Fruits & Flowers Case Study

Case Study Fruits & Flowers Apparel Co.

Presented by: Melissa Nieuwenhuis Fall 2020 University of Wisconsin Stevens Point

Full Case Study for: Fruits & Flowers Apparel Company print-on-demand apparel brand and e-commerce business Launch Date January 2021 fruitsandflowersapparelco.com

Fruits & Flowers Apparel Company Case Study by Melissa Nieuwenhuis Photography from pexels.com and placeit.com

Fruits & Flowers Apparel Company Case Study, 2020 Copyright 2020 by Melissa P. Design, Incorporated, Wausau, Wisconsin 54403

All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher

Created for ART 410 Advanced Study in Graphic Design Processes University of Wisconsin — Stevens Point

Printed by lulu.com

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Case Study Fruits & Flowers Apparel Co. Fruitsandflowersapparelco.com

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08 12 15 23 Overview & Introductions

6

Design Brief

Project Research

Brand Development

35 43 51 56 Creating Products

Building the Storefront

Social Media Marketing

Appendix

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Overview Fruits & Flowers Apparel Company is an e-commerce small business apparel brand that sells plant-related apparel. This ranges to everything from gardening, growing houseplants, or just enjoying nature. Fruits & Flowers sells t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats and more. The company utilizes the print-on-demand method of merchandising, which means there is no accumulated stock or warehouse; the apparel is created after the customer places an order, and is shipped directly to them from the manufacturer.

This company was created to delve into the world of starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur through a relatively risk-free venture.

Ultimately, the goal of this project is for it to one day support itself (profit > expenses) and to raise funds for others in need. Although this company was created and maintained by a sole individual, if it continues to grow, it could also come to a point where other designers and creators could be hired to build a complete Fruits & Flowers team.

This project includes many layers, including the development of a brand, a creation of a successful marketing strategy, the design of a digital storefront, merchandise design and development, copy writing budgeting and more. Each piece of the puzzle is able to come together to become a successful business.

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Details Case Study By Melissa Nieuwenhuis Duration September 2020—December 2020 16 weeks Project Title Fruits & Flowers Apparel Company

Stakeholders Melissa Nieuwenhuis Fruits & Flowers Apparel Co. Founder Matt Groshek University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point Reviewer Grant Grabow University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point Design Consultant Hayden Juneau University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point Business Consultant Carla Nieuwenhuis UMR / United Health Care Investor

Process •

Project Ideation

•

Website Design

•

Research

•

Advertising Strategies

•

Brand Development

•

Store Launch

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Project Intention “This project stemmed from a constant dismissal of personal endeavors

bound to bring all sorts of responsibilities so I felt it wasn’t the time to

to pursue the needs of others. Oftentimes, we find ourselves so engaged

take on such an endeavor. That wasn’t until I was given the opportunity

in work and school that we forget about our own passion projects and

to pursue an individually lead project for class.

dreams. This project is truly a passion project that dates back many months before its creation.

The question was; “what is design for good?”, to which I answered, after serious deliberation, was along the lines of “whatever makes you happy”.

Spring of 2020, COVID-19 rocked the worlds of every individual on the

I saw myself completing projects and tasks for others that brought me no

planet. No longer did we attend classes or go to work. The world shut its

joy, but this passion project kept me excited through the tough times. I

doors overnight and the dread set in. I would look at my bank account

also appreciated the idea of being self sufficient, and always seek to find

and then back at my bills and realized there was no way I was going to

ways to help myself move forward. I knew this was the project I needed

be able to pay for them. Working for the University of Wisconsin - Stevens

to complete. I had enough initial knowledge to create a pitch for this

Point was a blessing and a curse during this time. Designing for the

idea, and thus Fruits & Flowers Apparel Company was born.

marketing team, our job was to create promotional material for special events happening on campus. But overnight, every event was canceled and we were left with no work. On top of that, because we are considered “student workers”, we are unable to apply for unemployment. This left me realizing I needed to come up with a plan to make money, and fast.

I am blessed to have a family who helped support me financially during much of this time, but I still needed a way to pay them back. I began researching ways to make money Online. I found many examples of endeavors a person could take on to make some extra cash, but one seemed to fit my skill set best, and that was creating apparel designs. I continued to research and came up with initial ideas and designs for a business that didn’t exist yet.

As the summer of 2020 continued I was able to put my effort into other functions. I had acquired another position as a student designer that helped me fill some of my time. I have also been a photographer since 2017 with a good handful of clients who hired me to take photos, as well as some new clientele. This was a great way for me to make some money on the side. On top of these projects, I was given a few opportunities to work for UWSP again, though nothing like the amount of work I should have been doing.

Well, at least the initial idea of it.

There would be many unapparent obstacles that would arise as I began to research and begin creating this company. Each and every challenge pushed me one step closer to success.

Starting a small business from the ground up is a daunting task, but it also served as a valuable learning experience. Though this project, I learned the steps of creating a business plan, building a brand, creating marketing materials and merchandise designs, and launching a business.

I was able to teach myself the basics of becoming an entrepreneur with the help of a few knowledgeable folks. The knowledge I learned can help me in the figure out if I would like to start other small businesses.

From my initial ideation of this project I sought to ask myself the question; How do you create and grow a successful, Online print on demand business?

To answer this question, I needed to learn how and what is needed to start a small business, how to use a print-on-demand service, how to sell on an online storefront platform and how to market a company brand.” — M. Nieuwenhuis, 2020

I continued working for others to get things done but kept this apparel company idea in mind until the start of the fall semester. Senior year was

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Design Brief Profile I am currently a University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point Senior, majoring in graphic design. With my schooling soon to be over in the next few months, I am seeking to create a project that can sustain me if I am without a job, and can also act as a passive income venture to make some extra money on the side. I am a capable designer with 2 years of marketing experience and numbers of freelance and school projects. I know my way around social media and online programs, and am also fluent in the Adobe Suite.

Project Goals This company I am proposing aims to grow as an entity and generate sales. Along with selling products, this company should become a brand that people will become aware of and follow. This will help it grow.

This company will revolve around plants and all the hobbies people are involved in with them, including gardening, raising houseplants, and living sustainably. As the company continues to grow, I hope to be able to donate to organizations in need that go along with the brand, including organizations that are preserving nature and wildlife, and encouraging people to live more sustainable lifestyles.

Target Demographic Our target audience for this project is young women ages 16-25 in America who are involved in some way with plants. By choosing this demographic, we are able to tailor our products to this demographic and the trends they are involved in.

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Timeframe Though the majority of this project will be completed in a 16-week period between September and December 2020, the store will not launch until early 2021. This is due to the holiday season and not wanting to make false claims of shipping products before the holidays.

Budget On a budgetary standpoint, we are organizing our fees as so. To pay for various online aspects of this project, we are looking at a total price of $45 a month, plus $14 for the first month. This will cover the domain purchase (a fee of $14 each year) and the online platforms we are using (Shopify’s basic monthly plan is $30 a month and Placeit.com the chosen mockup generator is $15 a month).

On top of these fees, our lead designer and project manager will be paid for this project. Working at $23 an hour, Nieuwenhuis will receive payment for 20 hours of work each week, totaling $7,360 for the 16 week period. Any work done past this 16 week period is considered pro bono.

Design Inspiration This business is to have a very organic and feminine personality. It should remind its consumers of outdoors and encourage them to purchase the products. Shades of green should be prominent, and lots of images of different types of plants and their shapes and textures.

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Project Research Before its creation, hours of research were conducted as how, what, and where this project would be. This research helped decide what the business would sell, where it would sell its product, how that product would be made, how this company would be advertised, what this company would look like, and so on. This research helped better understand how this project would progress and what was needed to make it so.

Read further for detailed information about the research conducted. Sources for this research are presented on page 57.

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Business Ideation Before deciding what this business would sell, extensive research was

their product. Also, it doesn’t take any specific knowledge to purchase

done on how to create and sell a product. Knowing that the stakeholders

and use a physical item, which we will learn is not the same for digital

in this business didn’t have the means or funds to create a business in

items. Physical items also have some downfalls. For physical products,

which the company creates the product it sells, and the main creator is

you must learn the ins and outs of shipping and returns, which can

a full time student, we started to delve into the world of Online passive

be frustrating and cost you more money than you intended. You also

income ventures. Passive income is a term used to describe income

accumulate a stock when selling physical products, which can be hard to

derived from an enterprise in which a person is not actively involved.

sell if you can’t find someone to purchase your items. While accumulating

One of the most common examples of this is investing in stocks and

this stock, you are also spending money up front to get the products

bonds. Online, passive income businesses often look like drop shipping/

your customers need.

print on demand stores (where you are collecting sales of a product for another company and gaining a bit of revenue), or stores that sell digital

Digital products have their pros and cons as well. Digital products can

assets (once the product is created, an infinite number of consumers

look like downloadable posters, prints, templates, SVG/cutting files,

can purchase it without the seller doing anything else).

fonts, presets/filters, and more. These are products a consumer cannot hold in their hands, but can find useful for other reasons. Many times, a

Online businesses also pose a variety of benefits verses a brick and

customer knows what they are looking for instead of just stumbling on

mortar company. With little funds to invest in the company, online works

your product and making a purchase. This means that sales are much

much better than renting out or purchasing a space. The average digital

lower and you have more competition to worry about, as well as others

storefront program sells its services for $50, verses the thousands of

copying your designs and selling them as well. Also, because there is

dollars you would pay for renting a building. Also, once you are located

no physical object, most consumers aren’t willing to spend more than

in a building, you are limited to selling your products to consumers in

a few dollars on your product, so you must sell much more to make a

your area. If you move that business online, you open up the option of

profit. To be successful with a digital product store, having lots of options

shipping to almost every corner of the world, meaning you will make

at a fair price and advertising well is the best way to turn a profit. There

more sales reaching a wider range of customers.

are some notable pros to digital products as well. With digital products, there is no stock (unless you count your computer storage as the storage

So what types of products should be sold? There are two key types of

facility for your products), there is no shipping and no returns. Products

products we focused on; physical products and digital products. Physical

are also less work to create and maintain because they are one and

products are what most online shoppers are looking to purchase. Many

done. You can make one asset and sell it thousands of times over again.

people jump on amazon to find what they need. Clothing, games, toys, makeup, furniture, and even food can be purchased online. Physical

So after all this research and understanding the pros and cons of each

products are popular among small business owners because you are

type of business, we posed the question; can you do both? Is there a

able to turn a much higher profit than a digital item. It is also easier to

method of creating a digital product and sell a physical good?

promote and market a physical item, as the consumer can see and feel

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Digital Products

Physical Products

Instructional E-Books

Thrift Flips

Printables

Creating Art

Cutter Templates

DIY Apparel

Stock Photos

Dropshipping

Videos

Embroidery

Print on demand is a method of creating products to order. Individual products are created as the customer places the order, rather than in bulk.

Custom designs are created and uploaded to the manufacturers website, and when a sale is made on the digital storefront, that information is directly passed to the manufacturer, who then creates the product and ships it out to the purchaser, without the digital store doing anything.

Basically, the storefront is the middle man between the customer and the manufacturer, who collects whatever profits occur between them.

The customer pays the digital store, and the store pays the manufacturer.

This is a very popular and profitable means of producing goods, as it differs greatly from other e-commerce methods. There is never a stock accumulated, as products are only created when ordered. The designs are kept digitally, so they can be reproduced with ease. Once the design is created, it can be placed on any product and sold anywhere in the world. Popular print on demand items are shirts, mugs, hats, towels, pants, and more.

Print on demand is a great technique to utilize because it mixes the pros of both physical and digital products. There is no stock, no worrying about shipping items or returns, one asset can be sold thousands of times, and it can have a high profit margin (depending on what the store lists its prices at). Print on demand stores take very little money up front, and are able to easily grow and change. With hard work, they can be very successful business ventures.

Print on Demand Business Model 17

Digital Storefronts There are dozens of options for selling print-on-demand products online.

Various sites are created specifically to be the manufacturer, where others make you find your own printer and link your accounts between the storefront and the manufacturer.

Sites that pose as both seller and manufacturer include Teespring, Spreadship, Threadless, SellMyTees, Bonfire, Teepublic, Zazzle, Cagepress, and Redbubble.

In these cases, you are only the creator of the piece, and the site does the rest. Most of these sites are free to use, but offer limitations (only being able to list a certain amount of products, the types of products for sale). Oftentimes, sites like these are harder for you to get sales because you sit on the screen next to hundreds of other products they sell. Also, most of these sites take a large portion of profits because they are doing most of the footwork; the advertising, the listing, the transactions, etc. In most of these cases, you are looking at making 10%-20% of the profits, the rest going to the company.

Another option is online marketplaces such as Etsy, Amazon and Ebay. These sites allow you to list your products on their marketplace for customers to search for. Technically, you can consider this an online business because you are dealing with linking to a manufacturer and have your own “page”, but you don’t own the site. You cannot control where your items get listed on a page of competing products. Oftentimes, the bestselling products sit at the top of the page, and it can be hard to get there. These sites will also take a decent portion of your profits because they are listing and promoting your product with them. For example, Etsy charges you .20c to list a product, along with a handful of transaction fees.

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The last and what we deemed best option for this company is using a website design platform with e-commerce capabilities. Included in this list are sites such as Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify. These sites are paid-per-month platforms where users use templates to create sites with all the e-commerce capabilities needed; transactions, shipping, advertising, etc. With these sites, the user purchases the domain and uses the site as the back-end creator. These sites charge their monthly fee and oftentimes a small transaction fee, but those are the only charges made to the user. These sites are the easiest to grow and promote because there is a specific domain tied to the site. Its not Etsy.com/mystore, its mystore.com. This makes the site look more credible and easier to find.

Also, compared to all others, these sites only hold your products. This means consumers won’t be directed to another sellers product if they want “related products”’, they will stay on your site and be directed to your other products. Overall, we found this to be the best way to grow a profitable business, and our chosen platform is Shopify.com After deciding on the store’s platform, we could begin exploring the tools Shopify has to offer and better understand how it functions. Just like learning any new platform, this takes time and is a continued process as this project moves forward.

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What is Needed?

Starting an online, print-on-demand is no small task. So in our research we posed the question; what is needed to start this online business?

There are many pieces that need to come together to create a successful and profitable company. Each of those pieces can be placed in one of four categories; branding, online presence, product, and legal forms.

Branding

Online Presence

For this business, we need a consistent brand along all sites. This brand

Because this is an online business, a big portion of the assets needed

is the look and feel of the company, and it has a certain personality we

relate to the online presence of the company. Many of those pieces are

want our consumers to catch. While most believe a brand to be only the

listed below, with a few outliers as technology continues to advance

logo, there are many important pieces that need to be created.

and change.

Business Name

Digital Storefront (Shopify)

Logo

Social Media Pages (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest)

Brand Style (typography, color scheme, photography style)

Domain Name

Target Audience/Personal/Niche

Mockups/Product Photos that are Brand Consistent

Purpose

SEO/Analytics/Reports

Mission Statement Tagline Brand Voice Brand Messaging (who you are, what you offer, why people should care)

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Product Of course, a product needs to be designed and created to sell. Along with the products, there is certain information needed to be successful.

Examples are listed below.

Developed Niche Product Designs Product Knowledge Chosen Products Competition Research

Legal Forms Starting a small business also comes with a fair amount of paperwork.

This category is an ongoing one as we learn how to make this venture legal and efficient.

Tax forms Small Business Forms Stakeholders Small Amount of Money to Invest Credit Card/Payment Plan

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Brand Development Before Fruits and Flowers came to be, extensive brainstorming and ideation was conducted to create its concept. With the endless possibilities of apparel brand niches and names, three weeks were taken to create and develop the perfect brand, including the business name, logo, color scheme, and design elements.

Along with the creation of this brand, a carefully written business plan was developed and revised. Prior to any products or online storefronts being made, a consistent brand is key, so we sought to do create that by taking important steps in the branding process.

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Niche Exploration A company’s niche is one of the most important aspects of a brand. A specific niche needs to be targeted in order to reach a certain demographic of consumers. Niche’s that are too broad often overwhelm the consumer or make them feel unimportant. Take a stores such as Target or Walmart.

They sell just about everything, but a customer doesn’t go there to buy everything. They don’t even look at everything usually, they seek out what they are looking for. If an apparel brand doesn’t target a specific niche or the niche is too broad, they will deal with a large amount of customers, but often those customers don’t return and don’t become loyal brand followers, as they have already purchased what they are looking for and the other products do not interest them.

On the flip side, targeting a niche that is too specific will not bring in as many sales. These companies will have a very limited amount of customers because the majority of people won’t want their products. For example, a store that sells apparel targeted at people who live in Wisconsin and enjoy the hobby of Duck Herding (a hobby involving leading ducks through obstacle courses), will most likely not sell very many shirts.

To create the niche for this company, a few ideas were tossed around.

Feedback was given by stakeholders in the company (Grabow, Juneau, Nieuwenhuis), until a final niche was decided upon. Lots of niches had already been done plenty of times, so standing out against those big competitors would be tough, but not impossible.

Artists Too broad, would need to narrow down to a specific art form or material. Already been done, lots of companies selling art related apparel.

Bachelorette Parties Good, but would be very seasonal and wouldn’t have returning customers. Would have to have lots of options for specific types of parties.

Outdoors Already been done, not specific enough.

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Fishing Good, but already been done.

Not too many good ideas for this topic.

Kayaking Good, but very specific types of people, also seasonal.

Family Reunions Good, no returning customers though. Also, need to have option to personalize.

Jesus/church Already been done by lots of companies.

Plants Good, only a few Esty shops selling this type.

Gardening Good, new demographic of young gardeners could be targeted.

Graphic Designers Very specific, probably wouldn’t sell too many unless they were great shirts. Also, need to be perfectly designed.

Girl Power Already been done.

Wisconsin Already been done, but good.

More for tourists than those living here.

Rivers/lakes Already been done, but good. Would have to also be targeted at state though.

Up North Already been done, most people buy up north clothing while they are up north, not online.

After careful deliberation, the chosen niche for this company would relate

After researching and

the gardening aspect and

to plants, including gardening, houseplants, and living sustainable. This

communicating with other

the houseplant aspect of the

niche doesn’t have any big competitors, but instead a few Esty shops

stakeholders about names,

brand. It also has a feminine,

selling items here and there. Also, this niche has the ability to grow with the

the name that had become

charming characteristic to it,

seasons. Gardening apparel can be launched in the spring and summer

the fan favorite was “Fruits &

which will work well with the

months, and winter plant related apparel in the colder times of the year.

Flowers”, as it captures both

demographic.

There are also a lot of topics that can branch off of these specific niches.

Business Name List:

There are hundreds of different types of houseplants to use as inspiration,

Roots & Shoots

Homegrown

and it can also be simplified. A houseplant parent can have only one

Sun & Soil

Fruits & Flowers

plant or hundreds, and the apparel can still apply to them. There are also

The Green Thumb

Sprout

all different types of gardening, and plants and foods that can be grown in a garden. There is sure to be something for everyone at this shop.

Also, if these topics don’t sell, many people are interested in nature and plants in nature, such as different types of wildflowers, trees, and mushrooms. Along with the theme of plants, apparel can be created that touches on the importance of environmentally conscious behaviors and the pollinators. Conserving nature and its animals is vital, and is it a growing topic that just continues to expand. Apparel can also be created and used as a way to raise money for these organizations that are preserving nature.

From there, the stakeholders began brainstorming brand names for this company. We wanted the brand to relate to plants somehow, but also sound eloquent and poised. The name needed to reflect the friendliness of the brand, and its soft nature. These needs would relate to the logo and wordmark as well, but coming up with the name is one of the most important part of the branding process.

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Branding After coming up with a niche and brand name, it was time to begin branding Fruits and Flowers. Initially, we began by collecting inspiration for the brand and built a brand board, containing some important colors, textures, and personalities of the brand.

The organic shapes found in leaves of plants were an important concept to bring into the brand. Not very many things in nature are perfectly straight or squared off, so the brand should also capture that.

We were also able to gather some key colors for the brand through the use of related imagery. Greens were important, as well as a contrasting warm color such as red (like the tomatoes shown to the right).

After pulling out powerful colors, we were able to create the color pallet shown below, which we would implement in everything from website, to the social media accounts, and the apparel itself.

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From there, we began sketching out logo designs for Fruits & Flowers.

We sought to keep this organic, feminine look in our sketches. Many of our initial sketches included drawings of leaves, fruits and other plants.

After a few notable sketches were selected, we brought it into illustrator and created an official logo and word mark for the brand. We opted for a flowy, line drawing for our logo as it is quite organic and feminine and also captures the idea of the brand.

We tried out various typefaces to go along with the brand as well. We ended up going to P22 Stickley Pro, a serif font with organic lines and varying thicknesses in its letter forms. Complimenting typefaces were chosen also, and these faces will be used on other material such as social media posts. Many of the complimenting typefaces are sanserif fonts that work well with the serif nature of the wordmark.

SUBTEXT Arial Regular

Fruits & Flowers P22 Stickley Pro

Acumin Pro Thin

subtext serif

Mrs Eaves Roman All Petite

Display

A P PA R E L

Tracking 200

C O .

Sub-Sub Text Quicksand Light

Tracking 450

Caligraphic Text Braisetto Regular

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Final Brand

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Marketing Survey After the brand was created, we needed to better gauge the needs and wants of Fruits & Flowers chosen demographic, which is mainly 16—25 year-old girls, to see how to handle the project. An 18 question survey was conducted asking a variety of related questions. 74% of the responses were in this target demographic, so we can count this information as viable. Of these responses, we are able to gather important information about how the brand should function and where is should market its products. Complete survey results can be found on page 56.

Which Social Media Sites do you use most?

When choosing to purchase from a brand, how important is it to you that the brand is environmentally conscious?

Pinterest

90%

32%

Extremely Important Somewhat Not Important

Instagram

48% Facebook

61%

13%

70% Snapchat

Neutral

26%

19%

42%

YouTube

48%

Somewhat Important

Tik Tok

This question helps better understand what sites Fruits & Flowers should

Another important question posed to survey respondents relates to their

be active on. Instagram comes in first, which means this should be

buying habits with companies that are environmentally friendly. The

the prominent site for Fruits & Flowers. Instagram also provides great

survey results indicate that consumers do indeed care about the brands

advertising tools for businesses, so this will be an effective marketing tool.

environmental footprints. To satisfy them, Fruits & Flowers should take the necessary steps to be an environmentally conscious brand.

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When buying a graphic t-shirt, how much are you willing to spend?

$19-$22

35%

$16-$18

32%

$10-$12

32% 25%

$13-$15

$22-$25 12% $26+

0%

When purchasing new apparel, what do you look for?

67% Small Graphics

48%

41%

Brand Logo

Embroidery

38%

Photographic Art

38% No Words

25%

Impactful Sayings

Illustrative Art

38% 38%

Large Graphics

32%

Funny Jokes

3%

Nothing

The results of this question help better determine the price points that

When designing apparel, this question’s results is valuable. This shows

Fruits & Flowers should be selling its apparel at. With the majority of

what consumers look for or would rather purchase over other trends.

people willing to spend between $10-$22, a perfect price needs to be

In right now is small graphics on shirts, as well as Illustrative art and

found that will satisfy both the consumer and the company’s profits.

embroidery. Fruits & Flowers can steer clear of impactful sayings and jokes.

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Writing a Business Plan Writing a Business Plan is an important part of any business venture for a few reasons. First, it helps you organize all the information you have in one document, which can also be beneficial if you must share your idea with others. Business Plans help you understand your market and finance, and irons out any issues you may have overlooked in your idea.

To the right is a brief business plan for this company. This is an ongoing and constantly revised document, but this is it at its current draft.

Below is a rough 5-year revenue plan for this company, under the impression that each customer spends an average of $25 on each transaction. We are hoping to grow yearly transactions exponentially, with 300 customers in 2021, 600 customers in 2022, 900 in 2023, 1200 in 2024 and 1500 in 2025.

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2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

Revenues

$7500

$15000

$22500

$30000

$37500

Direct Expenses

$3600

$7200

$10800

$14400

$18000

Gross Profit

$3900

$7800

$11700

15,600

$19500

Other Expenses

$600

$1000

$1000

$1300

$1500

Net Income

$3,300

$6800

$10700

$14300

$18000

Fruits & Flowers Apparel Co. sells plant-based

Our direct competitors include other print on

apparel online, including hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts,

demand businesses, though none were found to

and leggings. We offer unique designs created by

be in the same niche. There are a handful of Esty

a team of designers and fulfilled by the distribution

shops that sell plant related material, but none solely

center, Printful, in California. We mainly sell to young

plant based. Also, many of those shirts are DIY vinyl

women ages 16-25 and we ship anywhere in the

printed, meaning the designs and amount of colors

continental US at a fair price with dozens of options.

that can be used are limited. We have an advantage over these companies.

Online Original Design T-shirt sales is a profitable industry with $514.4m in revenue with an annual

Our products will sell at a variety of prices, but

growth of 5.0% over the last 5 years. The annual

each being reasonable and lower than some of the

growth in 2020-2025 is estimated to be 2.2%. There

competition. Our Eco friendly, cotton shirts will sell

are a few key trends to note, including the fact that

at an average of $22, making a $10 profit. Our warm

the number of industry participants has expanded

and comfortable sweatshirts will sell at a price point

rapidly. But there has also been a growing industry

around $35, and our hats between $18-20. We are

trend towards using social-commerce business

going to create an Instagram account as our main

models, which is what we are hoping to implement

marketing tool because this is the platform that most

in this company, especially with the new release if

of our demographic indicated they used most, with

Instagram shops.

an accompanying Pinterest and Facebook account.

Our annual revenue can be attained if we continue

Concerning distribution, our digital storefront will be

to own 100% of the market share. We are hoping to

housed on Shopify, with a Printful integration. The

attain at least 300 new customer orders over the

Printful fulfillment center in California will create and

next year (2021) with an average profit margin of

ship our products to our customers.

$11 per sale, we are looking at a relevant market size of $3,300. We are hoping to increase that number

Our management team includes the following;

substantially in the years as follows, with at least

Melissa Nieuwenhuis as the founder and lead

double the customer base each year after its creation.

designer. With a background in marketing and an eduction in Graphic Design, she is a great asset

Our target customers are as follows; young women

to the team. Also on our design team is Hayden

ages 16-25 living in the US who are interested in

Juneau, a high school teacher with a degree in natural

plants, i.e. gardening, raising houseplants, or living

science. He creates sketches for the design team to

sustainably. Our demographic is enrolled in high

create. Lastly on the team is Hannah Nieuwenhuis, a

school or college so prices must be lower and fair,

social media marketing guru. She will help implement

and the designs being created must stay on trend

impactful marketing strategies via social media for

to be relevant.

the company.

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Creating Products What is an apparel company without products to sell? To create designs for Fruits & Flowers, we had to learn how to work with our fulfillment center and create designs that stood out and were unique compared to competitors. We stayed true to our niche and created designs that plant lovers would enjoy. We will continue creating new products and designs to keep the store fresh as it continues.

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Choosing a Fufillment Center There are a variey of printing warehouses to choose from, all of which having pros and cons to their services. A few print-on-demand fulfillment sites we researched include Printful, Printify and Mint.

We chose Printful over its competitors because of some of their unique features that will help us build our brand. Printful allows for completely automatic fulfillment, meaning that as soon as an order comes in from our store it goes directly to them. There are no monthly fees attached to our Printful account, it is free to use and sign up for. They offer lower shipping rates because of their partnership with popular shipping services such as Fed Ex and USPS, which helps us make more sales as well. They also have two features that are awesome for our site and our social media platforms. Printful offers custom label options in its apparel, meaning instead of the shirts tag indicating that it is a “Bella Canvas 3001�, it would have our logo and/or name of our company. Also, Printful has a free mockup generator that automatically creates mockups when you upload a product to your account. We can use these images on social media as well as on our online storefront.

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Printful offers a wide range of products and options for our apparel. Above is the Bella + Canvas 3001 tee, a bestseller and fan favorite. These shirts have the option for DTG printing, which means “direct to garment� printing. This means we can print almost anything on the shirts; any colors, patterns, images, etc. They also offer embroidery which is a trend indicated in our survey to be popular at the moment. With a one-time extra fee of digitizing your embroidery file, these tees can cost just a little bit more but are becoming more and more popular. There are dozens of color options and sizes ranging from XS to 4XL. One of these shirts will cost us $12.95, and we can sell it online for about $22 to make about $9 with each sale.

To the left are two other products we will be adding to our store, both bestsellers with great reviews. The hats on Printful are all embroidery, so those files have some restrictions. They offer a variety of products including hoodies, crewnecks, skirts, leggings, baseball hats, bucket hats, mugs, towels, tote bags, and more.

We hope to have lots of options in our store for our customers to choose from so they can always find a piece they love.

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Designing For Apparel Taking a look at our survey results, we found that our demographic strongly preferred small graphics, embroidery and illustrative art. We started to create designs that reflected those wants. Printful gives us different sized spaces to work with for each product. For t-shirts, the usual size is 12 inches by 16 inches. Embroidery is limited to 4 inches by 4 inches, with a restriction to 6 thread colors per design. Knowing what we were working with, we started to create designs that reflected the hobbies of our customers. Here are just a few examples of some of the designs you can find in our store.

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Creating Mockups Product mockups are very important to any online site as they help the customer better understand what the product would look like on them, and almost make them want to buy it so they can look like the model in the photo. For each product in the store, we will be using mockups as an added image to each listing to give the viewer one more example of the piece. Also, we can use these mockups on social media. The goal would be to purchase some apparel as well and photograph it, but this is a less expensive alternative.

These mockups were created using a premium subscription to Placeit, a $14 a month subscription with thousands of mockup options. This cost was factored into our budget for this project.

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Building the Storefront After we had a handful of products to upload to our site, we began building our digital storefront in Shopify.

Shopify offers a variety of templates to start, with options to personalize the site. By watching tutorials and experimenting with the platform, we were able to create a site that is easy to navigate and fun to explore. After the site was created, we purchased our unique domain name, which is important for consumers to find you as well as gives your site credibility.

To view this site*, please visit http://fruitsandflowersapparelco.com/password *NOTE: This site is currently password protected so no orders can come in. Click the “enter using a password� option at the top right and use the password UWSP to enter.

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Homepage Fruits & Flowers homepage opens with a splash page advertising our classic tees. Clicking on this button will bring the customer to that section.

Our menu bar at the top includes an announcement bar that we can change whenever we need to advertise a sale or announce something important (shipping dates). Our menu bar can lead customers to a variety of pages, including tops, bottom, hats, and a full catalog. There is also a magnifying glass for searching and a cart for easy access to the checkout.

Below the splash page is a short note about what Fruits & Flowers is and a link to an “about us� page.

Even further down the page is a list of a few key collections (with new color images to come soon). This will help the customers find what they are looking for easily. And just below that are a few best selling products we wanted to highlight.

At the bottom of the page is a prompt for the visitor to add their email to sign up for our email list. We will send out sales and information to those who sign up.

Our navigation system on the top is very easy to follow and simple for consumers. When hovered over, the various collections open drop downs to more specific searches. Users can choose any of these options to find what they are looking for.

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Product Navigation Here we have navigated to the full catalog by choosing “all” at the top menu bar. Because we are still adding products to this site, these are the only options currently. As we add more, there will be more ways to view these products.

Each product has a product mockup, a name and a price below. to view a product, users can click on the image or the title.

Users are also able to sort the products in various ways; by best selling, alphabetically, by price, and by date. Below this “sort by” drop down is a few more ways to narrow down what you are looking for.

As we continue to build this site, we hope to be able to show the products and their color variations on this page so you can find out the other colors offered for the same products. We would also like to implement a hover over feature that can show an image of a mockup when you hover over a product. More research needs to be done before we can do this.

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Product Pages When clicking on a product, customers are brought to the individual product page. Here, the user can see the title, the price, and the color options (in this case, we see black and white). A large image shows the product for sale, along with other photos below that can be clicked on and viewed larger.

Below the color variants are the different size options. Before adding to their cart, users should select the color and size they would like. If they are ready, they can add it to their cart or use the “buy it now� option, which is an express checkout option.

Further down the page after these buttons is information about the products, including a short bio of the product and some product features. These are important so the customer knows what they are getting before they buy it. We also included a size guide so customers can measure themselves to find the right size.

At the bottom of the page are related products to lead the customer to other items they might want to purchase.

This is a great way to get customers to buy more than one product when they visit.

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Social Media Marketing Our survey we conducted indicated that Instagram was the most popular social media site among our demographic. We are going to focus on the social media account for Fruits & Flowers, with other sites to come over time. Instagram also has a new shop feature that will allow customers to buy products without leaving the Instagram app, which works well for us. We are also able to utilize some of the paid advertising options Instagram provides to help us reach a larger audience.

View Fruits & Flowers on Instagram at @fruits.and.flowers.apparel

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Instagram Not only will our Instagram act as a marketing tool, we would like it to also become a community for plant lovers everywhere. By using stunning imagery, mixed in with product shots and plant tips and tricks, users will follow for all that Fruits & Flowers has to offer on the site. Below are a few examples of posts, including one with information for plant lovers on when to propagate their plants, and another advertising new apparel.

We will also host contests on our Instagram to gain followings. Oftentimes, this is promising to pick a winner if you share a post and tag a friend. This will allow us to reach a larger fan base without having to pay for advertising, we can just give one lucky user a free product or gift card.

Recently, Instagram has created a shop feature that we can integrate with our Shopify storefront. This allows us to post a photo of a product, and the user can click on the product and buy it without ever having to leave Instagram. More research needs to be done on this to make sure we qualify and that the puzzle pieces run smoothly, but in the near future we hope to utilize this great feature.

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In Conclusion Although it may look like the work is almost done, there are a few more issues that need to be resolved before the site can be published and orders can start coming in. Ultimately, we hope to launch early 2021 after the holiday season. Our fulfillment center is already indicating that orders may not come until after Christmas, so we don’t want to make any false promises to completely new customers, or this could ruin our reputation immediately.

This project was a powerful experience into the world of starting a small business and everything that goes along with it. As most would say, it may take a lot of work, but often is it worth every second. Pouring myself into this project has helped me understand clearer what it would take and more importantly, that it is entirely possible, even for a broke college student. Thank you. —Melissa Nieuwenhuis, Founder of Fruits & Flowers Apparel Co.

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Complete Survey Results

11/11/20 - 11/15/20 Number of participants: 31 Average Completion Time: 3:49

What is your Gender?

When choosing to purchase

Do you interact with brands on

Do you prefer to buy clothing

Male 7

from a brand, how important

social media?

in-store or online?

Female 24

is it to you that the brand is

Yes 13

In-store 19

environmentally conscious?

No 18

Online 3

What is your age?

Extremely important 8

All responses between 18-22

Somewhat important 13

How often to you purchase new

Neutral 6

clothing?

When purchasing new apparel,

Somewhat not important 4

Weekly 1

what do you look for?

Monthly 10

A brand I recognize 15

Which Social Media Sites do you use most?

No preference 9

Facebook 15

When choosing to purchase

Seasonally 15

Funny jokes 10

Instagram 28

from a brand, how important

Yearly 5

Impactful sayings 8

Twitter 1

is it to you that they donate to

Snapchat 22

organizations in need?

When buying a graphic t0shirt,

Small graphics 21

Youtube 19

Extremely important 4

how much are you willing to

Large graphics 12

Tik Tok 15

Somewhat important 13

spend?

Embroidery 13

Pinterest 10

Neutral 11

$10 - 12

10

Photographic art 12

Somewhat not important 2

$13 - 15

8

Illustrative art 15

Extremely not important 1

$16 - $18

10

Brand logo 12

$19 - $22

11

Nothing 1

How do you feel about plants? (gardening, raising

No words 12

houseplants, enjoying wild

When choosing to purchase

$22 - 25

plants?

from a brand, how important to

$26 - $30

I am indifferent about plants 2

you is it that the brand is local?

Plants are pretty cool but I dont

Extremely important 0

How important is it to you that

do any growing 18

Somewhat important 8

you purchase from a brand you

Plants are my life 11

Neutral 10

are already familiar with?

Somewhat not important 7

Extremely important 2

Extremely not important 6

Somewhat important 15

Please mark any plant-related hobbies you participate in

4 0

Neutral 8

I don’t like plants 2

Do you follow your favorite

Somewhat not important 3

Gardening 5

brands on social media?

Extremely not important 3

Raising houseplants 25

Yes 20

Living sustainably 18

No 11

Helping the environment 10 Pollinator conservation 9

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Survey open to public:

Sources* Ali, Nouman. “2020 Influencer Marketing Guide: How to Work with Social Media Influencers.” The CrowdfireBlog, 13 July 2020, read.crowdfireapp.com/2020/07/13/2020-influencer-marketing-guide-how-to-work-withsocial-media-influencers/.

Gregory, Sonia. “11 Simple Steps for a Successful Brand Building Process.” Fresh Sparks, 17 Nov. 2020, freshsparks.com/successful-brand-building-process/.

“How to Make a Business Plan.” Examples, www.examples.com/business/make-a-business-plan.html.

Lassen, Neil. “How Does Merch By Amazon Work: The Complete Guide.” StartupBros, 9 Sept. 2019, startupbros. com/merch-by-amazon/.

Received by Mark Speirs, SBDC Information, 2 Dec. 2020.

“Starting a Business? Start Your Own Online Business with Shopify.” Shopify, www.shopify.com/start.

Stec, Carly. “How to Run Facebook Ads: A Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Facebook.” HubSpot Blog, blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-paid-ad-checklist.

The Young Entrepreneur Council. “10 Reasons Why You Should Write A Business Plan.” Small Business Trends, 22 Dec. 2018, smallbiztrends.com/2013/01/10-reasons-write-business-plan.html.

Vaswani, Jitendra. “How To Start Successful Print-On-Demand Business 2020 (100% Working).” Bloggers Ideas, 24 Aug. 2019, www.bloggersideas.com/print-on-demand-business/.

Connor, Claire O’. “Online Original Design t-Shirt Sales.” IBISWorld, July 2020, pp. 1–46.

*Much of the information needed could be found for how to start and run this business could be found on Printful’s website and Shopify’s help site as well. These sites were used for both small questions and big ones, and were helpful to get most of my information.

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Melissa Nieuwenhuis Fall 2020