how I started a successful e-commerce business (making + selling planners... during a pandemic)

this was during covet 19 by the way during a pandemic [Music] hey everyone it's risa welcome to my channel and i wanted to share with you guys basically the journey of how i became an entrepreneur how i started my business at the age of 19. i'm currently 20 and i recently launched my business called vine and branch co and i wanted to share my journey of how i made it happen how i got to where i am right now so basically jumping right into it i started last september i was 19 years old a sophomore in college studying marketing and entrepreneurship i came up with a business plan that was my first step so first up come up with a business plan come up with a funding pitch i already knew the business i wanted to create which is now vine and branch co which is a planner notebook personal development planner company designed to help you achieve your goals stay productive stay organized stay focused and really focus on living a life full of intention so that's what my product is that's what my product does it's because like that's something that i've always wanted to do for the longest time i'm a person that loves planners i love writing things down like physically pen and paper and so i knew that i wanted to start a planner company these are actually what they look like now i actually didn't have a name for it at first it took me a long time to come up with a name but the name vine and branch co is actually biblical and it comes from john 15 5 i believe or it might be john 5 15. somebody in the comments correct me if i'm wrong basically it says jesus is talking and he says i am the vine you are the branches if you abide in me and i abide in you then you will bear much fruit something along those lines and it's just like about living a life that's fruitful that's going to produce fruit and it's going to be meaningful and beneficial and so i feel like that kind of went along with my product and my vision and like just my values and so i felt like vine and branch co was like the perfect name so like i said step one i created a business plan and a funding pitch you can honestly look up a template and it's so easy to just create like a really simple business plan that contains like your mission your values what you believe in um your target market um and just basically an outline of what your business is going to look like funding pitch like basically just coming up with your accounting figuring out your profit margin figuring out your pricing strategies and how you're going to be able to um profit step two get on social media create your pages whether that's facebook instagram tick tock maybe just stick with like two that are your main priorities your main focus is the things that you're really good at for me it was instagram that's what i started out with and although i did not have a product or a prototype yet i knew for sure that i wanted to start that social media account as early as i possibly could as soon as i knew the business i was going to be starting because i had to build that audience i had to build that brand awareness and so that's what i did i started following a ton of people in my target market my target market was mainly students in the area that i live in and so i started following students entrepreneurs anybody that would really like benefit from using a planner notebook so i started following a ton of people my target audience started posting pictures creating value with my instagram and with my social media pages i wasn't starting by selling selling selling like you got to get my product i'm coming out with this new product that's not what i did i basically just introduced myself talked about who i am what i love and started creating value for those types of people so i know students are very goal-oriented and they want to get good grades and be successful academically so i started posting tips advice i started posting inspiration and encouragement for people to achieve their goals and to be productive so lots of productivity tips lots of productivity advice creating as much value as i possibly could for my audience that was my main priority for the first month and just the months leading up to actually designing and acquiring my inventory so next i started looking for the actual product i started looking for a supplier i started looking for people to design my product i'm not a great graphic designer i tried to design my own product the inner pages of my planner notebook my on my own and i knew that it wasn't really going to work out so i decided to outsource for the design of my product i spent hundreds of dollars on the inner page design of my planners but it's so worth it because i absolutely love love love the way it turned out i don't even think you can see this but for more like actual pictures you can obviously head over to instagram vine and branch underscore co shameless plug i found them in like october they finished the design for the entire planner notebook in december they did my logo um branding design for my entire company and so they did that so i had all of that around december january time that helped a lot with my promotional materials because i now had my logo i had the actual design of what the interior of my planner was going to look like i knew everything that i wanted it to include i knew i wanted to have reflection pages goal setting pages um positive affirmations um quotes for every single page and so i pretty much told them everything i wanted they designed it for me the hardest part was finding a supplier finding somebody to manufacture the actual product i'd never done anything like that before i decided to do that internationally through alibaba it's a website where you can find suppliers from i think it's all in china correct me if i'm wrong i really don't know i just know that that's where i found my supplier from alibaba started typing in planner planner notebooks journals this and that until i found one that i really loved um i spoke to a lot of people on there i just messaged them and was like hey this is what i want can you do this and i finally found the right supplier we went back and forth and back and forth for the longest time in the messages on on alibaba and also in my email just talking about like exactly what i wanted it to look like i ended up sending them the um planner design pages once they were finished and we just worked out all the logistics it was a process but finally in i want to say march that was all figured out um and she was like all right well we're ready to make this product um we'll send you a prototype when it's done so you can improve it they sent me the prototype and i loved it um maybe i'll insert some clips because i know i out throughout this whole process of the whole entire year i was like vlogging i'm so happy right now okay guys one two three i'm so happy okay i'm gonna open it this is like better than i ever imagined oh my goodness i i can't even believe this right now i can't so this is what overview of what each week will look like this was during covet 19 by the way i didn't mention this this whole entire thing during a pandemic and so the in the process of actually getting my inventory shipped to me took forever um and i was not expecting that so that created a lot of complications we'll just say that so anyways after i decided to actually stick with that supplier and purchase the product through them i decided to buy in bulk um so i bought in quantities of like hundreds of planners hundreds of units um and had them ship it to me um internationally that took forever because of cover 19 but i decided to do pre-sales in the meantime so on social media i started promoting the product started posting the prototype this whole time i'm still creating value on social media still giving tips still giving advice still giving ways to be productive and quarantined you know what i mean like just adding value for your audience just so they'll want to follow you so they'll want to keep up with you and so you're giving them something in some way even if you're not giving them the product yet so i decided to do pre-sales um that started in like april or may and i was just um people were ordering um on the website and i was like okay well i'll send you the product once i receive all the inventory in june or either may or june that's when i thought i was going to receive the inventory that did not happen i was very very anxious the entire time because during coven 19 i did not realize that it was going to take so long for the inventory to finally ship to me and i wasn't able to track it for some reason and it was just very complicated and i was just on edge but i know that god has a plan i know that he's going to work it out and so i'm just trying not to stress out about it and i'm keeping my customers updated all like throughout the whole process um via email and i'm keeping track of like everybody's orders and stuff um on excel i finally received my inventory in july which is way later than i thought i haven't seen what the actual planners look like yet so we're just gonna take a peek before we even load it in can you help me take the tape off oh smart this is the face behind our instagram post say hi [Music] this is somebody's planner oh my god doing these orders i'm in bed in my little apartment these are the planners that i need to ship out for pre-order i have all the information here and i'm just doing the thank you cards here they are super cute um and so i'm putting a thank you card with every order i'm using these super cute packages from amazon but the brand is called packet chic um in case you're wondering but i just like that they kind of match my brand colors just a little bit i thought it was kind of cute so that's what i'm using and yeah i'm going to figure out these orders tomorrow morning and go to the post office so yeah so obviously the next step in the process was packaging and shipping and i was pretty much by myself but i got my friend audrey to help um and we went to the post office and packaged and shipped all my orders using usps first priority shipping envelope packages because these little planners were able to fit inside of those and i believe it was 7 50 or 7 something maybe 725 to ship each one of those units so you have to account for shipping costs when you're obviously putting your orders online some people use different shipping methods some people don't go through the post office they do different ways but this is just the way i decided to do it hey i'm at the post office with my friend andra thank you so much for helping me you're so cute okay but we're here in davey and we're gonna take all the planners out of the back and then we're gonna do the labels shipping address everything like that and then i'll just get some footage while we're in there hopefully but yeah so i have a list of everyone that ordered and then we're using these um flat rate priority mail envelopes for each of the planners and i think it's like i forgot how much i think it's eight dollars a flat rate of like eight dollars for each of these scents so everything is shipped except for a couple things um the people who ordered multiple like some people ordered two some people ordered five some people ordered 15. so we're just taking care of those this is taking a lot longer than expected because we started at like 00 9am it's already past noon these are the boxes we're using for the people who ordered more than one which is like priority mail and then the other ones we just use like the seven dollar flat rate priority mail envelopes but yeah and then for this one that's one order we're going to use like a giant box and pay for that and then another thing that was really important for me was visual content creating content for my social media pages people are very visual and i feel like when they see something that's aesthetically pleasing they're like yes i want it um so i made sure to do a photo shoot this was very very very fun i went and did a photo shoot in miami with ej and brittany from soflo inspire they are super amazing brand content creators and so we went out and did a photo shoot and they did product photography of my planners and it went really really well all right well i'm here at this spot for our photo shoot with brittany and ej from soflow inspire everybody check out their work they're amazing but i'm super excited to be shooting for bonnie branch home and it's going to be a lot of fun [Music] oh yeah she's smiling and then one of the biggest parts about running this business this whole entire time has just been marketing and constantly promoting my business so i've done giveaways and i also have an amazing awesome asset to my whole entire business that i literally like would not be where i am without her and her name is chanel she does all my marketing she's my social media marketing and advertising manager so she manages my instagram she does all of the content creation and everything and literally i would not be able to do anything without her and so she has just been such a blessing and just having people around you that are helping you and just are always going to be there that is so important because there will be people in your life that are not supported and that's okay because like really you're going to see that every time you do something in life whether that's starting a business or really any endeavor that you might like pursue a dream that you have not everyone in your life is going to support you and that's okay as long as you have people around you that are supportive and that are willing to help and are willing to go out of their way to just help you achieve your goals and so chanel has been amazing she's like done an amazing job with my marketing so i encourage you guys to find people who will help you while you're still starting out but yeah that's pretty much it that's how i started my business i've been wanting to do this video for the longest time but i never got around to it but i did it and i'm so happy that i get to share this with you guys so moral of the story is just chase your dreams keep going keep pushing and just have a plan and stick to it and just keep executing every step of the way i did this during a pandemic during cover 19 so so many obstacles like just kept coming in my way but i just feel like so blessed and i feel like this was just such a god thing that i was just able to still have a successful business through it all and i love it i love my product the way it turned out and i love the way that i've been like it's been impacting people the reviews that i'm getting people telling me they love it so much it's helping them become a better version of themselves it's just been so amazing and it's been so crazy to see the way it's been paying off i hope this video encourages you i hope it was helpful and i hope you guys enjoyed don't forget to follow me on instagram chrisbacon and subscribe give this video a thumbs up and also go follow my business page at vine and branch underscore co that's it for today's video let me know if you have any questions in the comments i would love to answer your questions or just dm me whatever um maybe i'll make a follow-up video part two um just let me know what you guys want to see next that's it for today's video i hope you enjoyed and i'll see you in my next one bye she's a monalisa [Music] there must be something [Music]

Channel: Charissa Bacon

Views: 65,782

Rating: 4.9694924 out of 5

Keywords: how to start a business, how i started my business, starting an online business, how to ship orders, how to package and ship, how to package and ship products, how i became a business owner, how i became an entrepreneur, starting my business with no money, life of an entrepreneur vlog, small business owner day in the life, tips for starting an online shop, running my small business, entrepreneur vlog packing orders, planner business ideas, starting a planner business

Id: O3mTvFHHhHY

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020