Backpack Swag Inventory
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GoFundMe was originally created a a crowdfunding source to help small businesses raise capital.
Blended Designs is a minority business owned by Harvey and Casey Kelley. We specialize in products that celebrate melanin and feature empowering messages. We are reaching out to our community and supporters to assist us in purchasing more backpack inventory at the lowest cost so that we can keep our prices affordable.
In March 2017, we launched a line of backpacks featuring children of color. Through research, we learned that less than 1% of backpacks available in major retailers include a child of color. In addition, backpacks including children of color as characters typically illustrate a group of characters where one happens to be of color. In other words, children of color are rarely featured on back to school products. Each of our backpacks features a character in various shades of melanin wearing one of our "I Can Do Anything" t-shirts.
Based on our social media following at the time, we projected we would sell 1000 backpacks during our first back to school season and worked with our manufacturer to have the inventory on hand. We underestimated the demand by a longshot! In July 2017 shortly before the back to school season began, Yandy Smith of a VH1 reality show shared one of our post. We have no clue how she saw it but we were ecstactic by the response!
The good news is we sold more than 6 times our initial projection. The downside was that demand outpaced our supply and we had to pay quite a bit extra to get enough inventory. We had to make a decision to either raise prices or lose profit. In order to meet the demand and have more inventory sent to us, we had to pay for rush production and express shipping from our manufacturer - increasing our overall cost tremendously. We chose to not impact customers by raising our prices and continued to keep our introductory prices the same. Unfortunatetly that meant that we were not able to build up a reserve so that we could purchase more inventory. So our options are to a) stop selling the backpacks, b) go into personal debt to purchase more inventory or c) reach out to our community to collectively purchase the inventory.
We believe that the most successful businesses are built with the support of the community to which it caters. Ever wonder how the beauty supply stores are funded? They fund each other and give back to their community. As most of you know, we give back with the purchase of any item from our store to programs in our community that support first generation college students: A Purchase with a Purpose. In addition to donating cash to the programs shown in the link, we blessed low income students in Jacksonville, Boston, Indianapolis, Greensboro and the UK with approximately 500 backpacks.
If just 18% of our social media followers gave $5 we would be able to purchase the initial inventory for back to school 2018 but we would also be able to begin offering inventory to retailers in local markets. We would also be able to order our inventory well in advance so that we can ship freight instead of air.
We appreciate your help and consideration. Our goal is that every child of color is empowered as they attend school. Despite what Mainstream America says, it is important that they are taught to say "I Can Do Anything".
Blended Designs is a minority business owned by Harvey and Casey Kelley. We specialize in products that celebrate melanin and feature empowering messages. We are reaching out to our community and supporters to assist us in purchasing more backpack inventory at the lowest cost so that we can keep our prices affordable.
In March 2017, we launched a line of backpacks featuring children of color. Through research, we learned that less than 1% of backpacks available in major retailers include a child of color. In addition, backpacks including children of color as characters typically illustrate a group of characters where one happens to be of color. In other words, children of color are rarely featured on back to school products. Each of our backpacks features a character in various shades of melanin wearing one of our "I Can Do Anything" t-shirts.
Based on our social media following at the time, we projected we would sell 1000 backpacks during our first back to school season and worked with our manufacturer to have the inventory on hand. We underestimated the demand by a longshot! In July 2017 shortly before the back to school season began, Yandy Smith of a VH1 reality show shared one of our post. We have no clue how she saw it but we were ecstactic by the response!
The good news is we sold more than 6 times our initial projection. The downside was that demand outpaced our supply and we had to pay quite a bit extra to get enough inventory. We had to make a decision to either raise prices or lose profit. In order to meet the demand and have more inventory sent to us, we had to pay for rush production and express shipping from our manufacturer - increasing our overall cost tremendously. We chose to not impact customers by raising our prices and continued to keep our introductory prices the same. Unfortunatetly that meant that we were not able to build up a reserve so that we could purchase more inventory. So our options are to a) stop selling the backpacks, b) go into personal debt to purchase more inventory or c) reach out to our community to collectively purchase the inventory.
We believe that the most successful businesses are built with the support of the community to which it caters. Ever wonder how the beauty supply stores are funded? They fund each other and give back to their community. As most of you know, we give back with the purchase of any item from our store to programs in our community that support first generation college students: A Purchase with a Purpose. In addition to donating cash to the programs shown in the link, we blessed low income students in Jacksonville, Boston, Indianapolis, Greensboro and the UK with approximately 500 backpacks.
If just 18% of our social media followers gave $5 we would be able to purchase the initial inventory for back to school 2018 but we would also be able to begin offering inventory to retailers in local markets. We would also be able to order our inventory well in advance so that we can ship freight instead of air.
We appreciate your help and consideration. Our goal is that every child of color is empowered as they attend school. Despite what Mainstream America says, it is important that they are taught to say "I Can Do Anything".
Organizer
Casey Raynell Kelley
Organizer
Jacksonville, FL
