BP11: More Works Created
23rd and 28th July 2019
This post is a quick update of what our group did recently.
Within the week, our team came together a few times to product a couple more designs, which I have to say, looks much, much better than the products we created in the beginning. Credits to Jiacheng, Sindy and Kimmy for coming up with many of the ideas in the designs too.
Other than being the "LED-Lights Master" for our products, One thing which I helped alot on was on Photography. Again, these photos act as our target customer's only way to know how good our products look, so we took effort to ensure the photos really show off the looks of our products. From choosing the right scenery background for the photo, to going on prone position (yes, Army skills finally put to use) on the floor to give the camera a better angle, we did whatever we could to ensure the photos stand out, yet are a realistic look of the products we make.
Here are some photos of us in action!
And Yes, we are using the awesome camera in the...*Drumroll*. Samsung Galaxy Note 9!
We initially wanted to use a DSLR, however we felt the colours captured by the smartphone were more vivid, sharp enough, and represented our products very well. It also helps that the post-processing of photos is also much easier, since we can use good photography apps, such as Snapseed to make the image even more realistic looking.
Not Convinced? See some of the results from this photoshoot below. As usual, more of our these photos can be found on our online shopping Platform, Carousell
From our First Meetup (23rd July 2019)
From our 2nd Meetup (28th July 2019)
Plus: Sourcing Woes
Asset light has its benefits, but the downfall is...dealing with OUT OF STOCK materials
Before I met with the team to continue work on these products, I helped the team to try and source more of the containers using the standard cylindrical design, as we wanted to create a few more products and designs using that particular type of glassware. The picture on the right is the type of bottle we were looking for, as we are running low on stock (we initially only bought 8 (For initial prototyping and new products), and were left with 4 of these jars).
Unfortunately, on my next visit to the supplier, I was informed that the jars we bought were his last shipment, citing low demand. As our sales are not large enough to request them to consider bringing in more jars, once we run out of our current inventory of jars, we will have to change our designs, utilizing our alternative supplier's jars (the Circular bowls you see in the products in the above photoshoot).
Fortunately, the jar that is no longer brought in is a model that hasn't really been selling well, so it is not a huge loss that this model has been discontinued for now.
This is the reality of such a business, which utilizes materials from different suppliers. As a startup which is relatively cash-strapped and low market awareness, we cannot order enough jars to fulfill the Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) requirements of some suppliers. Hence we can only indicate our interest for the materials we want, and the decision is up to these suppliers to make them available if they'd like to. Our best contingency plan would be alternative suppliers, which is what we will continue to use for the remainder of our business project.
