birmingham/2019/12/04/a-uob-student-is-selling-old-joe-christmas-jumpers-for-charity-and-theyre-absolutely-iconic-43646

Results

2019 showed the best results so far! Majority of the sales came from Facebook Ads. 4 sales were made in person to friends. The majority of store visitors came through using their mobiles. Vital to make the mobile version of the website the most inviting. Sales show that the black jumper was the most popular as expected, and the medium size was the most bought. Again similar to previous years, X-Large was an option that 2% of the customers went for.

2019 opened a lot of opportunities for the future of the product. Here are the key new finds that I want to implement into future campaigns:

1. New target audience, staff of UOB – super important. A staff member that we knew of went out of her way to inform me of a general interest in the jumper among other senior staff members.
2. UOB Christmas markets- big opportunity to sell the jumpers in person to locals and families of students/staff.
3. E-mail Marketing – retargeting customers that were interested in the jumper (clicked on the ad and viewed the product but did not buy).
4. Adding size guide to the website- making the website more informative.
5. Adding a Christmas hat onto the tower – adding multiple colours. Changing up the design.

Hand delivering the products was a long and tedious task. Whilst it brought a personal touch to the brand, for future campaigns I will stick to postage through the post office.

Gallery

UNITOAST (2020-)

The future of this project would be the launch of our very own marketplace exclusively for university students. It’s a platform where students like me can showcase and sell our creative ideas and products. This year, we are putting a major emphasis on offering free shipping and next-day delivery for a seamless shopping experience. In terms of revenue, I will be contributing with my own products, and we’ll also earn a small commission from fellow students’ sales. Additionally, we are dedicated to providing free advice and support on printing services to inspire and empower more students to join the marketplace.

1. Objective 1: Successful UOB Christmas jumper campaign
   • Making sure a healthy net profit is made from this campaign whilst exploiting as many marketing strategies as possible; Facebook, Google PPC maybe even UOB market.
2. Objective 2: Building a community, inviting new creatives
   • This is the wider project that comes from the above goals. Creating a space for students to sell their own designs, similar to a small Etsy.
3. Objective 3: Expanding outside of the University of Birmingham
   • Expanding creations to at least one more university. Re-create what I did in 2017 for UOB – generate easy sales at no cost.