Kaboodle Gifts, LLC offers a line of personalized products which includes , personalized welcome signs, pub signs, cigar humidors, picture frames, fire pits,and children's room signs. While we offer several
choices in each of these categories we will be adding additional categories to our online catalog. With 80% of our business being performed online, our primary markets include but are not limited to RV owners, pet owners, bridal showers, baby showers, bars, saloons, and individuals.
There are several ways to bring attention to your business via the internet.
Viral marketing - Giving something away for free in hopes that your business name will get deep exposure in return.
Search Engine Optimazation- Utilizing keywords in your titles and descriptions to gain high ranking placement on search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Press Releases- Announcing to the world that you have created a new gadget, product, or service, or opened a new business. Done correctly you can get exposure from main stream news organizations, papers, and even your local news agencies.
Kaboodle Gifts, LLC uses press releases in a way that informs our new potential customers of what we are doing. We have chosen to use PRlog.org as our press release agent. We currently have two press release's that have given us great exposure to new customers.
Our first press release simply announced that we were adding a new line of personalized gifts. Listed below are both of or press releases that can be viewed in their entirety.
You can and will get an added amount of exposure by using press release distribution. In addition to letting the world know who you are you can also write articles for distribution.
Bookmark our Press Room and keep up with all the information that is going on with Kaboodle Gifts!
In the 90's the Internet exploded making several individuals very wealthy. Wealthy to the point of excess. Much like the current situation that this country is involved with currently. A few people made millions of dollars while alot of individuals just got by.It seemed like everyone was getting on the bandwagon to have an online presence of some kind.Multi channel marketing became neccessary after the fall of the internet businesses. In order for an online business to survive the future they could no longer accept the business model o just selling on the internet. Looking back through these times it just makes good business sense to not have all you eggs in one basket.
So what is Multi Channel Marketing? It's very simple; Selling you product or service over a wide range of different channels such as a website, catalog, brick and mortar store, via direct mail or infomercials. Take a look at your business plan. How many different markets are you selling your product or service in? If you answered just one, then look at your total sales and ask yourself how that model is going. An useful and popular analogy says the following. What would you rather have 100 percent of one person's effort or one percent of 100 people's effort? Multi Channel marketing answers the call to that question. What can you do to increase your sales through multiple channels?
Cross- selling strategies - Give site visitors a why-to-buy
Marketing - Six actionable metrics and numbers
Lists & Data strategies
Operations & Fullfillment- Keeping contact center cost in line
Catalog- coping with tough times
Managing your brand's color
Same sad song for paper prices
You might not be to the level in your business that you think that you need such a resource. don't sell yourself short and not allow yourself to look at these topics and learn from professionals that work in each of these industries. The more information that you allow yourself to learn the bigger edge you are going to have against your competition.
The second thing that you can do is start looking for area shows to show your product to folks that may not know who you are or what you offer. Expose yourself to your potential market. Word of mouth is a wondeful marketing tool. If you sell personalized gifts get your products out in the market place and let people, potential customers touch and feel what you offer. do you not think that you wont get sales, or better yet having someone tell someone who told someone about your product. You can't buy that kind of exposure, well you can but it will blow your advertising budget in a hurry.
The third thing that you can do is maintain a customer database of customers. You can create a newsletter from this list. Most often your current customers will read what you have to say as long as you keep it interesting and offer them something for their time. Most reader's will send your news letter onto someone that they know. This is call targeting your customers. Knowing what your customers want is painfully important. Once you define that you will see your customer base grow exponentially.
These are just three things that you can do to help you grow your business through multi channel marketing. Now that I've got you thinking along these lines, what else can you think of ?
This is a question that we receive frequently in email. In order to answer that I've decided to take a look at why Kaboodle Gifts doesn't bring a physical catalog into your living room.
When you go to your mailbox to get your mail you often receive several catalogs from different places that you have ordered from such as Sears, Woman Within,Roamans, and many more. While the catalog houses are taking advantage of multi-channel marketing it is costing them a large amount of money, resources, and time to bring that catalog to your doorstep in hopes that you will fill out the order form and return it to them with an order.
What you might not know is that there are several versions of a catalog from the big catalog houses. Why is that you are asking yourself? Well let me answer that for you. There are several versions of a catalog because there are several types of buyers for that catalog brand. There are those that rarely buy from a catalog, those that moderately purchase from a catalog, and there are those that frequently buy from a catalog. With that being said there are also different prices for the same item in those catalogs depending on what category of buyer you are.
An example of that might be Sally, your next door neighbor might purchase from the same catalog house as you. Both of you buy the same items, let's say you both bought the Kids Personalized Children's Noahs Ark Room Sign. She makes her purchases very rarely and buys only what she needs. You on the other hand might be a frequent purchaser and buy on impulse, you flip through the catalog circle what you like and fill out the order form mail it off and sit and wait in anticipation of your arrival usually two- to four weeks later. While Sally's item that she purchased cost her $19.95 because she makes few purchases, that very same item that you purchased cost you $16.95. Because you bring more volume to the catalog house your cost will be cheaper for the same thing that Sally just bought from the same catalog house.
Which brings me back to why Kaboodle Gifts doesn't offer a physical catalog. The costs of maintaining several versions of a catalog are very high.We like to treat each of our customers equal. We offer the same discount to all of our customers whether you purchase a single item or multiple items. We don't have the overhead of maintaining a customer list, and by that I mean we don't pay the United States Post Office any money to purchase you name from their databases, or in fact any other list supplier.
One last thing is that we don't have the waste that many catalog houses have. Let me explain, How many times have you received a catalog and just files it in the waste basket? Lined you litter box with its pages?, or used the pages to start a fire in the fireplace? Kaboodle Gifts doesn't have that waste factor to think about. So there are the reasons that Kaboodle Gifts doesn't offer a physical catalog, it is just to costly for our customers. When we are paying upwards of $3.50 to $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline, we feel that we, at Kaboodle Gifts, are doing what is right for our customer base.
Right now is when you should be looking at trade shows as an additional source for your products. Trade shows are great for making new business contacts, finding new and unique products for your business, and seeing first hand what new trends are coming around the corner.
Below is a listing of trade shows for the month of October;
Date: October 3-5
Annual Pet Industry Trade Show
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont/Chicago IL.
As with all trade shows you will have to provide your business information to obtain your credentials to get into the shows. Be prepaired to fax, show or email any of the following pieces of information; business card, sales tax license, Federal Employer Identification Number (F.E.I.N). Be prepaired to buy as all of the reps will be prepaired to write orders.
Have a great time at the trade shows, and if you think about it post back to let us know how successful you were at the shows.
Product merchandising is a segment of marketing and sales that drives interest to an additional product that a company is selling. that company might be fast food chain restaurants,campgrounds, movie companies just to name a few. Let's break these examples that I have mentioned down a bit to further see the relationship between the product merchandise and the product that it supports.
Fast Food Chain Restaurants :
The biggest of the fast food chain restaurants is McDonalds. They are the Mac Daddy! ( Who said I can't be witty?!) McDonalds is in the business of selling burgers, fries, salads etc. That is what they sell now but it wasn't always that way in the earlier years. The specific time persiod I'm talking about is the 1970's. Remember those early Happy Meals? Yeah you know what I'm talking about, the burger, fries and a drink all in a box. Along with all the fun food to eat you also got a prize in the package. Usually it was a little play toy in the form of one of the mascots like the Hamburglar, Ronald McDonald, or Mayor Mc Cheese. These characters represented McDonald's brand and is what made their name recognizable. When little Timmy saw a commercial with these characters he related them to McDonald's, then in turn, got him hungry and lastly ended up making a trip with mom to McDonalds to get a happy meal and a prize in the package. Was this a successfull campain? Well... Ray Crock's widow was receiving 37 million dollars per month in residual income before her death....you tell me.
Campgrounds: Campgrounds, specifically private membership campgrounds use product merchandising to bring you to thier campground and take a tour of it, hoping that you will buy into their campground and become a paying member. Some examples of this use of product merchandising might be eighteen holes of golf, free weekend use of a water front condo, a pair of binoculars, or a booklet of coupons to eat at five star restaurants. What happens is that your name is purchased from a targeted mailing list. Then you are invited usually via a post card in the mail to take a tour of the campground and all of its amenities, and for doing that you are offered a free gift for taking the time from your schedule to take their tour. You never get the gift without taking the tour, that's usually in the small print. Once you have completed your required tour the game begins, the sales person is a seasoned veteran and goes hard for the sale. Not taking a "no" for an answer the sales person usually wins out.
Movie Companies:
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars, you guessed right. Then again if you had to guess then you need to rent the whole set of movies all six of them. Star Wars is the brain child of George Lucas. He started out as an independant film producer that didn't like dealing with the big movie companies, he didn't like having the control over his movie taken away by a suit somewhere in an office. That's the short version. All of those little figurines of Princess Leah, Hans Solo, and Luke Skywalker sold millions of dollars after the movie came out. The movie did so well that it held the record for gross ticket sales for decades until the movie Titanic came out and beat it. George Lucas couldn't afford to pay his actors a wage so he offered them a percentage of the merchandising rights to the movie instead. Do you think he made a good decision? Better yet, do you think the three actors made the right decision? Well... the product merchandise sold so well that it made each of the three actors millionairs basically overnight.
These three examples of product merchandising have described how you use one product ot promote another. In essance you could also call it upselling.
We have added a new category to our website located here. The new category is called Personalized Children's Room Signs. We think that it is going to be a huge hit for Kaboodle gifts.
There are several different Personalized Room signs to choose from including:
Our Personalized Children's room signs are normally priced at $ 40.99. Currently we are offering them at $33.95. that is a 17% discount off the list price. In addition, if you choose to use Google checkout you will receive an additional 10% discount on your total purchase with Kaboodle Gifts. So you can see the potential for great savings!
Each sign's dimensions are 9" x 12" with a black border trim that really sets each of these signs off. Along with the black borders each sign has its own vibrant colors that make them a show stopper for both the children and their parents.
Currently we offer two types of payment methods; Paypal and Google Checkout. We offer a coupon code for an additional 10% savings if you choose to use Google Checkout.
It's not often, more like never that I reveal my thoughts on whom to vote for for the Office of President of The United States. My feelings are personal as I am sure that they are with the rest of you.
With all of the "firsts" going on this within this Presidential cycle, I felt compelled to to bring this video to your attention.
Throughout the summer months we have been offering a 10% discount on the total purchase of any of our products at Kaboodle Gifts when you use Google Checkout as your payment method. When we announced this discount it was originally intended to be for the summer months only.
Our discount has been more successfull than we anticipated and therefore we will keep offering this discount at our website only.
Although this is a great offer it will not last so take advantage of this offer soon because it will dissapear without notice. So use this code; kg10 to get your discount when you checkout.
We would like to take this time to wish everyone a safe and pleasant holiday weekend.
September 9-11 AMOA International Expo. This show will be held in Las Vegas, NV at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
If there is a trade show category that you are looking for that you can't find or I haven't listed get in touch with me and I'll see if I have it in my lists.
I know that this is short and sweet this week, due to my schedule this week this will more than likely be the only post.
Product placement is advertising in a subtle way mostly seen in television shows and movies. Let's go back to 1982 for a minute. Steven Spielburg made this little move called E.T. The Extra Terrestrial®.
Ahhhhh you remember don't you. Do you know what E.T.'s favorite candy was? Reese's Pieces®, that's correct. This wonderful M&M like peanut butter filled hard candy was created in 1978. After it was seen in the movie E.T. The Extra Terrestrial sales took off in a huge way. Here is the time line for Reese's Pieces.
This is what product placement can do for a product. It's the subtle way of a business advertising its product without making you feel you have say through a commercial.
Another example of product placement is The Apprentice. This show as we all know that watched it featured "The Donald". Several individuals competed for a position in the Trump Organization. One had to be voted off, fired if you will each week until the final two people remained that did the best over the run of the episodes. One was picked to head a project for Donald Trump. Did anyone notice the clock that was shown in the board room in a few episodes? This clock as well as others that were shown on the few episodes were made by a company in Zeeland, Michigan called Howard Miller Clock Company®. The largest floor clock manufacture in the world.
Product placement can launch a product into the galaxy as it did for Hersey's® Reese's Pieces in the 80's. The next time you see a Coke® can in a movie or television show think of how many millions of people just saw that with you. That's the power of product placement.
Trade shows are events that are held throughout the United States and different Countries all over the world. In this article I will be concentrating on the trade shows that are held within the United States.
No matter what niche or type of item that you sell , more than likely there are trade shows that have several vendors that represent your type of item that you sell. For instance there are trade shows for crafts, automotive parts and supplies, apparel,footware,computers,furniture,furnishings, and housewares just to name a few.
Owning your own business has its advantages. Trade shows are where buyers go to see what is hot and selling in any particular segment of the industry that they represent. Now that I have answered the first question of this article , what is a trade show? Let's move on to the next part of the title question, how can I attend a trade show?
Attending a trade show starts with first finding them. There are several shows in different states running all the time. One way to find them might be dong a search on Google for your specific niche category.
Here is a Google search for Food Service Trade Shows. Although I searched for a specific category the search is all over the place and may not give you what you are looking for. That brings me to the next way that you can find trade shows; Trade Publications.
Doing a search for trade publications in Google turns up several hits for different trades. One in particular that I like is this one. Trade Pub has several good magazines that they will mail you for free. I had to complete a qualification page to get my magazine. If you meet their target market it took about 3-4 weeks to get on their system and receive my catalog.
The last way to find trade shows is keep following this blog. I have in front of me the 2009 trade show calendar so you can plan for your next years business. You are planning for next year ?
Before I post a few trade show names and links I want to add a personal note. I know how hard it is to find good sources of information when it comes to sourcing products. In the few years that I have been sourcing products for Kaboodle Gifts ,I have come across internet sources that want your money before they will show you the goods. I have paid for one source that I continue to use today. My whole point of this blog post is to help those that are like me, Hungry! That being said here are a few sources for trade shows:
So here is just a few samples of trade shows. What you will need to do is provide the contact person for each show and give them your business information. Usually this means that you need to fax, pdf, or snail mail your business card and sales tax license. Each show is different and may or may not require more or less information. Then you should receive a buyers packet of information in the mail containing items like a layout of the convention center and vendors. Be preparied to write your purchace orders because the vendors will be prepaired to sell you their merchandise.
One last item. A cash and carry trade show is just that. You bring your cash and carry your product out with you. This type of trade show is geares more to the small business owner that doesn't write purchase orders.
I hope that this has helped you in your search for product sourcing. I'll be posting more trade show events in the future so be sure to bookmark this blog. Feel free to leave a link back to your blog when you comment I have removed the rel="nofollow" tags in this blog so that the posts will get indexed better in the search engines.
Recently we have adjusted the rel='nofollow' tag in our blog template to better have our links indexed by the search engines. There are several thoughts on this subject and fixes for different blog templates concerning this subject located here.
We have no become part of the "Do Follow" movement and look foward to seeing more comments about this subject as well as many others.
In the article that I have linked to there is instructions on how to edit several popular blog templates. The instructions for the Blogger template suggests that you use ctrl +F to find all the instances of " no follow". When you use this method use a single quote mark vs. a double quote mark. This will save you lots of time in your edit process. Below is the sample that the article give and the correct sample to use in your search within your blogger template.
As the article suggest : rel="nofollow" Blogger template : rel='nofollow'
Have you noticed that it is almost next to impossible to regain your blog once you have deleted it? That is the situation that I have come across.I have looked and looked within Blogger help to find a way to recapture a blog that I had two years ago. I own the blog and wanted to reactivate it because it had our business name in it. What I found was that it is taking an act of God for this to happen.
Tonight as I was doing some searches in Google I came across another blog that had linked to us. Curiosity got the best of me so I'd thought that I would check it out. When I clicked on the link to this blog I got a screen telling me that this particular blog had been deleted. Low and behold there was a Contact Us help page to reactivate the blog.
What I did was used this link then I followed the links that were provided. I had to sign into blogger and verify my old blog address, my first and last name that I registered my blog with, and my email address that I used for that blog. In my case the email is not functional anymore. So what I did then was in every text box that I could type information into I said send old blog to new email address and gave my new email address.
I don't know if this will work but I thought , hey, it's worth a shot. So I thought that I would share this information with everyone that might come across this post that is trying to get an old blog back. I'll post back if I hear anything from this with the results if any.
In keeping with the tone of motivation, there are several motivational speakers that make their living addressing corporate functions, sales teams, and individual business owners. as I mentioned in Part 1 of this topic Zig Ziglar is the Grand Daddy of all motivational speakers. I have personally sat and heard this man speak to a packed Georgia Dome ( 80,000 people) in and to 12,000 strong at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan . Zig Ziglar will fire you up in such a way that you wonder why you haven't hit your goals already. His soothing voice will relax you so much that you might be like me and nod off once in a while.
In addition to Zig Ziglar there is another motivational speaker that I'd like to introduce to you. His name is Les Brown. Here is Les Brown's acheivements. Les Brown is another motivational speaker that you need to have in your arsonal. Les Brown often talks about being hungry! No not hungry as in I need food but hungry as in hungry to capitalize on oppertunity. Isn't that how you feel when you are building your business wheather it be an online website or pruchasing your first franchise? You gotta be hun greeeeeeeeee! hungry to learn everything that there is to learn about what it is that you want to do. There is no other way to put it than this:
Raise you hand if you have ever been fired up when you started a project only to can it days after you have started. Nice to meet you, you are in good company!
Motivation is a key to anything that you do. Owning your own business creates its own motivation in itself. But what do you do when your tank runs dry? What gets you re-fired up to complete your project? How do you keep the fire burning when everything seems to be going south?
Motivational speakers and events make up a huge market in todays business world. The king of motivational speakers is Zig Ziglar. If you ever get a chance to hear this man speak it is well worth your time and money.
Zig Ziglar has brought his message to thousands of business people over the years that he has been speaking. Maybe millions of business people might be more accurate. Here is a sample of his work:
Have you ever heard of the saying that there is always someone that is smarter and better than you at what you do? That's a good thing, don't get me wrong. That is exactly how you learn new things. Think about it for a minute. How did you learn to first ride a bike? Drive a car? Write a check? You had to be shown, and once you were shown you began to practice to get better. The better you got the more confident you became.
Building a business or anything else all started the same way. You were shown a method that worked, you tried that method over and over and once you became confident in it you made it your own.
I found a bunch of blog tips and tricks that will do exactly what I have just talked about. While the posts are mainly for those that use blogger.com Peter's header says that most things can be adapted for other blogs. So here you go and enjoy!
I like it so much and there is so much information there that I'm going to list it under Blogs of interest on our side bar.
Okay I admit this is a bit off topic for the title of the Blog. Even though that may be, there are still several comparisons that can be made. If you are unfamiliar with the Deadliest Catch it is a television series about crab fisherman in the Bearing Sea of Alaska during King crab and Opilio crab season. Here is a short video of what kinds of obstacles that they face:
Now that you have taken a peek at the You Tube video lets talk about the comparisons:
OBSTACLES: Can you imagine trying to do a job in 20,30, or 40 foot seas? It almost seems to be overwhelming. Just like when you first made the decision to go into business for yourself. Sure the decision was easy, but little did you know what kinds of seas you would have to weather. Like for instance how do I register my business name with the local, state, and federal governments? Who do I pick for my accountant? Do I need an attourney? What do I name my website? How do I register my website and with whom? Do I file as a DBA, LLC,or Corporation?
Now lets look at the guys from Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch and some of their obstacles; five guys working on a pitching and listing deck, working in temperatures that get as low as 40 degrees below zero, working 20 hours straight and often more, dealing with rogue waves, often catching little on no crab,having to invest long hours dialing in the crab.
TEAM WORK: Often times when you own your own business you have to wear the many hats that go along with that business. Even more so because there are no employees involved. Not only are you the owner but you are the department head for sales, marketing, customer service , shipping and receiving, repairs, and the production manager. the nice thing about being your own boss is that you don't have to go through the chain of command to make major decisions, but then again every decision you make is gut wrenching. You have to make all things work because you are the team.
For the guys of Discovery's Deadliest Catch team work is everything. Each member of the crew has a job to do be it operating the launcher, block, crane or the greenhorn that makes the bait. When something goes wrong and someone gets hurt as is often the case the other team members need to pick the pace up and fill in for the injured crew member. Even though each crew member has his job they still need to know all of the jobs to make the team gel together.
GOAL ORIENTED: My definition of the word goal is nothing more than a dream with a date attached to it. You can't measure any aspect of your business if you don't have goals set. Setting down i front of your computer with a list of goals to complete not only lets you measure your success in your business but also shows you how far along you have come with your business. When you set your goals they need to be realistic goals. If you want to sell $2000.00 worth of product for a week then you need to ask yourself what you need to do to achieve that goal. If you want to add 100 new names to your newsletter database then you have to ask yourself how do I achieve that. You really end up talking to yourself a lot and answering yourself when you own your business.
Goals don't have to big. They can be small goals. For the guys on the Bearing Sea often their goal is to come back homes to the families in one piece, not have any accidents aboard ship, fill thier holds with crab. What may seem like simple goals to one person are huge goals to another. The point being is that by setting your goals wheather they are short term or long term you have something to chase. If you set your goals for the moon but miss you will still land amongst the stars.
REWARDS: The guys on the fishing vessels of The Deadliest Catch reward themselves for the job that they do. When you set goals you need to reward yourself for achieving those goals. One of the major goals on a crab boat is to fill their quota. Often times these boats will have a King Crab season that brings in one million pounds of crab. The monetary reward for a crew member can be $50,000. Say they set a goal of one million pounds and now they have been rewarded for their efforts in achieving that goal. Another example of being rewarded a goal they set at sea is setting a string of pots. The crew members know that once the sting is set, which often takes 20 hours they will be rewarded with a 3 hour nap.
When you are the owner of your business you need to do the same, reward yourself for achieving your goals. This might mean a monetary reward, this might mean sleep after you have worked 12,16, or 20 hours. This might mean eating your favorite meal after selling $1000.00 of product. Just as your goals are yours to set so are your rewards.
PERSEVERANCE: This is key to anything that you do in life. If you own your own business, work for someone else, or have had a heart attack. YOU NEED TO PERSEVERE! In the online world there are thousands of sites that go up and then come down on a constant basis. You are doing business in a fluid environment that is constantly changing. The kids need to go to soccer games, you are busy coding your site, your spouse had a bad day at work and wants to vent. Basically the car is sick and the wife wont start! Persevere! There is nothing that you can't achieve if you set your mind to it.
Perseverance for a crab boat captain is making sure that they get through the season to do it all over again. Perserverance is getting through the 40 foot seas and pulling pots that weigh 1000 pounds. Perserverance is pulling the crew member out of the Bearing Sea after he got caught in the rigging that pulled him overboard.
HAVING FUN: There is no point in doing anything if you can't have fun at it while you are doing it. This applies not only to owning your own business and fishing in the bearing sea but to anything that you do. One way the captains from Dutch Harbor have fun is to pull pranks on one another. Usually this involves hoisting flour bags that explode when being pulled though the block. This season was different what the captains thought were pots full of crab turned out to be Port-O-Potties and pick up trucks. Now can you imagine this, thinking that you have a full pot of crab to sort but finding out that you have a 3/4 ton pick up truck that you have to bring on board. Yeah your right, no sense of humor there.
Conclusion: It doesn't matter what you do in life. It all comes down to having a core set of skills for each vocation. Hopefully the comparisons made here have shed that light and given a bit of inspiration to those that may feel a bit overwhelmed.
Once you have your product(s) that you want to sell online you need a venue to accomplish that. That venue might be eBay, Amazon, eCrater, or a whole host of other sites. How do you know which site would be a good choice for you? The simple answer is research. Making a list of your goals and expectations along with your strengths and weakness will help you weed out different selling venues that you come across in your search for the right place for your products.
If you have the desire to tackle the many shopping carts that you can customize you might want to look into Zen Cart, Candy Press, or OS Commerce to mention a few.
If you take on the challenge of selling online there is one forum that is a must for you. I'm talking about Creative Shop Talk. If you are new to this forum simply create a free account to access all of the information inside. When you come to the home page of this forum you will see the following statement:
"We are three things in one, Support, Resources and Promotions to your online E-commerce site. CST is a peer to peer group of online business owners who run their own website stores and come together to share their experiences and support with each other."
Listed below are some of the threads that make this such a great place to research and grow your business: CST MEMBERS CORNER:
CST Welcomes Our New Members
Seller Support
Site Review
Members Offering Free Mentoring
LET'S TALK ABOUT OUR SHOPPING CARTS:
Your Business Plan
What To Think About When Shopping For A Shopping Cart
Hosting And Domain Names
Candy Press ASP Carts
Zen Carts
Other ASP Carts
Other PHP Carts
PHOTOS AND IMAGES:
Logos And Banners
Photo Image Software
Photo Tips And Cameras
These are just a few of the many Topics that can be found at the Forum. The nice thing about it is even though you may not have one of those carts that require all the programming you can still get some great advise for the cart that you do have.
I printed out a three page explanation of what I could do to our site to better it in the Search Engines from one of the members, now tell me where are you going to find someone that doesn't have a financial interest in your business that will help you for free?
Has there ever been a time in your life that you wished that you hadn't done something but did it any way only to regret later that you had done it? Well this is one of those times.
When we began our online presense in 2005-06 we also created a blog to compliment our business. We named it Kaboodle Gifts. During that time a family emergency came to face us that needed our undivided attention and we closed both the online store and blog not knowing if we would return to either of them. As time went on the family emergency came to the point that it is today... manageable.
My desire to return to building an online presence for our business began to increase to the point that I wanted to give it another go. Hind sight is 20/20 and if that is true then I'm blind! I returned to our business name because it was unique not to mention all the long hours we invested in coming up with the name. Do you realize how many name we tried to register?.....LOL
In doing so I created a monster. I had deleted the old blog but only to bring it back from the ashes when I started our new line of Personalized Products. You see with the SERPS the way that they were for our business name it brought back a lot of the links to the forefront from our old blog, the old blog that was deleted. Now you see links for our old blog but when you click on them you get no content.
So that brings me to write this post on our new blog. So if you find our old blog and are wondering why there isn't any content on it ...now you know.
How many of us are old enough to remember that Sears and Roebuck's started out selling watches? My guess is not many at all. Does anyone remember getting an insert in their Sears statement promoting Real Estate? My point being is this; in order to meet the ever changing buying habits of the consumer sector you need to be in a constant state of change. Looking at buying trends is a must and that is what we have accomplished at Kaboodle Gifts.
HISTORY OF KABOODLE GIFTS
When Kaboodle gifts was started in April 2001 our primary sales avenue was catalog distribution. With postage being economical back then for mailing catalogs we found that the majority of business came around the holidays. This was great for business but didn't give us the constant sales that we were looking for. The Return on Investment (ROI) was low because of the low turn around in sales.
Next we put our catalog online and moved away from catalog sales. This was a huge improvement in sales. We found ourselves with more sales at a lower investment which in turn meant a higher profit margin. We got complacent there because we were satisfied with the returns that we were receiving. Competition began escalating in our market and combined with that and a need to take care of family member our sales slumped to the point that we couldn't effectively take care of our business in the manor that we wanted. The decision to shut our website down came soon after.
With the announcement of our Press Release we have re-entered the market with glowing success.
FUTURE OF KABOODLE GIFTS: The personalized gift market business is a multi- billion dollar market serving many niches including but not limited to birthday's, weddings, wedding parties, individuals, children and many more. We feel that we can capture a small piece of this market. What would you rather have; 100% of one person's business or 1% of 100 peoples' business? We are looking into several other products that we feel will compliment our core line of products and hope to bring them to market soon.
BOTTOM LINE:
The only thing that is constant is change. Change in product line, change in marketing and most important change in customer service! If you are willing to keep changing, adjusting your methods of doing business you will find out that you will have a solid base of returning customers that will in turn expand your business to great lengths.
*note* The comments or suggestions from Kaboodle Gifts are opinion based. The opinion(s) stated in this blog post have worked for Kaboodle Gifts, LLC and are not guaranteed to work for others.
Why would you want to personalize a gift? That is the question of the day. There are many reasons. Lets look at a few of them:
Personality of gift giver:
There are many people that take a long time to find the perfect gift commemorating the special occasion be it a birthday, anniversary,baptismal, or a gift for the man cave. It is that personal touch and thought that goes into every decision that is made pertaining to the recepient. These decisions are usually made but not limited to women. Think about that statement for a minute. Women are nortorious planners. They know when Bobbie's birthday is even though Bobbie is not their child. It makes perfectly good sense that women take their time in getting the right gift for the occasion. I know that the women that are reading this post are agreeing with me and the reason I know this is because because being a guy I know the planning that my wife does to make an occasion special.
Speciality gift:
When people exchange their hard earned money for a gift they want it to be special or unique especially in today's economy with the housing crisis and the job market the way it is. The gift giver wants their gift to remain special and unique well after the date of the occasion. They don't want to know that it has been put in some storage drawer or worse yet....regifted. They put alot of thought into the process of giving the gift and seeing the reaction of the recepient justifies their actions.
Recepients personality:
Matching the right gift to the recepients personality is as much an art as anything else. Knowing the recepients personality is an absolute must. You don't want to buy a piece of jewelry for someone that doesn't wear jewelry.
These are just a few of the reasons that personalizing a gift is important. As you read this post I'm sure that you are thinkng of more. With Kaboodle Gifts we can personalize the right gift for the occasion and we can also send a special message on the package for you just ask us for the details.
