I started Sand Shack 4 years ago as a brand of jewelry with a mission to support ocean conservation.  Now Sand Shack products can be found in over 300 stores across the United States, and over the past few years we have been dedicated to conservation activities including beach cleanups, educational events, and social media campaigns intent on raising awareness for certain topics such as Shark Finning, Overfishing, and Coral Reef Destruction.

However, during our time growing Sand Shack we realized we wanted to do even more for our oceans, so we decided to create a new brand that allows us to do just that.   So for the past year we have been developing the products and concept for a new brand called United By Blue (UBB).

UBB is a brand of sustainable clothing and accessories that removes 1 pound of trash from our oceans and beaches for every 1 product sold through beach cleanups we organize throughout the world.

This is a lofty goal, but something we really believe in. Our oceans are beyond dirty and we believe business has the power to clean them up.  We are accomplishing this goal by creating an in-house outreach team that is constantly helping organize these cleanups on an ongoing basis. In fact, even though the brand does not officially launch until May 1, we have cleanups being conducted next week by Stanford University in CA, Florida State in FL, and University of Pennsylvania, Villanova, Drexel, and Temple University in PA.  Furthermore, we are developing an innovative beach cleanup map application for our website that facilitates the creation and organization of these cleanups.

UBB will operate two websites.  One website is the UBB store, and the other website is the website for the non-profit arm of the company and where all information about past, present and future cleanups will be.  In order to be completely transparent with our mission and what we are accomplishing, a real time “trash ticker” will be visible on each site to show how many pounds of trash UBB has helped remove to-date.

Below is a screen shot of the website for the non-profit side of UBB’s operations

Starting May 1st, select stores across the east coast will be carrying UBB products.  The main place UBB products will be available for the first few months will be online at Unitedbyblue.com.  This website is currently in final stages of development (temporary site currently up) and will be live on launch day.

Below is a screen shot of Unitedbyblue.com

If you have a sec, let me know your thoughts about UBB in the comment section below.

We moved into our new offices in Philadelphia in January and I thought it would be nice to share a video of what the inside looks like!

Below is a video that takes you through our office.  If you are ever in Philadelphia, I would be more than happy to have you come by and visit in person!

This past summer has been an exciting time for my company, Sand Shack, and me.  We have seen strong growth and our products are now found in nearly 200 stores around the United States.

Despite founding Sand Shack in 2006, I did not begin to use social media to market the company until recently.  This summer has been an amazing learning experience as to how to use social media for business growth.  Below are four things I’ve learned this past summer.

Blogging Is Not About Selling, It’s About Educating

Our blog has been a huge traffic generator for Sand Shack’s website.  When creating the blog, my desire was to integrate it into our site in such a way that visitors can easily access it as an online resource for ocean conservation news – with or without visiting our store or being a paying customer.  I believe in the power of creating a strong following of non-paying followers, because money will eventually be generated through these non-paying followers (and even if many don’t buy anything, our company mission is fulfilled through educating people about ocean conservation).  A very important aspect of our company blog is that the blog posts do not sell Sand Shack products.  The information relates to our brand through ocean conservation and the occasional mention as to how we are participating in the movement, but we are not trying to sell product through our blog.  This creates trust with our readers and many people come back frequently to read our blog’s content without being bombarded with sales pitches.  In the 4 months our company has been blogging we are now pulling in nearly 300 readers per day.

Networking Is About the Few Rather Than the Many

In my experience, it seems like far too many companies try to get their message out through social media channels through targeting as many people as possible; they try to communicate their message to the masses.  This has never been my understanding of proper use of social media, nor is it how I promote our company.  I would much rather network and become familiar with 5 influential people than 5,000 non-influential people.  Recently, I have used this mindset to network with top bloggers and figures in ocean conservation.  This is something I truly enjoy doing because I am sincerely honored to be able to speak to those who are doing work to save our oceans.  In addition to exchanging emails I usually give these people a free Sand Shack product of a hat or a flip-flop, further cementing our relationship.  Recently, this has generated a lot of good will and even led to articles written about Sand Shack.  As I continue to network with leaders in ocean conservation I even want to get in contact with celebrities who participate in this noble cause.

Facebook Page Creates Loyal Followers

I set up a Facebook page for Sand Shack more than a year ago but didn’t use it until this summer.  One of the reasons I ignored the use of our Facebook Page is that I was living in the prehistoric Facebook days of a “Group”.  I had over 300 members in the Sand Shack group and I didn’t see any need to build a fan base on a page.  Realizing the obvious benefits of a Page over a Group (I won’t go into them here), we began to focus on our page and have begun to build a nice Facebook fan base (currently 185 fans).  We have some exciting things in the pipeline to accelerate the growth of our page to over 1000 highly focused, active, fans by January 2010.

Twitter Use Becomes Repetitive

Unfortunately, Sand Shack has not embraced Twitter to the full extent as it has embraced other forms of social media.  One of the main reasons I haven’t used our Sand Shack Twitter account much is that I have always preferred to use my own personal twitter account for all my tweeting needs.  One thing that has made Twitter easier to use and update is integrating our status updates from our Facebook page to appear on our Twitter stream.  This may be repetitive and not add value to our message online, but it is sufficient for now and seems to be working – as seen through people beginning to retweet our tweets.

Although it is too early for me to see a strong correlation between social media success and increased revenue, as we approach the Christmas shopping season I think it will become more obvious as to how social media use has impacted Sand Shack.  As I go through these lessons, I will be sure to write more on this subject.

If you have a business, what have you learned recently about social media for business?

A Sand Shack belt display - We have been taking preorders for these units since November 2008 for delivery in April 2009.

When you run a business that sells physical products that need to be manufactured specifically for your company, you will most likely always have a problem with inventory control. You don’t want to have too much inventory, as that ties up your cash, however, you don’t want to have too little because you won’t be able to immediately fulfill an order. So how do you plan out how much inventory you will need, and how can you lessen your risk of producing too much of a certain product and having waste because it doesn’t sell?

The answer is ‘Preorders’.

The way I operate Sand Shack is I develop samples of all my products that I plan to sell for a certain season about 8 months before any of these products will appear on store shelves. After I develop samples I make catalogs and then debut the products at tradeshows across the east coast, where I take orders for the products. I also take the samples and catalogs to all my current customers and have them place orders for the upcoming season. I also send a couple samples and a lot of catalogs out to all my sales representatives, who show the lines to their customers and take orders, which they fax back to me. I take as many orders as I possibly can before I start large-scale production of any product.

This hat is a one-of a-kind sample - but I've already taken thousands of dollars in orders for it.

So that is what I have been doing for the past four months. I have been taking orders for products that don’t exist. I currently have no inventory of Sand Shack’s spring summer 2009 lines, but I have tens of thousands of dollars of orders. This week I sent purchase orders in excess of $40k to my factories overseas to begin production on all the products (hats, belts, flip-flops, and jewelry). Although I would like to wait until I get even more orders, I need to begin production in order to begin shipping products to stores in April.

Because I will still be taking orders from stores after large-scale production begins and I will also get reorders from stores during the summer months I need to extrapolate the orders I take and produce enough product that will be on-hand for these future orders. I will produce about six times that of which I currently have orders for.

In summary, here are the five reasons preorders are important

1. They allow you to gauge the demand for your products and minimize the risk of producing something you won’t be able to sell

2. They allow you to know exactly how much money you will be collecting once you have the products made.

3. They allow you to access a loan to manufacture the product based on the dollar value of orders taken. Lenders are more comfortable lending you money if it is to manufacture product you have already sold. (however in this market any loan is difficult to get).

4. You can better plan your company’s direction 6 months in advance. Preorders show you where your company is going.

5. Retail stores need to plan what their store is carrying well before the products hit the shelves. Preorders allow you to make a bigger presence in a store.

Any questions on how to take preorders? Let’s discuss them in the comment section.

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Today I have a great video to show you, however I am reluctant to deem it an episode of The Entrepreneur Road Show (ERS).  The reason I don’t want to call it an episode of ERS is because ERS is about my adventures as an entrepreneur and about the often unexplored ways people make money, and although I have had plenty of adventures recently, I have just not edited the footage into episodes of ERS.  Today’s video is not adventurous and not about any intersting way people make money, but it is informative and gives a great insight into my life as an entrepreneur and how I go about my operations at Sand Shack.

And yes, I know this is now the second Tuesday in a row without a new episode of The Entrepreneur Road Show…at least I have a video up, right?

Introduction

Small business owners are faced with a variety of issues on a day to day basis. One of the issues that many product based business owners face is the issue of storing their inventory.  So if you need to store your inventory do you need to buy or rent a warehouse?  Here is a simple, cost-effective answer.

Please help me review my new website DailyEntrepreneurTip.com before I launch it in mid-March.

Consider catching up on episodes of The Entrepreneur Road Show now.

Next week, follow me as I try to make sales in Boston and realize how much my life has changed since becoming an entrepreneur as I party it up with an old high school buddy.

If you don’t know much about the main company I run, check out my company website sandshack.com. Also, consider reading my About page.

Sand Shack's logo

My main point in writing this entry was just to give you a quick update on the progress I have made with Sand Shack in recent months despite being faced with possibly the worst economy I will ever have to live through.

The progress that I have made is an accomplishment I am fairly proud of.

Sand Shack products can now be found in 22 states across the United States in over 125 stores.

The milestone was getting into over 20 states nationwide.  The last time I counted Sand Shack products were in 12 states.  And although I crossed this milestone a few weeks ago it wasn’t until a few minutes ago that I actually counted all my accounts and realized this.

As the US has 50 states, my products can almost be found in half of the country!

If you see Sand Shack products this summer be sure to let me know.

So that’s it! That’s all I want to say!

Sorry I haven’t been writing much this week.  I was extremely busy preparing for the tradeshow I am at right now and was getting to bed most nights at 4am and getting up at 8… So needless to say I am not as awake as I wish I were for this show.

And was all this preparation for nothing?  It is 12:30pm, the show opened at 9:30am and I have only spoke to a few ‘potential’ customers.  No orders, and no real interest.  But it isn’t because the product isn’t good, there are just no people here!  I don’t know whether it is the economy or the overall size of the show that is affecting attendance, but if things don’t pick up in the next few days this may not end well.

I do have one quick thought/lesson.  The company across from me is selling apparel such as swimsuits, beach dresses and other nautical wear.  They are taking a good amount of orders.  The reason? Current customers are coming directly to their booth to meet with them.  The salespeople greet customers as if they were old friends.  Lesson? Building your relationships with your customers is an important part of building a successful business. Unfortunately this is a new market for me and I don’t have as large of a customer base in this regions as the company across from me has…

One second, a potential customer is here…gotta go.

Ok, I’m back. She was interested in our hats, but not sale…yet.

I’m sorry this is short, I probably shouldn’t be writing anything at all right now.  Time at this show is valuable and I paid a lot to be here, so I am going to practice what I preach and stop people watching and instead engage everyone as if they were a potential customer.

Keep it blue!

The first box of new sample Sand Shack products. I feel like a 5 year old on Christmas morning when opening a box of new samples.

As an entrepreneur, I go through cycles of being not-so-busy and extremely busy.  Right now I am at the tail end of a not-so-busy cycle and am about to enter an extremely busy schedule for the rest of the year until Christmas.

But in all honesty, I would rather be busy.  The last couple of weeks have been extremely boring, it has been a period of waiting and minimal work because Sand Shack products for 2009 had already been designed and sourced but weren’t physically here yet so I haven’t been able to prepare marketing materials or start selling them yet. I’ve just been waiting and writing emails to my manufacturers begging them to hurry up, as well as trying to boost online retail sales on sandshack.com.  Last night the first big box of samples for Sand Shack’s new products arrived and 3 more boxes are scheduled to come next week.  Within two days of the time the last package is scheduled to arrive I am off to Ocean City, Maryland for the first tradeshow of the selling season.

This week is going to be extremely busy, but I have no reason to complain.  I am an entrepreneur and I live for moments like these when I am under pressure, have to make three catalogs in 2 days, am attending 7 upcoming tradeshows, and only 24 hours in a day to build a company I am proud of. This year is critical to my company’s success, I have invested everything my company and I have back into Sand Shack in preparation for 2009.

But even under such immense pressure to succeed, the way I see it is that I am young and have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

In an effort to keep you informed on my entrepreneurial endeavors, and so that you can learn from both my success and shortcomings, I want to give you an update on the $5,555 giveaway on sandshack.com.

As I’ve mentioned before, online retail sales make up a small fraction of Sand Shack’s business, however, due to our recent generosity, we have seen a surge in orders made online over the last week.  Although we are giving away most things for free we have still been able to make enough to pay for what we are giving away.  So the way I see it is that we are getting thousands of new visitors to our site and getting a lot of new customers for free!

However, today I noticed a very scary statistic.  47.9% of shopping carts started on sandshack.com are eventually abandoned without an order being placed. Almost half of all shoppers serious enough to place a Sand Shack product in a shopping cart leave our site without following through with the purchase! That’s horrible!

The abandoned shopping cart statistic gives you insight into how easy your payment process is for your customers to use. Obviously ours has left many confused. Below is a screen shot of this statistic.

So what is wrong with our site? Today I got my answer.  A customer emailed me when she realized that she still had to fill out her billing information even though the gift card code she was using made it so the bill was $0.  The way the shopping cart software for sandshack.com works is that it won’t process an order without accurate billing information.  When people are prompted to fill out their credit card information to purchase an item that they will get for free, many customers are rightfully scared away.

Even though their credit card will not be charged and the information will not be stored it is still unsettling to fill out this information when nothing is owed, especially when it is not clear whether or not they will be charged.  Also, they can opt to use paypal, however, paypal requires a payment of at least $0.01, so the customer has to be savvy enough to pay $0.01 using paypal. Confusing!

I am currently working with my web guy to fix this problem, but in the meantime I wanted to use this statistic and subsequent revelation as a lesson for all of you that have or are thinking of having an online store.  If the payment process is at all confusing you will lose a lot of customers, so work hard on making sure your website is easy to use and it is easy for your customers to pay you.

After watching sales of jewelry on sandshack.com explode over the course of a couple hours this afternoon I decided I had to write a quick entry on it before the day is done.

As you may know, today I started a huge marketing campaign to boost traffic to and sales on sandshack.com.  Sand Shack’s main stream of revenue is through our wholesale channels and we have never put the time and energy we should into making our retail website successful.  In fact, over the last few months we only took a few orders over it.

That all changed today.  Since 4 o’clock this evening we have taken over 40 orders on SandShack.com, and although all of the orders have used the $5 gift cards we issued today, there have been enough orders that exceeded the $5 discount, which allows us to still make a little money.  But this promotion is not so much to make money but to drive traffic to our site and generate new customers.  So far it has worked and we are only at the beginning.

Check out the below order confirmations from 4:30pm – 6:30pm today.

Sales should continue, but I don't know if they will continue at this pace

For information on this campaign click here. Please feel free to participate in this campaign by using the gift card code on sandshack.com and buying something nice for yourself.

I’ll keep you updated on the success of this promotion. I will also post on what I learn from all this, so that you can do something similar if you so please.  There is so much to learn from this experience.