This Thursday, 18th of August, we finally launched our brand! We couldn’t be more elated and relieved. Your warm reception over on social media meant the world to us. But that’s just the beginning.
You will have also seen that we are launching our brand to the market with a pre-sale for our first collection. I thought I’d write up this little post to explain a bit about what pre-sales are all about, and give more information about our pre-sale specifically.
What is a pre-sale anyway, and why do it?
So you've probably heard about crowdfunding an idea right? A bunch of really inspired entrepreneurs come together in a room to provide a solution to an issue they are passionate about. But they need a little help bringing it to fruition, so they seek the support of the general public and those that believe in them and their product to help fund it. Well, a pre-sale within the fashion business is much the same, and in this instance our genius idea is the Snuggly Bath Robe (TM) that we are so ridiculously proud to offer.
Also, pre-sales are an excellent way to help brands manufacturer ethically, something that’s desperately needed in an industry with such an astronomical detrimental impact on the environment. By doing a pre-sale, we are able to get closer to you, our customers, and understand your needs and demands for our products. This means we only need to manufacture what we need! Hooray for less wastage, and less ending up at landfills. Ethical manufacturing is something we are passionate about, and is the non-negotiable that has contributed to our launch being delayed by 1.5 years! A delay we would happily take on the chin again; that's how much we are unwavering on this score.
The fashion industry also has incredibly high entry-costs. Before a start-up brand can even get to the stage of launching and manufacturing products, a significant amount of money will have been spent on development costs, legal fees and other administrative costs. By participating in a pre-sale, you help support a brand whose offerings you believe in, and hopefully whose values are aligned to yours. We hope to be one of those brands for you.
By the way, did you notice the TM at the end of one our our products? That’s just our way of letting you know that we are being savvy and responsible, and have taken measures to protect our intellectual property. This is a very big problem for start-up brands, whose designs often get ripped off by bigger, more powerful brands. We wouldn’t want to let the ball drop on this one and disappoint you should you see our design being ripped off and offered elsewhere at prices that imply unethical labour practices, so we have taken steps to protect our design, as well as trademark our cute little name. We hope you approve.
Our pre-sale: a snapshot
Here's a brief look at what the dates for our pre-sale will look like:
Why do things take so long to deliver in a pre-sale?
To give you time to get familiar with our products, and make your purchases when ready, we have allowed for 6 weeks during which you can do so. This period will run from mid-August 2022 till end of September 2022.
Our manufacturing partner will only begin to make those gorgeous products of ours once they have the go ahead from us. This could be at the end of September, or sooner if we get earlier indication from enough of you to go ahead with a certain number of orders. Our manufacturers will need an additional 6 weeks to get this done, taking us to the middle of November 2022.
After that, our products will then be transported from Turkey to the UK, which takes 2 weeks. So we are now at the end of November. You may be wondering why we are manufacturing in Turkey, and we can’t wait to tell you more about that in a future blog post - we promise you’ll be proud of us on this one.
We have built in some time in there after that to receive the stock at our warehouse, do some quality control, package them lovingly and send them out to you! Hence why we anticipate that we would dispatch your orders by the 14th of December 2022.
Is this all set in stone?
Not quite. Everything depends on the success of those first 6 weeks whilst we get your orders in. Our success very much depends on your support. In order to move onto the next stage, the manufacturing stage, we need to hit a minimum number of orders in order for our project to become feasible. Without that, manufacturing can’t go on. In this unfortunate instance we may have to make the decision to cancel any placed orders and refund your purchases; but we sincerely hope it doesn’t get to that. It would do us a world of a favour if you spread the word about our offering to help us reach that target - every little counts!
Following a successful pre-sale, there can still be curveballs in the manufacturing process that may mean delays. We have worked, and are in continued talks with our manufacturer, to troubleshoot through most scenarios that could cause us a headache and we’re doing our best to make sure this doesn’t happen. Any delays would mean your orders would be dispatched later than hoped, possibly after the Christmas/New year period; we are very keen to avoid this.
Remember, none of this takes away your statutory rights, which you can read about here.
Will we be launching another pre-sale after this?
Following a successful pre-sale, we would be better placed to understand your demands for our products, and so have a little more information to plan our manufacturing pipeline. This would go a long way in making sure we have products in hand to dispatch to you straight away, or at least reduce how long you have to wait for them. We expect to get to this point in the new year.
Whilst we have decided to launch with our bath time collection, we have so much more exciting products waiting in line. This pre-sale will help us decide how to manage those future launches, making sure once again that we only manufacture what we need. Nothing ever in waste.
So what next?
We will keep you informed and take you on the journey every step of the way. During the pre-sale, the manufacturing phase and when we are ready to dispatch. If you like what we have to offer, pop on over to our online shop and support our pre-sale, and come along on the journey with us, Your patronage would make us incredibly proud!
Can I still order after the pre-sale?
Of course! Should we have a successful pre-sale we will keep the online shop open for orders. However orders placed after the pre-sale will most likely only be despatched in the new year. We will confirm the exact details once we become aware of them.
Anything else?
I appreciate you may have more questions for me, and I stand ready to answer those for you over on our social media or via email. Please do reach out to me on info@coeuretmaman.com if you need to.
If you're also curious about the premium price tags, you will want to keep your eyes peeled for future communication on that, and how our choice for ethical manufacturing means we cannot produce products for less than that and pay living wages to the people that make our products. But more on that soon!
Forever grateful, forever hopeful. With all my love, Kate
