Hi folks,

I have been planning something really big and we are close to having a partnership with the retail chain WHSmith, where they will have personalisation events tailor made for our Cubbies.

We were in Meadow Hall shopping centre in Sheffield for three days before Easter. The event went well. We were offering a deal where a customer could get one line of free personalisation if they purchased a Cubby for £19.95 and then each additional line would cost £2.50. We were offering Birth Block designs too at £35.  We priced them quite high because it can be time consuming, but realised that was a mistake and the next event we do, we will offer them in the region of £28.

I’ve been trying for 18 months to get some sort of retail presence. It is too costly to create our own store and first I need to raise the profile of Cubbies so people recognise the brand. We have lost many customers over the years because they don’t have an avenue to resell them and we are an unknown quantity. If more and more people see what we can offer, that will help all of our Approved Retailers.

A personalised Cubby is not a typical impulse buy. It is something you see and register in your mind for a later date and then, when the time is right, comes back to you (maybe a newborn or special occasion).

We get orders from our website for Birth Blocks for babies that had been born the day prior, which means people had been waiting for the birth before purchasing one. Imagine the scenario if everyone knew about these birth blocks on a teddy that you could go into a high street store and have one done in less than thirty minutes. Sales would be fantastic. The demand is there, I just need to find the right channels and routes to market.