Thanks to Yellowstar2000 for her post about SleepPhones!
Pick the Perfect Gift for the Frequent Traveler
We do have many travelers who find SleepPhones indispensable. They can help drown out noise on the plane, block out loud neighbors at the hotel, and alleviate insomnia with time differences.

Holiday Season Shopping

The holiday shopping season has started. Our sales this past week have started to increase. Although the competition for customer attention is up during this season, people seem to be more open to spending money. We are ramping up our advertising efforts. In a few weeks, we're sponsoring another episode of Grammar Girl. She's touring the country giving out SleepPhones at each book signing location. We're sending out emails to previous customers and mailing list subscribers. We'll do more promotions on Facebook and Twitter too. Maybe local radio. We tried an ad in Newsweek, which was an expensive flop. Haven't seen much results with RevTwt yet. I'm going to work with a local photographer to get more model pictures with the newest design. As we think of more things, we implement those.

SleepPhones in Tanzania

Wow! We have a SleepPhones order from Tanzania! We've had some orders previously from South Africa, but this is the first order from another country in Africa. We have a particular affinity to Tanzania because they produce Tanzanite, which is a lavender-colored precious stone. I have a few Tanzanite items of jewelry, including my engagement ring. And we like just about anything lavender. I didn't use to own any lavender clothing until we started SleepPhones. Since then, I've had a good excuse to buy lavender outfits - for work, of course. This person ordered a lavender sachet. I wonder if Tanzania's port is as strict as Australia is with dried plant materials. We can't ship lavender sachets to Australia because they would just cause the box to be opened and the sachet removed.

Anyways, Tanzania's a really cool country. It's home to the tallest mountain in the Africa: Mt. Kilimanjaro, the origin of the Nile River. It borders Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa, and Lake Tanganyika, the deepest lake in Africa. It contains much of the Serengeti plain, where many Discovery Channel and National Geographic people spend their time capturing images of the wildebeest. Dr. Jane Goodall spent her days watching chimpanzees there. It's the idyllic African Safari location.

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Lavender Accessories

We are going to bring more high quality, all natural lavender accessories to the SleepPhones website.  We in the process of working with a local vendor to provide these products.  The vendor is a one-woman shop.  She has similar beliefs as I regarding skin and hair care products.

I believe that anything applied to the skin and hair should be at least somewhat edible.  That is, if I can eat olive oil, coconut oil, and lavender tea without getting sick, then I can apply it to my skin. If I don't eat petroleum, I won't apply petrolatum to my lips or skin. If I don't eat artificial (lab chemical) fragrances, FD&C Yellow No. 5 , or titanium dioxide, then I won't put it on my skin. Lye (originally from wood ash) is needed to render oils into soap and is the classic method of making soap. The soap we sell will be a lye-rendered vegetable-based soap that won't kill your child if accidentally eaten.

The skin is our body's biggest organ and it is very much in constant contact with our environment.  It absorbs and takes in as much as it puts out.  Shining sunlight on it helps our bodies create useful vitamin D. Rubbing poison ivy on it will cause an itchy rash for many people. Putting medicine on a patch of dry eczema can heal it. The skin has pores that secrete oils and salty sweat.  It releases water as a by-product of metabolism. The skin regulates our body temperature by opening and closing pores, controlling blood flow, and sweating.  It is not just a piece of dead leather to be scrubbed for cleaning and crudely oiled and painted.

There are many lines of products available claiming to be all natural. I think that it's a step in the right direction. But ideally, products applied to the skin should be of the same quality as what we eat because they are absorbed just the same.

Products on Amazon

Having a sales channel through Amazon is quite beneficial to our business, and I highly recommend it for small companies with new products like us.
Here are the drawbacks.

1. They take a huge chunk of our profits. We have to pay them 15% of the selling price and more from the shipping.  
2. Plus, there is a $40 monthly fee for the listing.  
3. They pay us every 2 weeks, so the cash flow can be tight if depending solely on their check.
4. We use Fulfillment by Amazon, so we have pay to ship a big box of products to them.
   

Here are the benefits.

1. It is one of the biggest retailers, so many people shop there.  Since we have a unique relatively unknown product, having it in a giant retailer is very cool.  People browsing through their "virtual shelves" may come upon our product.  If they don't buy it through Amazon, they may follow the links to come to our website.
2. Amazon has many promotions, gift certificates, free shipping incentives, and other methods that encourage people to buy there. It's marketing that we don't need to do.
3. You can get a sense of your competition and collaborations after a while.  There is a section of the page for "People who looked at [your product] also looked at...." For example, our biggest competitor would be a pillow that I will describe as little as possible. Our biggest collaborative sale is with the Delta Sleep System, a CD.  It's tremendous market research. You just have to figure out how to use that information.
4. For us, it's one more sales channel that is relatively hands-off.  Using Amazon Fulfillment, we just ship a big box of SleepPhones to Amazon, and they will ship them to customers for us. Any returns also go through them. If we have an emergency and can't be at home to ship out SleepPhones for a few days, they will always be there for customers desperate to get some sleep.
   
5. Customers buying through Amazon are encouraged to write comments about your product and company.  Since we sell a great product, our reviews have been very positive. If I saw our ratings, I would be curious about the product because everyone loves it so much.  If someone writes a negative or misinformed comment, sometimes other customers will even post a followup comment correcting them.
6. Most retail shops request the standard wholesale price, which is 50% of the suggested retail price. 20-25% is a lot less than 50%.
   

So despite having to give Amazon about 20% of every sale, it is a great retail sales channel for a fledgling company.

Amazon

We've only got 1 Gray Small SleepPhones left on Amazon.com in the inventory they have stored in Indiana.  We've just been too busy to pack the old SleepPhones to send in to them.  So we've converted most of the availabilities back to being fulfilled from us for now.  As soon as Amazon received a stash, we'll convert them back to being fulfilled by Amazon (which qualifies for free shipping and Amazon Prime).

Cute Sheep