Been terribly busy since the beginning of the year. Mostly working on taxes, but I’ve also been to four trade shows in the past three months “in order to serve you better”.
WOW too much time has passed since I updated this blog. But I have made a couple of recent changes that should help me out a bit.
One – low hanging fruit – made a twitter account. So you can now stalk us @SilverMoonOKC woot!
Two – installed an app for my phone where I can allegedly type up some posts and send them off. We’ll see how that goes.
So let me talk a bit about the shows I went to! First there was the Halloween and Party Expo in Houston, where I attended some classes and also met up with Heidi from Eldorado. She really opened my mind to a product line I had not previously considered – adult products. Nice ones, not porn shop wares. Things like organic body balms, all-natural lubricants, and some very sleek high-end toys you might consider displaying as works of art (although I have been assured they are just as nice in the dark). Our market is about wellness, and I realized I had been overlooking this aspect of “Body Mind Spirit”. In retrospect, it’s really obvious, but I do have my “duh” moments.
Not very Halloweenie, but certainly party! We will be installing an Eldorado affiliate shop on the website where you can order all manner of lovely things for your personal Garden of Hedon.
Then I went to the MAGIC show in Las Vegas, in February. This is a humongous trade show that focuses primarily on clothing. It was way, way overwhelming. I mostly went for the seminars, where I learned a LOT about nerdy web and marketing stuff. But I also looked for vendors who would fill the “goddess gown” needs, Hawaiian and Indian style shirts, Bali pants. And found a few costume vendors that I really liked, people who make gothy, steampunky, renaissance, and club wear. Since a lot of our customers are into fantasy it would make sense to carry some of these, but I’m not sure if that’s something that would be a regular line or what. I’m thinking that it would make sense to have an ordering soiree where we schedule a day for people to come in and look at those catalogues, pick what they like, and prepay, then we will place a one-time order and when the items come in, we’ll call everyone to come and pick them up.
At the MAGIC show we reconnected with Amber from Alchemy 1977, an awesome gothy midrange jewellery company. We will also be putting up an Alchemy 1977 affiliate on the site, so you can start ordering from them right away. Their photos don’t do the product justice – they are really nice, good quality stuff.
Gothic bat necklace from Alchemy 1977
We also found someone to manufacture some teeny moon charms for us. Right now our “alessandre” line carries small hearts on the necklaces and bracelets, but we’d rather have silver moons to go with our name. So we’ll be ordering those and making them our little trademark on the alessandre jewellery.
Then just recently Jordan and I got back from a week in Las Vegas – two trade shows ran concurrently. ASD is a general merchandise show, everything from c-store, hookah lounge, clothes, perfumes, toys, and home dec. I was excited to find several companies who can mass produce and package our signature fragrances – Aphrodite, Antonio, Esteban, and several others (and the Ninja clone when it’s done!). We’re not quite at this point yet, but I look forward to bringing them in maybe in about three years.
Found lots and lots of really cool, awesome stuff to put on the shelves. Everything from lava lamps to huckleberry candy treats, eco-friendly thermal mugs, goth faerie statuary, dark skully stuff, animal totems, and Catholic saint statuary and cards.
ASD had two days of somewhat useful classes – some were more useful than others, but unlike MAGIC they were all in one building, and mostly all in one room. So that was really helpful and kept the stress levels low.
And then I got to spend a whole day at ILS – the International Lingerie Show. Oh My God. This was so much fun! And they *fed* us – I’ve never ever been to a trade show where they have complimentary food for the customers! It makes sense – if you stay for lunch, you will most likely stay at the trade show, and the vendors will make more sales.
There was also a small Halloween/party show in connection to this one. One of the things we liked on that side was some high-quality spray-in hair color. I’m not sure how that would work on the shelf, but I want it. The vendor was doing demos and it just looked so cool.
I got a lot of catalogues on various adult products, from toys and lubes to t-shirts and greeting cards. We’ll probably mostly focus on the bath/body aspect (massage oils, bath salts, candles, lubes, tasty dusting powders), but I can see us bringing in a small adult toy section. I don’t like the sleaze factor of Christie’s, so what we carry would be tasteful, elegant, comforting, and fun. Christie’s can be raunchy – we’ll be “boutique”.
Although I’m also trying to figure out how to bring in these delightful crops we saw – they look like a bouquet of roses if you display them in a vase. And there is a braided leather “vine” with soft leather rose buds if you are the sort who likes to be tied up. They were so nice, how can I not carry them? They’re the kind of sweet naughtiness that makes you just want to play with them (and I’m not particularly into that). To design a boudior around them. I think I may have actually said “squee!” when I saw them.
Isn't this just so cute?
This is making me wonder what, exactly, kind of store we’ll be. Gifts – yes, metaphysical – yes, music – yes, books – er, probably a few, but we’ll probably have a Kindle kiosk or something. But then expanding our soap/lotion/lip balm line into massage oil and lubes, and our personal care section from handknit washcloths and loofahs into back massagers and adult toys, we’re not sure how that’s going to work here in Oklahoma City. But I think it’ll be a nice sideline, and it does go together, if you think about it. I’m looking forward to your comments and suggestions!
