Week 3 - Six Week Plan.

Typography project.

This week Lola and I devised a six week plan, which involved all the details and timings that we want to try and stick to throughout this project in order to get things done in a more organised fashion (differently to last time!).

  I decided to do this on a spreadsheet with the individual weeks along the side and timings at the top so what I can check every half an hour as to whether we're on schedule or not! This is a really good idea as by creating this it gives us motivation and also something to stick by, so we essentially should always have something to do. Hopefully this will be manageable for the two of us and when writing reflective blog posts we should be able to see how we are doing, then next time we have a project we know where to increase or decrease the work load and timings.

 As we are in week 3 of the project, we should be 'agreeing on a theme' so as a class we came together a produced a brain storm of ideas collectively. Here is an overall look of what we came out with, from this and taking the palette idea with lights around the words, I am able to construct some images together to give me a better idea of the aesthetic we are aiming for.

What Is A Research Project?

The definition of a research project is that ' A research paper presents an original thesis - idea-, or purpose statement, about a topic and develops that thesis with information gathered from a variety of sources'.

 A research project in whole is a project in which increases your knowledge prior to the research, on a certain thing. It generally is to collect information you didn't know before, and to create a project out of it in order to understand it deeper than ever before.
 Research project's requires a large amount of different elements, all of which are key to a research project. Some of these elements include things such as primary research ( research you conduct yourself such as surveys) and secondary research (a collection of already existing research, for example a book!)

 To give an overall summary / visual of how a typical research project is put together, see below:

• Title page -  include the question or subject matter
• Abstract - a brief summary of the entire research project, including a title, section headings and main conclusion 
• List Of Contents - a list of page numbers and chapter titles
• Introduction - introducing the topic, why you've chosen it and what you hope to achieve
• Research (Primary & Secondary) - summary of your research methods and outcomes
• Conclusion - what conclusion can be drawn? what did you discover?

 Finally, the word count and bibliography, so the total number of words and a list of sources used, this should include books, websites etc. This can be presented Harvard style.

 So overall a research project is one trying to discover information they did not know before hand in a number of different ways, incorporation many different elements of research, all to answer or come to some type of conclusion.

Basic Cash Flow.

After producing my spread sheet with all the costs required to start this business I produced a basic cash flow for a year's worth of selling. What i wanted to take into consideration was scale. For the sight I wish to purchase off, it takes 7-21 days for production and delivery, I also wanted to start off by producing 250 cases, selling them on amazon and Etsy. So although I initially planned on selling them in physical stores, I came to the realisation that the profit they take would make the project almost not worth while, so if I were to use the sites that aren't as costly for the first year and almost build a name for the company, I would be left with 4000 cases that I can't sell, and a whole lot of debt.
 So after pricing it all up I created a year cash flow that explains all the money I would spend and profit from, meaning that the following year I can only increase profit and sales, therefore it can only go upwards (if successful of course).

Selling.

Stores & Online

 As briefly mentioned in my secondary research (here) our objective is of curse to sell to major online stores and 1-2 physical stores. For this that would mean we need to decipher the stores we want to pitch to and ensure we have a long and fantastic list of examples, statistics and more (much like dragons den)

• Proven history of success (statistics and figures, already have a keen audience)
• Be retail ready ( packaging, tags etc. Ensure it is physically ready to go on a shelf and be successfully sold)
• Examples ( bring multiple examples to the pitch, images and physical, to give them a real idea of what they're working with and so that they can see their potential)
• Find out all the information about the stores necessary (current lines and stock, the need for more? as well as potential customers)

 When I was performing secondary research it was clear to me that it had a very -dragons den type feel to it. You need to have a perfect product with statistics that it sells - and well-, examples, spreadsheets - essentially proof to impress!- superior packaging and attraction. Of course when going into retailers rather than producing your own shop comes with pro's and con's.

 Pros

• Quicker movement of product
• More cash flow with larger orders
• Greater consumer reach
• Brand exposure 

Cons

• Offers less control of branding
• Cuts margins in half

Other options
Other innovative ways of selling my products minus the online and physical stores would be difficult, but could be done. For example in the centre of Bath, you often see marquees and tents set up selling things ranging from clothing, to fossils! This would be a potential selling technique as I would not be paying a shop where they get an income, only paying a street permit to legally sell there. I could set up a little temporary stall, aiming it at times when perhaps the target market of mine would be around, for example lunch time, after college, work etc. This way we would be able to sell our products specifically to those we want and would not lose any money that we would if we were to sell our idea to Urban Outfitters where they would take the profit!

Legal Obligations.

Laws...
 So of course before creating this idea and business I needed to research into the legal obligations of setting up a business and the different types of businesses there are. By using Gov.uk I was able to get a step by step definition and guide of setting up your own business.

Private Limited Company
 A private limited company means that the company is legally separate to the people that run it, it has separate finances form your personal ones and that you can keep any of the profits after paying tax. This would mean Lola and I would have a 'incorporation', and included in that involves:

• A suitable company name. -LoAm LTD-
• An address for the company.
• At least one director (those legally responsible for running the company)
• Details of the company's shares- at least one share holder ( shareholders have certain rights, most companies are owned by shareholders, e.g directors may need shareholders to vote and agree to changes in the company) 
• To check what your SIC code is (standard industrial classification of economic activities, so a description your company's nature of business)

Lastly you need:

• The shareholders to agree to the company and the written rules.
• Details of people with significant control, i.e anyone with over 25% of shares or voting rights.

 When it came to finding what specific business obligations and legal requirements there were, I had no idea about how many varieties there were (as seen below) however upon research I find that a private limited company would be the most effective for Lola and I, as essentially we would be a private company where it isn't attached to our names as such (legally separate from the people that run it), profits can be taken minus tax of course and just would be the most effective currently.

GOV.UK

Constraints On Production.

Issues
 Potential issues we could come across when producing these cases would have to be delivery. As we decided we would not be able to produce these ourselves (lack of resources and time) we knew we would need to be relying on other companies, this means that a lot of the constraints may be out of our hands, but regardless are our issues as it would be our responsibility to ensure that the shops repair ourselves with are sufficiently stocked with items.
 Another constraint on the business could potentially be money and starting off. As there is such a large market for iPhone cases we need to really make sure ours are unique and worth spending the money on, as opposed to going on Ebay and finding one perhaps slightly cheaper, but of the same quality.

Production Techniques.

Production.
 When it comes to the production of the phone cases I have undertaken some research into the possible and cheapest way in which this can be done effectively.
 Firstly I used the site Alibaba.com  in order to research how many clear phone cases I can purchase and for the cheapest price. Initially I intended to purchase clear phone cases in a bundle, then send them off to be printed, rather than order them to be printed in the first place, almost taking out the middle man. So on this site I found that I could purchase plain clear iPhone cases, 500-2999 of them for $0.47. This was a lot lower than I ever anticipated, and of course when it comes to selling them on  I would make a large profit
 On the other hand I then researched sending the cases to print straight away, rather than purchasing them plain THEN sending then off. I found a site called Casefreak where it seemed you sent your designs off and then purchased the cases in bunch,however when trying to get a quote for these, it seemed to fail registering overtime, so unfortunately I had to keep researching more sites with a similar idea to this that were more legit! Next i came across Custom Logo Cases, where you bulk buy your cases after sending your designs off to be printed. You were able to chose the material (tough, gel, matte,gloss) and then how many you wanted to buy, the results are shown below.

For an iPhone 6 Hard case, you could purchase 50 cases for £7.23 each.

Next I noticed iPhone X gel cases, with a sum of 250 for £3.02, significantly cheaper than above.

Lastly I found this iPhone 7 gel case at the cheapest price and quantity, 1000 for £2.87.

In conclusion to my findings, I would use 'Custom Logo Cases' to purchase 1000 (initially, to see how sales go) for £2.87, meaning each case would cost under £3 to produce and make a profit of just over  3 times as much.