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Hi Reader,

I've been following along and trading expertise with Proof to Product, Katie Hunt's wholesale strategy community, for years. I was very interested to see her State of the Product Industry survey results come in, and wanted to share a few insights with you.

Katie surveyed 925 retail businesses to get the lay of the land when it comes to retail in 2024. I'm guessing there are a lot of stationery and gift brands in here, since that's where she focuses. Here were a few observations that I found intriguing:

Email marketing is an under utilized marketing method for survey participants. Online retail and online wholesale were ranked as the two of the most profitable revenue streams, both of which rely heavily on digital marketing for sales. Brands without websites and/or those who are not sending emails are leaving money on the table and missing out on sales.
The money comes when your business foundations are strong. And, that can take time and patience. Established businesses (6+ years) with larger teams and diverse revenue streams skew higher in annual revenue, take-home pay and sustainable work hours.
Business owners are overwhelmed and having trouble “keeping up with all the things”. Leveraging people and tech could reduce work hours & overwhelm while also enhance productivity and profitability. But, investing in people, processes and tech tools can be tough when budgets and time are tight.

I'd add that brands that have just scratched the surface of email marketing and website optimization are also leaving money on the table. Especially those established brands with larger teams.

"Good enough" is just not good enough when you have a solid customer base. Any improvement you can make to your website can increase revenue and make any paid advertising you're doing pay off richly.

That's where we come in! If you want to leverage the Aeolidia team to enhance the profitability of your established business, please email me back so we can do a quick review of your site and make some suggestions that will prepare your shop for a busy holiday shopping season.

Want to read all the details from the survey about revenue, sales channels, tech, team, growth trajectory and more for 925 brands like yours?

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Q&A

Here's a reader question about consignment, from Chrystal, as answered by Arianne Foulks, Founder and Captain of our team:

Q: Crystal asks: "I wonder if you could help a client of mine. It's a consignment store that doesn't have an e-store presence just yet. The owner has a lot of concern about selling one of a kind products. If someone buys it at 3am... and then someone shows up when they open at 10am to also buy it off the rack - we have a problem. Have you encountered any such shops that have had success with online + in-person retail, with single item inventories?"

A: I would recommend using Shopify and Shopify's Point of Sale system. She will have her inventory in-store and online synced if she uses their POS (Shopify also integrates with most other popular POS platforms, if she already has one she likes). That way, as soon as someone buys something online, she can get a notification and remove it from the store shelves. And as soon as someone buys a product in store, it will automatically be removed from the website.

The only issue I can see with this is if she and her staff aren't able to respond quickly enough to online sales. If someone buys a product online at 10am and they don't remove it from the shelves (or who knows, maybe someone already has it in a dressing room or in their physical cart!), I suppose someone could bring the same product up to the counter at 10:15am and she'd have to decide which person to disappoint.

My concern, in addition to inventory, is that it takes time to photograph products well for online shops. If all of her items are one of a kind, the expense of hiring a professional photographer or spending your own time taking photos will cut into your profit margin for each product. For this reason, it probably only makes sense to put higher priced items online, unless her pricing for all items accounts for the time to photograph, write a description, and do the data entry of adding the product to the site.

Don't forget shipping, which adds cost to selling online. She can decide whether to pass that cost on to her online customers, and how much, but stores that are just starting to sell online need to find space and a workflow for the supplies and manual labor that go into packaging products to ship.

Question: Answered

Our team includes experts in branding, design, development, email & SMS/text marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, conversion optimization, ecommerce strategy, business growth and more. Email me back with your question! I'll consult one of our experts and share one response per week over email.

Interesting Clickables

⚓️ Read past issues of Aeolidia's newsletter here

Wolf Craft is hosting their final holiday gift guide workshop on July 30th. This event is free, registration is required.
If you live in the UK and recently opened a shop (from 2023) or are thinking of opening one this year, you can win £5,000 to stock your shelves with unique and inspiring products on Faire.
UPPERCASE magazine has extended their recent call for submissions until this Friday, if you have something you'd like to share in print.

Latest Aeolidia Launch

A Shopify website for The Flaunt.

The Flaunt is an online boutique offering carefully curated handmade accessories and fashion pieces from family-owned brands around the globe. We worked with owner, Ava, to polish her brand and present a luxe look to her customers, while sorting out some issues with email deliverability.

SHOP THE SITE