I'd like to pose a question to the Steepster community . . .
As you are probably well aware, the Christmas Season is coming up soon! While most of you don’t really have to worry about Christmas just yet – you still have plenty of time to shop! – but for those of us who are contemplating the Christmas specials that we plan on offering, there is much to start thinking about!
This year, instead of doing the ‘traditional’ 12 teas of Christmas that has been done by 52Teas in years past, we wanted to do something a little different.
We want to instead announce FIVE special teas (VITs) that will be offered around Christmas time until they’re sold and then only brought back each Christmas. (Something to look forward to every Christmas, our special VIT flavors) These teas will be available as a specially packaged sampler and as larger sizes (2 ounces) in tins and we hope to find a special package for all five flavors in tins too.
My question is this: How do you feel about us starting another Kickstarter Campaign for this purpose? This would serve as “pre-sales” of our Christmas teas, so that we can fund the purchases of the special packaging, etc. Last year, Frank did a Kickstarter for his 12 teas of Christmas and that’s how he sold those teas, and that’s what we’re considering doing here, the teas would be ‘pre-sold’ via the Kickstarter and then send out mid to end of November to ensure that the teas are received in plenty of time for gift giving.
This would help make the pre-sales easier to keep track of because they’d be in a separate system rather than our current ecommerce site, it would enable us to process the orders more smoothly.
I know that just before I started my original Kickstarter campaign that there were those who were really vocal about the fact that Frank had engaged in several Kickstarter campaigns and I don’t want to upset or put off any of our cherished customers and so I wanted to find out from you how you felt about us using this platform to sell our Christmas tea promotion?
I welcome all input – please!
I honestly see no problem doing this for special events, I mean a lot of the miniature companies I shop from do this to introduce a new line of miniatures and such, so why not do it with tea?
I think this is a perfectly valid way to do pre-sales, especially in this first year of testing things out, and making the brand your own. I actually love the idea of seasonal teas versus the 12 days of christmas sort of thing :)
I think the main issue with Frank’s old kickstarters stemmed from too many ‘last ditch efforts.’ I believe that this is not the same kind of campaigns and many other companies, tea and non-tea alike, do this sort of thing.
I say “Full steam ahead!”
Thanks! I appreciate that. I think I’ll be posting it within the next couple of weeks. We just wanted to be sure that people weren’t going to be upset by it – I understand why people were upset with the old Kickstarter campaigns – I just didn’t want to run the risk of possibly upsetting anyone! I like my customers to be happy sippers!
I think it’s a fine idea too, and I like the idea of special Christmas/holiday tea tins that I could give as gifts.
Sounds good to me. :) I’m looking forward to seeing what teas you come up with (I know they were for Retro Monday, but pretty much all the teas you listed in the survey made me start craving gingerbread… _)
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