G'day everyone! My name is Mat, and I'm a 16 year old entrepreneur from Australia. I've recently made contact with my supplier over in China to create for me my own brand of consumer electronics. I've started off with some USB flash drives. I've only got 1 size made up which is 8 GB. I will be selling them in the near future for around $22-$25AUD which is even below the average price on eBay! I want to create brand awareness before I actually markup the products too much. I'll still be making money with each sale, just not as much as I could. I'm wondering how would I go about creating this brand awareness? I've already thought of selling them cheap at the beginning. Another idea was to give a few away to big technology websites, where they will actively promote my brand, and they will give them away to their readers. I might also try sell them here at DP with a few discounts. Other than that, I'm stuck. Hopefully I'll be able to get in contact with retail stores for them to stock the item, but with my age, I doubt that would happen - but I may give it a go. I plan on selling them on my own site and on eBay. Any comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. You can find below some pictures of my USB flash drives, with the logo designed by DigitalPoint's own watari. Thank you
You have some really good ideas to get your name out there. That's how Callaway grew their product. Even though they were told it was an explored market, they gave their clubs to executives for free and since they play golf so often to network, their quality and brand propagated through word fast. Depending on your volume, try contacting some online computer retailers and offer to send some of your thumbdrives to consumers who buy their products for free to supplement your reviews idea. Just make sure your marketing expenses fit your cash flow statement and you'll be fine
Thanks for your comments and suggestions! I thought about contacting online retailers, but have no idea who or how to get in touch with these people. Any suggestions? And I've also studied Accounting for around 18 months, so all the accounting is being done properly
The price is slight lower than market price but does you count in other cost such as shipping cost/storage cost/overhead cost etc. And it will add up the thumb drive price. Beside that,currently the pen drive price is quick changing with time. I still remember last time i bought a 1GB thumb drive for $100 then next month the price drop to $50. Other than that,consumer now prefer branded thumb drive such as kingston
Thanks When determining the selling price of my USB drives, I had to take into consideration those characteristics, so the price I mentioned, includes those overheads. As for shipping, the charges are quite low and will keep the final price below market price. Also, this thread is for suggestions as to how to promote my brand so that consumers will buy my product because it's a 'branded thumb drive'. I'm trying to get to the point where z0r is a trusted Australian consumer electronics brand. I always keep an eye on current market trends, so that in the unlikely event the price drops by 100% in a month, I'll know about it before hand Key Selling Points: Stylish design Low prices (lowest Kingston, 8GB USB is $32 and is hell ugly.) Thanks for the advice. Keep it coming
Wow you studied accounting for 18 months before/while you were 16? Impressed...A lot further ahead than I was. I wouldn't make it harder than it really is. Just contact online retailers' marketing department (by phone preferably) and articulate your goals and how it would also benefit them. This is called cross marketing. Also, a byproduct of this may be that if they like your product and develop a good rapport with them, they will carry your product in the future. Hope this helps!
To be honest there's very little anyone can suggest: you seem to have done all your research and found out some great ways of marketing. But, yeah, still try and expand that idea about asking big websites to review it. Depending on how much you can afford, make promotional codes for the websites you send it too, then you can see which websites are successful and keep it in mind for future projects. Also, remember you can't sell physical goods on DP
If you are only 16 and in the process of creating your own consumer brand in electronic then the medias would possibly be interested in your story.and this could be an opportunity to create some brand awareness, next maybe you could get retailers to stock.
I would say the best thing you could possibly do is: -Get into contact with big online technology review blogs such as cnet and try to get them to review your product, this will generate lots of sales providing the review is good! Preferably contact them via phone because emails can get buried or ignored! -Buy some blog posts about your item here at DP on some large technology blogs. -Get into contact with online retailers and try to get them to purchase your product, again via phone! -Post videos on youtube about your pen-drive, reviews etc... -Try selling some to your friends etc.. so they can help spread the word Also let me tell you the price is brilliant I have just purchased a 4gb pendrive online for £14.99 delivered so a 8gb pen drive for $22 is great value! One more important thing use your pendrive in public such as college university etc.. because people might come up to you and say nice pen drive where did you buy that from?? You can say .......... and you can generate some sales! That's all I can think of good luck
Great to see a young guy with business ideas. and you made it happen. your product is ready for sale. really cool. But my advice is, as somebody mentioned above, it is an exploded market. and your brand is very new and what you can offer to the customers is the low prices than the average. so the reduction in the price is the only attraction as of now. ZOR is a good brand name, but the product seems lacks of finishing. take my advice in a very good sense. And as you told, its very difficult to get the resellers for the new brands. you have to convince them about it, that you can't handle alone. so what you need is some good marketing team, ( you can avail their service for a specific target like campagin should reach 3 million customers, or a targeted marketing like small advt in hardware/technology magazines). a good marketing strategy only can boost your sales. the products are failing not because of the large price or less quality, rather ppl are not aware about that, or they can't reach the customers. So i think you need to get in touch with a good marketing consultants. we would also help you to develop your marketing strategies ( we are not marketing people, so we will not charge for that ). and wish you all the best in your business.
Find as many consumer electronic review sites as you can and contact them. Offer to send them a free drive to keep if they will review it for you on their blog. I would imagine that a bunch of the smaller ones would be more than willing to do this as you will make them feel special and like they are growing as a blog if you are contacting them and asking for a review. Very impressive that you are starting your own company at the age of 16. Oh the joys of our technology driven world. Best of luck
Thank you everyone for your suggestions, comments and constructive critisizm Thanks, I studied accounting since the middle of last year till now. It comes in handy when doing the financial sector of my business plan. Thanks for the suggestions and comments. I have tried to do as much research as possible in order to create a successful brand. However, everything looks better on paper then it does in the real world. I agree with you, however I don't want to base majority of my marketing by focusing on my age. Thanks. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. Many great ideas which I may implement. Thanks for the positive comments. I agree with you to a certain extent. It is an exploded market online, but offline in Australia it's very much a monopoly. Offering a very reduced price in Australian retail stores is going to be a great incentive to consumers who don't necessarily shop online for bargains. Not to be bias or arrogant here, but looking at some of the available USB drives, they're quite ugly. I know some people do not care about the looks, as long as it works, but mine does both. Great price, great looks, great speed - all you need I'm not sure if you meant the brand or the word, so I'll explain both. Z0R (brand): z0r is an Australian consumer electronics brand, dedicated to providing you with quality products at the lowest prices. Z0R (word): It is yet to be put into any 'official' dictionary, although theurbandictionary.com defines it as: z0r: To add leetness to a word. Thanks for the well wishes. I plan to do some of your suggestions, hopefully it will work out. Thanks guys!
I didn't mean anything in particular but thats what people are going to be asking when they see your logo on an item. What is different about you? What does having Zor on my usb drive mean? When people are going to glance over in the uni library at other peoples usb drives which is what I do they are going to be wondering "what is zor?"