A moment of your time if you will.

[millidonk]

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

[taximan007]

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

Just my opinion.....

[millidonk]

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.

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 ?

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.

[Marky147]

Done

[millidonk]

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

Just my opinion.....

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

[millidonk]

Done

Hmmmm. which one was you:

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

[ripple11]

Done

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

    http://www.babylondon.co.uk/

[millidonk]

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

[Redsgirl]

  TheToyboxcollection

'lovingly crafted to hold a whole childhood of fun'

10% of net profits plz

[millidonk]

  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.

[david3103]

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.

[Acidmouse]

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.

[craigbetts]

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!

[millidonk]

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.

£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

£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

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".

[redarmi]

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 ;-)