DISCLAIMER: I started this blog on June 2017 but never finished. It’s now June 2020 and I’m trying to remember what happened to that business of mine when I was 22/23 years old.
I say that because it no longer exists, not because I ‘failed’ but because I got crazy busy with life and essentially got bored. I already profited and the competition sprouted like mushrooms. I still have a bunch of my items that I personally use and give away.
I wanted to created a how-to blog at first (2017 me) but I realized doing a story would be better (2020 me).
If you’re still interested, here’s the story of my little baseball cap business called ALL CAPS by Vector Sector!
The Big Idea
To create a business that sells baseball caps exclusively.
Coming up with a business plan
- Learn how to be an entrepreneur
- Write down all ideas
- Ready my initial capital – Php 30,000
- Research the industry
- Look for competitors
What I did and came up with:
- I found a lot of competitors but there’s only one that sells the main product that I will be selling – bingo!
- The market is not too saturated – having no competitors at all can also be a bad thing
- I wrote all the ideas in Google Sheets
Coming up with a name & logo
- Research
- Imagination
- Business
Creating a website
- Shopify
- WordPress
Getting products and supplier
- Research the types and kinds of caps to sell
- Look for the best suppliers
- Ask myself if I really want to sell them
What I came up with:
- I found suppliers from China through Aliexpress
- I found suppliers near our town (thankfully)
- I found designs to print on the caps
- I want to buy a printing machine in the future – Never happened!
- I want to create my own designs and stick ‘em in the cap – Almost happened!
What I did wrong:
- I bought designs from Inkydeals worth $25 which I didn’t actually use up until now
- I bought a lot of materials (felt cloths, needles, glue, etc.) because I wanted to do things nobody has done before – to customize baseball caps. – In hindsight, I should’ve stayed on track
Pricing
- 40-60% mark up – I based my pricing on the quality of my cap and the fact that I had about 1-3 competitors at the time
- While I do want to price them as high as I want, I know that people can be cheap sometimes. But since I know that the market is not all too saturated, I want to be THAT store that sells high-quality or even a luxury product.
Registering it to DTI
- This is pretty straightforward. Just go to the DTI website and register and pay for your chosen business name.
Sorry for that mess! Everything below is written by the present me in June 2020. I may have forgotten some details but here goes!
Creating a name
- I honestly am not proud of what I came up with but I changed it 3 times
- From All Caps to Vector Sector to All Caps by Vector Sector
- The Vector Sector sounds ghetto for me at the time and as I mentioned I wanted to customize and add vector designs on the caps. Looking back, it wasn’t the best name and I still cringe with the final name I used.
Buying domain and hosting
- I used Shopify at first but it wasn’t sustainable as they have a monthly fee and I had very little capital to start with.
- I bought my domain and hosting from ZOOM PH but I recommend using SiteGround for your hosting needs!
- I created a website via WordPress and bought a theme from ThemeForest. The domain I used is allcapsvs.com (LOL)
Creating FB and IG accounts
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vs.allcapsph/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/allcapsphcom/
Notice the difference in usernames/handles. I was really inconsistent with my branding and I know that’s a mistake I should never repeat.
The amount of effort I did for all the images and captions I posted is INSANE – at least for me! I strive to be a premium product so I also edit my own photos and shoot a TON of product images that I deem high quality for my taste.
Some “business owners” stole my pictures and promote them as their own. Sadly, you cannot really get away from shady business owners.
Growing social media audience
- I used a secret tool (they’ve gone private) to help me grow my Instagram following. No, I didn’t buy my followers – I only have 2,500! haha. It’s just a tool to help me automate things but I also did a lot of the manual stuff like following my competitors’ followers, follow the relevant hashtags, and messaging potential customers.
- I did some Facebook ads for my page but as I said, I only have a little capital so I never consumed Php 1000 for the number of followers I have. I didn’t try to grow my followings, instead, I used the engagement campaign to promote my products. The likes/follows just came along with that campaign, the rest are organic.
From online to offline – being part of physical stores
- Usually, you’ll get messages from concept store owners asking you to be a part of their team. Be wary and check whether it’s actually worth it. Foot traffic is important!
- I was part of 3 concept stores, the first one in Quezon City. It was a loss as I’m paying more on my monthly rent than I earn. I stopped in my 3rd month.
- My 2nd concept store was a huge success in terms of sales. I am profiting and regularly going there to refill my stocks. Sadly, the management isn’t great and they ended up scamming a lot of sellers including me. Meaning, they didn’t give out the profits we had for the last 3 months.
- My 3rd concept store was just ok. It was in front of UST and I do get some profits but it was at a point that I am tired and not interested in continuing the business anymore. 🙁 I also switched jobs at this time and was really busy with other things.
Overall, being part of concept stores felt like I was doing legit business. It has its ups and downs but it was a great experience for a newbie seller like myself.
Switching from a website to another marketplace: SHOPEE
- Shopee!!! Ok, Shopee is the main reason for my ‘success’ (
sabihin mo salamat Shopee) - I redirected all my Instagram and Facebook promotions and transactions to Shopee.
- Shopee is relatively new at the time as I started my business in 2016 and Shopee launched in the Philippines in 2015. There were no Chinese competitors so it was easy getting recognized.
When I learned that Shopee offers free shipping for both the buyers and the sellers, I knew it was the best choice for me as a small business owner who’s also working in an office full time.
I think I was on Shopee for 6 months more or less and got a total of 159 orders, some of those are single orders while most are 2-10 pcs per order.
The total income of my little store is Php 107,501: 40-50% of that would be my profit counting only the capital for the items I sell.
While that may be a small amount, a lot of my buyers are store owners who contact me directly and buy bulk orders – about 20-100 pcs of baseball caps. There was a point when I decided to switch from being a B2C to B2B. Meaning, I’ll be the main distributor for all these sellers.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t as successful as most of my competitors already have their own suppliers. And again, it was when I am losing my interest and doing other things in life.
My Shopee seller account has a 4.8 rating from all the 112 buyers! It was a really fun and fulfilling experience for me.
While I do have about ~50k in profits from Shopee and another ~80k from other sources in about a year of business, the most expensive one for me is my labor.
The photoshoots, editing, marketing, customer service, packing, labeling, and shipping out of all of the orders. It was an exhausting period and I don’t think I can do it again at this point. I had a lot of sleepless nights and my regular job (and other freelance jobs) are already affected. I thank my youth for the amount of energy I possess at the time.
The bad side of Shopee – not their fault
When I started Shopee, I don’t really have competitors. But a month or two after, it was as if I blinked and I have 10 competitors selling the same thing, only cheaper. The difference is that their items are of low quality. I know from the photos as I also had the types of baseball caps they sell and they didn’t fit my standards! But the buyers don’t really know that. It was only a matter of time before the competitors find my supplier and buy from them directly.
My dilemma at the time is that I can only lower my prices if I buy a LOT of my products from the supplier. I am already importing more or less 200 items per order. I order once or twice a month. As a small business, the import taxes harm my revenue and it was a discouraging factor of doing a buy and sell business in the Philippines.
What I learned
The truth is, the main reason why I created this is to boost my credibility as a Digital Marketer. I also love to create my own business so I figured to put my ideas into a thing.
My strategy is to build a business from scratch and promote it using my 2-year Digital Marketing experience. (I started the biz when I was 22, 2 years after uni)
I was inconsistent and I wanted to do so many things at the same time. I lost a lot of sleep doing everything by myself too. I definitely could handle it if I was doing it full time but I cannot leave my work then as it was a risky move.
I wanted to prove how social media can help small businesses. I wanted to prove how digital marketing can boost and grow businesses from scratch. And I proved it!
All in all, I can say that my little business was a success. I learned a lot doing this in less than one year.
I developed a lot of soft skills. I also enhanced my digital marketing skills. Application is definitely better than just knowing. Better put your knowledge into an actual thing.
Now, almost 4 years after I started that, I am at a better place. I still LOVE and still a Digital Marketing student. There’s a lot of things to learn as it changes every month or so.
I continuously learn and strive to come up with other ideas that I can learn from and earn from!
My passion project is Gabay.ph (I have others as well but they weren’t as successful so it’s best not to mention them haha) I do not earn from Gabay.ph but I have done a lot of SEO and content materials for that website.
I currently have a new affiliate site which I will share with you next time, too!
Thank you for reaching this far! Let me know if you need help with your business! 🙂