Well, small business might be a stretch because it is more like tiny. I believe I have mentioned our small stickers shop in my past articles.
This shop is a passion projects of ours. We are close friends since high school and we decided that we want to do something with our life back in January 2021. Thus, begun the journey in trying to venture into a new world only equipped with our skills and hope for the future.
The stickers are designed by one of my friends. She has an art account in Twitter, @m4haraya, you can check it out if you want to see more of her amazing works. My other friend is designated as our social media handler and she is also in-charge of doing some market surveys to see what will sell. I am the one who mostly handcut the stickers along with packing them. Additionally, I am also the one who thinks of our captions when we post on social media.
This is the picture that we posted on our opening day last May 8, m4haraya drew us as guinea pigs. I am the one who is wearing a dress with brownish hair.
I mentioned earlier that our business is more like a tiny business than small because we do not know how to properly market our products. As we were promoting, we received compliments about how cute our stickers look but when we opened our shop, only few people placed their orders.
This made me realize that people can find something super cute and still not want to spend some money on it. It may also be due to the fact that after our shop launch, we have been inactive due to school works.
As of now, we have yet to have another brainstrom session about what to do and how to handle it. Still I am so glad that we still managed to receive some orders despite our inactivity.
We have managed to sell 14 sticker sets and last Payday Sale we have received orders for another 8 sticker sets. It might not look like much but it is a 8 sets more than what we were expecting to sell this month.
Our Sticker Sets
These are the sticker sets that we are offering as of now. My personal favorite is the Anahaw Set/Plant Set. Out of that set my favorite sticker is the guinea pig just relaxing in the water.
ANAHAW SET - Plant Sticker Set [8 PCS]
Variations:
MUNTI - Php 20
MUTYA - Php 65
This sticker pack is perfect for plantito/plantita. Your green thumb will be more magical once you
let the stickers of Duende Art Shop work their charms on you.
Material: Glossy Photo sticker paper (waterproof)
Size: Approximately 40 mm - 50 mm
NOTE FOR VARIATIONS:
MUTYA - the best charm produced by Duende Art Shop
MUNTI - a special charm that might look different from the pictures (darker or lighter prints, inaccurate cuts)
SIHAY SET - Medicine Sticker Set [9 PCS]
Variations:
MUNTI - Php 25
MUTYA - Php 75
This sticker pack is perfect for healthcare professionals, medical students, and pre-med
students. Made with the loving hands of Duende Art Shop, the stickers will surely cheer you on
as you tackle all challenges that come with the medical career.
Material: Glossy Photo sticker paper (waterproof)
Size: Approximately 40 mm - 50 mm
NOTE FOR VARIATIONS:
MUTYA - the best charm produced by Duende Art Shop
MUNTI - a special charm that might look different from the pictures (darker or lighter prints, inaccurate cuts)
AGSIKAP - Engineering Sticker Set [10 PCS]
Variations:
MUNTI - Php 30
MUTYA - Php 85
Material: Glossy Photo sticker paper (waterproof)
Size: Approximately 40 mm - 50 mm
NOTE FOR VARIATIONS:
MUTYA - the best charm produced by Duende Art Shop
MUNTI - a special charm that might look different from the pictures (darker or lighter prints, inaccurate cuts)
Packing Our Orders
I want to share a little peek at our packaging process. The area has been sanitized before anything else and I made sure my hands were sanitized as well as all the other things I am using.
This is where I store all the sticker sets we have. I forgot how much sticker sets there are but as you can see it is a lot. The yellow sticky notes that you can see sticking out is how I determine where the munti and mutya variations for each set.
After picking a sticker set from my magic box, I will then check its contents again to see if it is complete, if it is the right variation, and if it is up to the quality that we want it to be.
Then, I will do a mini photoshoot to send a picture to the buyer before shipping it out.
This is a new addition this Payday Sale, I have included some freebies for the buyers. These are stickers from my own personal hoard that I am sharing. I have yet to inform my friends about this development but I am assured that it will be fine since I am the one assigned to packing orders after all.
Aftee that, I fold the special kraft papee into and envelope and insert the orders and freebies along with a thank you note from our shop.
Then I tie it with twine string including our shop tag. The picture above is how it looks like when I am dine packing the orders.
After that, I would enclose the packge with some cardboard to make sure that they will not get crumpled during shipment.
My thoughts and realizations
As I mentioned earlier, people may appreciate what we have to offer but only a few people will take it. This taught me how to handle expectations and how to still push through despite the disappointments.
We have done our best at the time. We have gathered ambassasors from diffeeent universities as our target market is collegw students as well as people who have journals. The ambassasors' posts were well received so we have some expectations.
Still, I am glad that there are people who bought from our store. It made me more aware that there will always be a right market for everyone.
Maybe we are not yet targeting the right market for us. I know that we have a lot of room for improvements. But that is the fun part. Learning what works is an amazing journey that I am glad I became a part of.
All I know is that we are having fun on what we are doing. Even if we cannot spare the time that is needed for our passion project to thrive, we are still doing our best. And I think that is really the only thing that matters right now. Not the products nor the income but the experience itself.
If you are interested in what we offer, you can find us on the following accounts:
Facebook: Duende Art Shop
Twitter: @duendeartshop
Instagram: duendeartshop
Shopee: shopee.ph/duende.art.shop
If you have some time to spare, you might want to visit more of my articles. I made summaries to keep it easier for you to browse through my articles.
Here is the link for my May 2021 articles: https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/may-2021-articles-summary---59e3f5b8
Here is the 1st week of June 2021 articles: https://read.cash/@ZehraSky/week-1-june-2021-articles-summary-6e15cf71
Thank you for reading my article, guys!
