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Plant a Tree for a purchase
Hi Nigel,
It's great to hear your interest. As you suggested I will share more of our story within the sustainability thread. For all other this is following on from:
http://www.startupsmart.com.au/groups/startupsmart/networking/56-tell-us-about-your-start-up.html
Firstly Toby and I really believed there was a gap in the fast delivery of nappies to parents. With the aim being to take a loss on the nappies, but secure their trust through fast and reliable delivery and soon expand into supplying higher margin items (e.g. strollers, car seats and baby food). It is through this model we will create a sustainable business that serves a real need.
However, we hesitated on the idea for some time as we were not so keen on supplying nappies when 2.2 million are disposed into landfill everyday in Australia. There were many other ideas we were interested in and we are both big fans of the business model pioneered by TOMS shoes (give away a pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair purchased). We ran through many ideas in this "one for one model" but eventually settled on the idea of planting a tree for every purchase.
As a two person capital strapped start up it was inpractical to physically plant each tree ourselves and we did not feel this would allow the planting to have the greatest impact. We were lucky enough to come across Plant With Purpose who have been nothing short of wonderful to partner with. In order to save space the impact tree planting has in these selected communities is best described by PWP: https://www.plantwithpurpose.org/about
We hope to market our product through creating a community of our customers. The channels we are starting with include email marketing, Facebook, our blog and emphasising to the customer how available we are to talk over the phone - currently our lines are open 6am-6pm, however we are looking to expand the hours to include weekends.
We are by no means experts in marketing our eco-strategy. At this stage we are just trying to get the story of MyNappies.com.au heard. We get a very positive reponse from customers and our sites metrics are looking very solid. Our current problems are how best to communicate our message, getting traffic to our site and converting customers.
Do you have any thoughts or strategies on the above? What is your background?
Jason
Firstly, congratulations on a great looking website.
Your post above and your website create a few questions for me.
Firstly, its very philanthropic for you to base your business on a 'buy one - give one away' model. Forgetting the environmental issues for now, this model may not be totally sustainable in a business sense. Now I realise you are not quite doing that in reality, your business philosophy is to give back to the needy, and big kudos to you guys for doing this. A couple of pointers on this though.
1. You'll need a well thought out pricing strategy to achieve this in reality. Many new businesses lose sight of their business objectives trying to make a difference. While its very commendable to 'give', it needs to be in a sustainable fashion. That is, you need to make a profit in order to keep giving. Do you have a pricing strategy based on market research, turnover, cost analysis and a breakeven point? And, do you have a financial strategy to take you into the future?
2. On what level is your business competing for the nappy dollar? Do you know which features and benefits your customers are looking for and whether they will bend? For example, some consumers will pay more for better quality, faster delivery or to help the environment. I can see you are promoting your competitive edge on price, delivery, customer service and the environment. This seems a very broad approach, also be careful how you compete on price. You need to know what your margin is.
I would imagine that for many families these days, helping the environment and third world communities is high on their list. After all, disposable nappies is a sensitive issue. I would say that many parents are actively looking for eco options when purchasing nappies. Unfortunately, on your website, your mission is tucked away on another page. I'd make that more visible and descriptive on your home page. I had a quick look at some competing sites and while MyNappies didn't appear in my google searches (hope you're working on your SEO) many sites had no eco features while some provided just eco products. Also I felt your website was far more professional in appearance than the others I saw.
Just to finish, was that an intentional pun, where, on your website you refer to your Mission as 'Our Movement'... lol
Nigel Smith