Chinese Container Cult

[spygirl]

'We failed - why our dream eco-business collapsed'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66935496

With the number of companies going bust in England and Wales this year on track to be the highest since the financial crisis in 2009, are entrepreneurs prepared to deal with the fallout from failure?

In fact, the stigma around business failure has dissolved in recent years and entrepreneurs are increasingly comfortable talking about it.

A high degree of failure is inevitable in business. In general, more than half of start-ups fail within five years. And that's before you take into account the challenges in the current economic climate.

Firms going bust on track for worst year since 2009

One pair of entrepreneurs happy to open up about their business failure so that others can learn from their mistakes is the husband-and-wife team behind eco-friendly retailer Non Plastic Beach, which folded this summer.

Gareth and Nicola Dean, both aged 42 and from Oxfordshire, set up the business in 2018.

Gareth had 20 years' experience working in PR for the automotive industry. Nicola is a qualified chartered accountant, teaching it on a freelance basis. But like many, they harboured an idea for a dream business. And they believed their skills could complement each other.

Cos youre a pair of fuckwits.

Id bet big money most if not all their products were shipped infrom Chinkyland.

Any proper journo would have asked the fuckwits - Where do you get your stock from.

 

https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/11913263-non-plastic-beach-ltd

Gareth had 20 years' experience working in PR for the automotive industry. Nicola is a qualified chartered accountant, teaching it on a freelance basis. But like many, they harboured an idea for a dream business. And they believed their skills could complement each other.

"The inspiration came from a holiday to Mauritius," says Gareth. "We are both keen divers and we kept seeing plastic bags on the reef."

So they began sourcing and creating products that were made and packaged in an environmentally friendly way.

Gareth took voluntary redundancy to go full-time with their business idea.

How could they fail????

Heres the compeittion - 

https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/company/00041424-unilever-plc

The point when they first realised the business might fold, says Gareth, came with the mini-budget of September 2022.

Demand from the website and retailers suddenly fell as even people who by most standards were well-off felt they had to change their spending habits.

"Our customers were now having to make hard choices about spending a little extra on an eco-product or simply buying whichever version of that product they could afford," says Nicola.

Total total BS.

Theers basically a fallign straight line oftheir liabilities from when they set up - the more (not thats thers much more) they sell, the more they lose.

"Unprecedented shocks in the economy, all sequentially, year-on-year, would be a huge challenge for any new business," he argues.

"In the final quarter of 2019, 25% of our business was with the EU. After [Britain left the EU], that fell off a cliff to 0.5% and never recovered."

After Brexit there was the war in Ukraine and the resulting high energy prices also had a big impact on consumer spending, he says.

 

Theres not much detail in their acounts. Id guess they were turing over sub 100k a year.

Despite his background in marketing, Gareth puts one crucial error down to publicity and advertising.

He was too reliant on Facebook marketing and too slow to react when that ceased to be so effective, he says.

This happened after Apple introduced privacy setting changes on its iPhones in 2021, so Facebook couldn't automatically track which sites users were visiting to build an accurate profile of customer habits.

OK, first it was Liz, then it was brexit, not its Steve Jobs fault.

 

[spygirl]

Wails caught on

Inside the world of drop shipping: The 'rip off' middle-men making a fast buck on social media

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-12827351/Inside-world-drop-shipping-rip-middle-men-making-fast-buck-social-media.html?ico=mol_desktop_home-newtab&molReferrerUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fhome%2Findex.html&_ga=2.106723331.1870239976.1701729420-529838115.1684099332&_gl=1*1vt5mek*_ga*NTI5ODM4MTE1LjE2ODQwOTkzMzI.*_ga_XE0XLFFF16*MTcwMjIyMDE4NC4yODkuMS4xNzAyMjIwMjcwLjAuMC4w

[Funn3r]

2 hours ago, spygirl said:

Wails caught on

Inside the world of drop shipping:

This is bollocks. The "business plan" seems to be get someone to pay you loads for something  then you order it more cheaply from China and put the punter as delivery address. The obvious flaw is that the customer could just order it from China themselves thus cutting you out.

I can see how this could have been a thing ten years ago when you had no VAT and free delivery from the likes of Aliexpress but surely you'd have to work too hard now to find the last few mugs.

[RJT1979]

I may have been 1st or one of first in uk doing this. Used to advertise amazon goods on ebay for 10 pounds more and send straight to the address. Amazon cottoned on and banned my account as two many dvd players were broken and the recipient couldn't deal directly with amazon. This was 2003.

[spygirl]

Teen turns £500 eBay side hustle into a multi-million pound company

A British teenager started flogging items on eBay in his bedroom. Now, Ben Ewart's company receives a whopping 25,000 orders a month - and he's been given the Young Entrepreneur Award

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/teen-turns-500-ebay-side-31700456.amp

Ewart first launched the business in 2013 when he spotted a gap in the market to buy electrical components directly from manufacturers in China and sell them at cheaper prices than UK retailers, including Maplin. According to Hull Live, the entrepreneur said back in 2020: "I was 19 when I began importing a few bits from China, and selling them on eBay. I think I started out with about £500 in my pocket.

 

[Loki]

4 hours ago, spygirl said:

Teen turns £500 eBay side hustle into a multi-million pound company

A British teenager started flogging items on eBay in his bedroom. Now, Ben Ewart's company receives a whopping 25,000 orders a month - and he's been given the Young Entrepreneur Award

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/teen-turns-500-ebay-side-31700456.amp

Ewart first launched the business in 2013 when he spotted a gap in the market to buy electrical components directly from manufacturers in China and sell them at cheaper prices than UK retailers, including Maplin. According to Hull Live, the entrepreneur said back in 2020: "I was 19 when I began importing a few bits from China, and selling them on eBay. I think I started out with about £500 in my pocket.

 

It's funny they see an entrepreneur and I see a simple re-seller

[spygirl]

Not starting a new thread for this fuckwit.

HMRC gave me £49,000 tax relief, but wants it back'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68435936

Optometrist and entrepreneur Mr Patel received the money in 2022 for work during 2020-21 on a potential new lighting product, a portable device which would project light that looked like daylight, even though it filtered out shorter wavelength blue light.

Thats n RnD credit. Not buying a container of pseudo medical tat of Alibaba.