Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi Everyone! 

I`m hoping to get a bit of  feedback on a  product that we`d like to offer to retail toy stores and gift shops.  Any any advice you might lend is greatly apprecated!

 My company offers personalized Santa Claus experiences for kids (live personalized phone calls from Santa - internet based ordering). 

We`re heading into our 4th year of business and want to offer our phone calls to retail stores this year.    Our packaging would hold a gift card that parents redeem online to schedule their date and time with Santa.  We want to cover any and hopefully all bases that might cause a retailer to question us and our product --- we would be very unique (I think) since we`re offering a service to children. 

Right now we`re busy trying to find a great graphic designer to help us with developing some really edgy, fun packaging, and we`re researching all of the costs involved in getting our product ready for shelves, but it would be hugely helpful, and motivating to hear your opinions before we commit our resources to this further!

We`d offer a gift card, packaged in a box or tin, very colorful.  The box would hold a gift card that would have a `Secret Santa Code` to be redeemed on a specific  page on our site for our end customers.

Some issues we`re uncertain how to address:

• we`d feel we need to limit the number of phone calls to make sure our quality is as it should be.
• What kind of volume is possible if we attend a gift fair (15,000 to 20,000 buyers)? (our product and booth display was accepted to the San Francisco Intl Gift Fair in 04 but we chose not to attend until we were stronger).  Does anyone have any wholesale success stories?   Right now we`re limited to online sales only by us.
• Is it an  issue for retail stores where the customer satisfaction is based on several factors, and each experience is different as each child is different?   - though almost 90% of our customers last year told us they plan on buying from us again, and 93% of our customers told more than 5 people about us, and 57 % told 10-30 people.  Is this important to a buyer?  
• are there any other similar products we can compare ourselve to to assure the buyers that this is a really great product to have on their shelves? (we haven`t found any service based products --- though products tied to web are really hot right now - ex Webkinz)
• We`re working on some really great edgy packaging that will sell our gift cards right now in hopes that we`ll be a great POP product.
• we`re hoping??  that because of the media exposure we`ve had that might get our foot in the door (Parents Mag, Rachael Ray, Today Show, Good Morning America etc)

Thank you for your time! : )

ho ho ho

Anne

www.SantaSpeaking.com

Any help or advice would be welcome! : ) 

Thank you in advance!