blonde poker forum

4 questions, should take you no longer than 30 seconds. Your answers could help me never have to get a real job again.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JKGWLWB (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JKGWLWB)

I expect a cut when you go with toyboxes4u

You never know. I am certainly open to suggestions.

I have been asking people face to face and there seems to be quite a clear favourite developing, although we both know favourites don't always win.

there might have beenva fav before they was given my option

a toy box is a storage box right? or am i missing something

How can something be too expensive or too cheap if you don't know what it is/looks like/quality/size etc...

No you are right. I should have made it clearer they will be handmade and customised akin to:

(http://www.personalizationmall.com/cat_image/300/11165D-25649.jpg)

(http://www.ecomarket.com/media/product/13759503/personalised-wooden-toy-box/solid-pine-personalised-toy-box.preview.png)

thats easy I am Scottish nothing should cost more than a fiver

What's your perceived market for this mate?

For us, toy boxes has always been about quantity, rather than quality to be honest.
When you need seperate boxes for star wars figures, cars, coloured pens / paints, Ben 10, Power Rangers, Soldiers, various other fads and collections, etc, you're normally talking about a dozen or more large plastic drawers or stacking boxes.

As nice as a hand crafted wooden toyboxes sounds, I think the reality might be more a case of cheap and practical for most parents.

That said, upper middle class types with new borns and a dozen cuddly toys, as yet unaware of the storage problems they'll face over the coming years might be good for a sale :)

good luck with it

@ Adam

Market is anyone with a kid or anyone knows a kid and wants to buy them a toybox. I am 1000% certain there is a substantial market in place for the products. One of the carpenters already has a presence online (facebook) and is shifting some decent volume at £70 a throw.

I get what you are saying as I myself have some of those plastic X amount of litres  storage boxes stacked up on top of each other in the garage full of my little one's stuff and she has only just turned one.. But I also have a nice white and pink box with her name carved in it with a nice cushioned seat on top in her room, I also have a storage ottaman in the front room full of her toys. There is no reason we can't all have more than one. You don't have to be an upper middle class type to not what plastic boxes stacked to the ceiling all over your gaff.

I will be selling the quality and artistic nature of the box itself more so than the fact it is the nut storage solution. I have tried to cater for all at the minute with the price range looking to be £60 - £300. I myself would never pay more than £150 for a toy box no matter how well it was crafted but there are many out there who would. As they say on the apprentice those around the £300 mark would be my "big ticket" items.

 

How have you arrived at the sale cost?

In the general sense i have done it as:

Cost of materials + Labour + Delivery + Margin

having spoken to a few carpenters it varies quite a lot how much some of them are willing to work for which seems to be the reason the prices vary so much online. The equivalent of our standard range goes form like £90 - £250 on ebay and I have seen ludicrous prices being charged for some of the pine and oak ones with people still buying them month on month.

done  -toyboxtastic obv

We as in my Wife and our two spolit kids (2) (4) have millions of toys, to store them we have huge plastic princess buckets

(http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Disney-Princess-Sparkle-Pink-Girls-Flexible-Tub-Bucket-Toy-Box-Storage-Container-/00/s/MTAwMFgxMDAw/z/w-cAAOxyfS1R3p0N/$T2eC16FHJIgFHSlOpB+mBR3p0Nhm9g~~60_35.JPG)


Nothing to do with cost, but they like princesses and buckets are piss easy to shove all the toys in quickly. £6 a pop. We have one for dresses, lego/building, misc toys etc...

Unless a toybox had a character on it they liked they would not want it.

Yeah got a mate who has 2 of them in his living room. Just plain blue with nothing on them. Not the best looking things tbh but certainly do the job. Fine for the kid's bedroom etc. Although they could always have a posh box with a princess on it should they wish..

I think in the future I could always move into buying stuff like that at wholesale, I imagine the margins are decent if they sell for £6 but to start with I don't want to over stretch myself. Find a niche and stick to it I reckon.

Time will tell. If it goes tits up there's always poker..

I think a real toybox would be bought when the child was a baby, as nursery furniture.
I know kids have usually have more toys than fit in one box but I think a sturdy, personalised piece that would last them 10 years + would be worth a higher price tag especially if you could match it to your decor and it doubled as a seat.

A couple of small drawers for the little bits and pieces would be a great idea too!

Fwiw I think it's a good idea - all about market, they're are plenty of people who want cheap functional toy boxes....equally there are plenty of affluent, high disposable income yummy mummy's that live this sort of stuff and are happy to spend hubby's cash on products like this and tennis coaches.  My ex would definitely have had a couple. Thin

I think it's all about being clear on who customers are, what the want and what they'd pay.

Cheers young red, having a one year old myself I am surrounded by babies which was what first got me thinking about the toybox world being a good thing to go into as the amounts some people spend is insane to me personally. It's like anything really, I drive around in a heap of a car and refused to spend over £2.5k when I bought it, wife bought a £7k car. Some people spend £15 - £30k on a car.. all comes down to taste, how much you want it etc. etc.

Love the idea of taking it as a 10+ year investment! It's pennies if you work it out like that. Our boxes you choose the style, colour, what you want on it etc so you can match it to whatever you like.


Oioiii Mr Conning. Any chance of getting that ex's number? Nothing to do with selling a box. :)

The website itself is going to be quite classy, almost an art gallery for toy boxes..  That might be my tag line "yummy mummys come spend your husband's $$$$"

Our clear leader is now having some pressure from the 2nd fav and a rank outsider. Oooooooooh.

Toyboxes4u coming up on the outside?

Afraid not mate. Glue factory that one.

you never gave it a vhance

These would sell like hot cakes. Great gift idea for Christenings or family birthdays.

Toyboxesforlife.com

I used to love my toy box. All those little plastic green and blue soldiers used to get covered in fluff down at the bottom.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idae of a nicely crafted personalised wooden toybox in a nursary.
I suppose it's furnature, rather than an actual storage solution.
£10-£20 buys you a lot of plastic storage drawers, that can be easily transported room to room while the toys are being played with.
Don't look as nice as a toybox or Ottoman at the foot of the bed though.

Sure there'll always be a market for you.
People keep having these baby things.
Would think they're likely to be popular gifts from grandparents too

tyty, things are looking a bit more positive now.

If you believe everything you read research indicates that 55% of the revenue for Toystores is made during November/December for the Xmas period. I am not sure if it will be the same for toy boxes really but I still plan to launch by October just in case.

I want to offer a lid inscription service so you can say "To Sally on your christening/birthday/bar mitzvah love Aunty Wenda" etc but not met anyone who does it yet. Think that would be good though.

One thing I do now is that people have birthdays everyday of the year and according to Jermey Kyle and loose women the babies are still coming. wiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I know a firm that will do the inscriptions for you

Will PM

This has got to be one of your main selling points. There are very few things nowadays that are made to last childhood and beyond. The only thing I still have is a wooden money box stool that was made for me 27 years ago.
I loved it then and I love it even more now.

like the idea done the survey

good luck

This is so TRUE, whilst nowadays we live in a throwaway world, I believe the majority of children would love to have something 'nice and special' to them from their childhood personal to them to look back on (and still be functional) many years later.

All the very best of luck with this.

What is your plan re : advertising and sales... eBay face book ?... What sort of build time are we looking at... Have you looked at a more bulk/ commercial solution.. Approaching specialist shops chains etc.. If u received an order for a 100 say pink ones with a generic decoration could you full ill this ?

Cheers for the love guys.

Well it was defo worth starting this thread that's for sure.

Will think of a nice tag line along the lines of what redsgirl and taxi said, I dunno exactly what yet

"A toy box you'll still have in adulthood"
"A box which holds more than toys"
"A box for memories and toys"

I will have a think, i'm sure something will come to me.

Our survey says: Those without kids prefer "toyboxtastic" those with children prefer "thetoyboxcollection". That was the favourite from having spoken to people in the office.

This redundancy could be the best thing that ever happened to me. I feel free as a bird.

Obv there will be blonde discount available :)

The toyboxcollection immediately says to me I would be buying something SPECIAL

Just my opinion.....

Website + facebook for sales. Advertising is the biggest key to online success imo. Advertising will be facebook, twitter, youtube, fliers handed out by local students in town, fliers at nursery and local RAF camps and hopefully word of mouth.

Build time I have allocated 4 weeks. Doing it myself to start with but if it gets too much I will have a mate on standby. Getting pictures of the products and uploading is the major time drainer as the people I am working with have terrible pictures so I need to take studio shots of pretty much every item.

My whole niche is centred around the fact they are one of a kind to your specification, this sort of product is not really suited for mass production which is good for me as it means less major competitors. If someone randomly wanted 100 generic pink boxes then it would take approx 5 weeks to fulfil that order. Part of the joy about this is picking the box which suits your home, having it made the way you like. I could get a bunch of generic ones with TOYS on the front, load em up in the van and try and flog em at a carboot but I imagine people would say " oh if that was this colour or if that said my kids name instead etc.".

If I ever got to the stage where I needed to produce these on a massive scale then I would be buzzing. They would be like the name keyrings you see on those stands.. but for now I am happy to focus on the bespoke "one of a kind" thing.

Done

That seems to be the opinion of a few of us! Won by 7 lengths and was the clear fav before the off. I also liked "thetoyboxcompany" but that was gone. (Although not used and not for sale as far as I could see)

We now owns it.



Domain: thetoyboxcollection.co.uk £4.99 Domain: thetoyboxcollection.com £10.99

Email Account: Email Account £11.88

Net total £27.86 VAT total £5.58

Total £33.44

Hmmmm. which one was you:

Toyboxforlife
mytoybox
toyboxes4u
wickedtoyboxesinnitbruv.com
My mate the toolbox makes toy boxes

Done

This sort of quality product would be advertised in a magazine such as baby london:

    http://www.babylondon.co.uk/

Cheers for the idea Ripple. I don't have the biggest budget but i'm sure there will be a magazine out there which I can afford to advertise in.

I must admit that's one method of advertising i'm not overly familiar with. I think I will have to do a bit of research to see it's effectiveness.

Thanks again

  TheToyboxcollection

'lovingly crafted to hold a whole childhood of fun'

10% of net profits plz

If I use it you get a free box after my 100th sale. :)

When my first granddaughter was christened she was given a hand painted toy box with beautifully detailed Winnie the Pooh images and her name and birth date.

It will never be disposed of.

Would we have paid up to the equivalent of £300 for it? Probably not.
Is it priceless? Definitely.

The basic box was bought ready made and although a carpenter made box will give you an added area to take a margin it's worth investigating ready made ones perhaps as a cheaper line under a slightly different (slightly cheaper) brand. That would cut the legs from under the competitors who will inevitably undercut you.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Personalised-Wooden-Childrens-Toy-Box-Chest-Storage-bench-Personalised-Gift-/251318665014?pt=UK_HG_ChildFurniture_RL&hash=item3a83c27f36

personalized toy boxes £70 not bad.

Our survey says...... Please place a video of you making one of these?

Are you open to Dragon's type questioning. I am interesting in figures, cost per unit, selling price, time to make one unit.

Pm me deets, maybe an idea here!

£85 with delivery. It actually looks quite well made though, although pretty small at 670mm, with our standard ones being 920mm we are pretty much in line with those prices.

I will certainly be able to undercut a couple of these sellers on very similiar boxes:

£254 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Childrens-Wooden-Toy-Box-/281084983665?pt=UK_HG_ChildFurniture_RL&var=&hash=item4171f87971 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Childrens-Wooden-Toy-Box-/281084983665?pt=UK_HG_ChildFurniture_RL&var=&hash=item4171f87971)

£295 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/White-Painted-Engraved-Personalised-Solid-Wood-Pine-Toy-Blanket-Box-Chest-/281148452179?pt=UK_HG_ChildFurniture_RL&hash=item4175c0ed53 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/White-Painted-Engraved-Personalised-Solid-Wood-Pine-Toy-Blanket-Box-Chest-/281148452179?pt=UK_HG_ChildFurniture_RL&hash=item4175c0ed53)

I think the biggest competition will be this woman (http://www.busybeeworkshop.com/). Does em redic cheap and pretty damn good, (also called busybee on ebay) but fortunately not the best at marketing. Although I'm sure I've just helped her out a bit..

Also we must not forget there are a lot of people out there who never have and never will use ebay. They still think it's all second hand knock off gear. Once you go outside ebay it's quite an open market for toyboxes so there is no massive need to try and just undercut the cheapest ebay sellers.

Betts, you know full well I can barely put up a shelf. I knocked about £10k of the price of my house when I tried to "do it up".

Cost per unit, selling price, time to make etc. all depend on a multitude of different things. Getting you to part with money is like getting Celtic to refuse a free meal. It doesn't happen. So i'll save you the time "you're oot".

If you can find a way to ship (obv I'll pay shipping) to Florida I will order one from you now mate.  I love the pink one that already has my daughters name on it ;-)

Second prospective order. Wiiiiiiiii.

Good point actually, for UK we were going to mainly use hermes, will do some research and find out which firm is cheapest etc. Might be a few yanks out there willing to pay for the "Best of British" or "handmade in Britain" label.

Hold out for a few weeks til the site is up then you can be our first overseas customer. :)

Waz1829 can advise on delivery, gl with it Sir.

I'd consider some affiliate sites like notonthehighstreet.com

I would also thing about some research on mumsnet amd ither tyoes of site maybe.

Also think about how you get to target demographic - not sure where you live Milli but down whee I'm thinking Beaconsfield, Amersham, Richmond, Sheen, Wimbledon, Barnes, Kensington. Maybe Amazon local a route or more how you use demographics to target the more affluent profile on line.

Let us know how it goes, love a good start up

Get an Eastern European in the garage Dave, soon knock some out.

Cheers guys, know Beaconsfield quite well. Very wealthy postcode! I love in the east Midlands Stamford is the wealthiest place to us. Already thought about mumsnet etc. Will ask people what they would like to see etc

it's the first time I've done anything like this, either been in the military or the corporate rat race and don't plan on ever going back. I have  4 ideas for startups so hopefully can bink one. Want to give this a good crack, sure it will be a learning curve though.

Malc, lol @ eastern Europeans puts a bit of a spanner in the works with my "best of British" promotion.

As promised bud this was given as a present at Ivy's christening last week.

done.  Isn't Maam, Ma'am?

You are indeed correct Sir. My ba'ad.

If you wish to have some info on finding the right delivery company, love to help you.  I've worked in that industry for 20years, and while I do work for the best one, I will promise to give you a open view, as it depends what's important to you.