are Rain City Skills has been a big bucket of experimenting for me. I have learned a lot about running a business, connecting with people and managing suppliers! This will be a brief recap of what's come before, most of which is in various other blog articles in detail that I will link you to. If you are just here to read about the new "Showgirl" yoyo, scroll down a bit!
A high quality throw, but more importantly it provided an epic unboxing experience. The throw came packed in a glass mason jar (so hipster) and wrapped in a hemp carry bag. We included 3 sets of Lego pieces at different weights so you could tweak your center weight. 1/3 every three even came with a Lego minifigure! So, while this throw broke the bank, it started to build the idea of Rain City.
Our 2nd yoyo release on the other hand was a smash. The gamer sold like hot cakes, to the point where I had to do a 2nd run of a yoyo for the first time ever! I did not expect the popularity of the design. I had asked Justin for a design that would be very beginner friendly and reasonably inexpensive to machine for the kids I work with in schools. It was also an opportunity to let Justin Scott Larson have his dream yoyo. It turned out it was a perfect combination of the right design for the time, a great theme and a lot of fun. We did a total of 8 splash colourways themed around popular video games (Samus, Space Invader, Legendary Trio, Madden, Space Invader II, The Hero (link), The Plumber and Leeeeerooooooyyyy Jaaaaannnkiinnnnns (WOW). I did a writeup on the whole story, check it out here. Our 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, and 5th) begleri releases did better than the first, and were another experiment. I followed up on something the begleri community had been asking for, a monthly mystery box. I offered a discount 4 month package, or the option of buying each month after the subscribers received their boxes. When we started the only design we had firmly planed was the updated fidget slingers for september. We mixed up the materials, Stainless Steel, Brass, Copper and Aluminum. Justin Scott Larson and I had a blast coming up with fun and interesting ideas for the 4-month run and learned a lot. In the end it wasn’t a money maker (I underpriced what I offered, and we last minute decided to do the D20 which cost twice as much as the rest). What it did do was work as fantastic advertising. It gave me a chance to really get into the begleri community and connect with players, a chance to find out what people liked and didn’t like and to get to know who they were. I wrote up the story on each bead, you can read them here. Left to Right: Fidget Slinger, September (Fidget SLinger 2.0), October, November (D20) and December (Canadian FOrest).
One of the best parts with the BEHgleri was the community buy in. 2 members took up the call to design a fantastic sticker played with the fact that the design looked a little like a hamburger that I had printed (Travis Techinsky and Chris McCauley) which turned out great. I sent them each 100 and a gamer yoyo as a thank you, and all the pre-order BEHgleri came with a 10 pack of stickers. To round out the theme I found zip pouches that had a picture of a hamburger printed on them! This was such fun that we are definitly going to do it again! The SHowgirlFinally we come to the "Showgirl" The story behind this one is neat. After the gamer was a hit, I put out a poll in a couple facebook groups to decide what next to do with the yoyo side of things. I got a number of responses. I toyed with the idea of a Titanium gamer, and let others make suggestions. The 2 most common responses were "Classic 'O' shape" and "Make something weird". The something weird is definitely still going to happen, but the idea of an "O" shape appealed to me. Going back a couple months, in November I got contacted by a community member Troy Butner who was looking for a handful of people to help him fund a prototype run of his dream yoyo. He had no ambitions to start a brand, he just really wanted to make this yoyo. He got a dozen or so people together and ordered the throw. He did a great job of keeping everyone informed throughout the process and discussing colours and other ideas. Early Jan, I received my copy. Just looking at it, I was in love. 1 throw and I knew this was the next yoyo Rain City needed to make, so I asked Troy if he'd be interested in partnering to do a full retail run. He was overjoyed! The best part, he already had a Rain City worthy name! The Showgirl.
Once we got the on design adjustment made it was time to pick colours! Troy really wanted a throw that referenced roses, so the 3 colour bouquet of shades of red called "Curtain Call" was born. A curtain call is the part of a show when the performers are all called back to the stage to take a bow and the stage is showered with roses! At least that's how it works in the movies. For the rest of the colours I put our artistic director Mrs. Yoyothrower to the task. She reached out to the local burlesque community for suggestions and we got some great ones! We settled on 3 more colourways. The Red/Black/Gold splash that is "Cabaret", reflecting what is often the preferred colours for a high class performance space. The Purple/Silver Orange is an explosion of colour called "Atomic Bombshell". A 4th colourway called "Va Va Voom" suffered from one of the challenges of the business, people going on holidays!. The anno shop had some difficulty creating the effect we wanted, so rather than rush it we decided to wait until after Lunar New year to get the last 25 done in a different anno shop. Of course while we awaited the actual machining and anno of the yoyo came the part I like best, crafting the unboxing experience! I went to a local crafting store that always has tonnes of odds and ends and weird things. I found lengths of what can only be called mini feather boa! So i grabbed 30 meters in 4 different colours.
For the Lego Troy and I hunted and found some gemstones and little roses that were perfect. Each colourway will come with it's own combination of parts. For the packaging we went with a classic black box. Releasing on Valentines day meant the dollar store was full of sparkly things! So on the boxes went glittery heart stickers and patterned rhinestone stickers. To round it all off I managed to find a zip up case that had a rose printed on it! It will ship with a 10 pack of string in it, but it's also big enough to carry your Showgirl around in style! The showgirl is now available at Return Top Shop, grab yours while they last!
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I’ve had a few conversations lately with different online skill toy retailers. What I’ve been hearing is something I’ve been experiencing as well. It’s becoming harder to make an online skill toy retail store work. There are a number of challenges, old and new that are faced by online retailers.
Inventory choices are the biggest challenge. It’s very difficult to decide what to stock. 1. Competition: Do I only stock major brands that have brand recognition? If I do, then I’m competing directly with every other online retailer to sell a product that doesn’t have limited availability. Or do I focus on smalller hard to find products? Then I’m in the position of doing the leg work to help a new or small brand get recognition that they can’t do themselves on the off chance their stuff will sell. It’s hard because I want to support start up brands, but have limited funds to tie up in products. 2. Unpredictability of sales: I have had products from one supplier sell out in a weekend, only to have their next release sit on the shelf for months. No idea why. 3. Shipping and volume: Generally the markup for retail is 40% in the yoyo world. Which is less than half of what you are seeing if you go buy a pair of shoes at a retail store. What doesn’t get taken into account with that number is overhead. When you add in the costs below the actual profit margin can be pretty close to 0% at times. -cost of freight to the online store -taxes, duties, paypal fees -cost of running the website, time maintaining and updating -shipping costs (very few yoyo retailers actually charge what it costs to ship including labour and packaging) -promotional costs -losses -products that just plain don’t sell, or only sell below cost. 4. Dead stock: When I order skill toys for the store, I have to do the mental math of “If I buy 10, at a 40% markup minus shipping and taxes I need to sell 6 or 7 to break even”. If I only sell 4 initially then I’m sitting on funds that could have gone elsewhere, and often are sitting on my credit card accruing interest. All too often those last 3 end up being sold at discount, so I’ve made no profit even though I’ve sold 10. 5. Employees: Do I do it all myself or hire help? I don’t have any actual employees, but I occasionally hire one of the kids from the local club to come in and help with small jobs. I have paid graphic designers for imagery and support for promotional strategies. The bonus packs that go into every box that ships out have a cost that varies. The concrete costs of the bags, stickers and candy are easy, but the time it takes me to package them together is harder. It’s tricky to work all of that into the cost of yoyos, but it is yet another chip away at the 40%. I think the biggest challenge going forward is that it is so much easier to sell products online than it was even 5 years ago. I recently switched the store over to Shopify because of how complex yet simple it is. All of the finances, inventory control and shipping are in the Same place. This means that manufacturers large and small are more likely to sell direct. Their fans are (quite reasonably) more likely to buy direct rather than through a retailer because they want to support the creative end. But it makes choosing what to stock a challenge. I happily stock MonkeyfingeR design begleri because their initial releases include retailers. Aroudnsquare releases direct first then sells to online retailers, which makes it harder to move their products since the majority of sales happen on release. Both brands have solid followings that will buy direct first before they look to returntopshop. This is pretty consistent across the board. With yoyos big brands like Yoyofactory or Duncan are stocked consistently in many other established stores, so there is more competition for those customers. Their minimum quantity orders also make it hard becuase I can’t generally count on selling 12 of each colour. The smaller brands don’t have the reach into stores, but they also don’t have the massive fan base buying them. So where to next? I’m finding myself in a position of having a few brands I know can sell, a few products that I am willing to spend time promoting and sticking to those. I know I can sell yoyos that retail for under $30. Over that, brand recognition is required, and a scarcity market (sells out quickly elsewhere) helps so at least I know when other stores sell out there will still be customers. Do I put money into bringing more brands in to draw customers? Or do I put that money into creating original products with Rain City Skills? For the last few months almost half of my sales have either been Rain City products, or a hand ful of rarities that I have gotten my hands on. Do I switch tracks and put more time and energy into building the local yoyo scene through school demos and public workshops? Or do I need to put some money and time into advertising? Either way, it’s a learning experience that I’m really enjoying! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments. -Jeremy “Mr Yoyothrower” McKay Round 2 of the hugely popular “Gamer” is almost ready to release! The first run of themed ‘splash’ colourways sold out in a weekend, so by popular demand we did a second run! I like to stay tuned in to the community online and one piece of feedback that was overwhelming was a desire to have a beadblasted finish, so we added that. I also opted for a slightly thicker but better quality carry case that should hold all your accessories. For the second run we chose 3 new games and 1 repeat from the first run.
Where to shop: Yoyosam.com has all 4 colours in small quantities if that’s your favourite store to shop at. Yoyoexpert.com has the four 2nd run colours as well as 4 half/half combos from the first run. Returntopshop.com will have all 4 of the new splash colours, as well as offering a ‘build your own’ option with the solid colours, allowing you to pick 2 halves. The only glitch there is I ran out of bearing tools so the solids will be slightly discounted to account for having no bearing tool. TL;DR Gamer releases Friday at 6:PM Pacific Get yours at returntopshop.com, yoyoexpert.com and yoyosam.com Go play yoyo.
In the Northern Hemisphere, December is the darkest month of the year. Throughout human history in the Northern latitudes the winter has been a great enemy. It’s been a time people are struggling to survive. It’s also a time of togetherness for people. The weather keeps us indoors and needing to find entertainment together through discussions, games and skill toys! The winter season brings many varied cultural and religious traditions from around the world. It’s interesting that so many of them involve bringing life into the house in the form of evergreen trees and plants (trees, wreaths, winter flowers etc) and the use of lights and candles. Lighting candles ceremonially in winter to increase the amount of light in the world. Standing up against the darkness with a cry of “I know its dark, and there are monsters outside, but in here we are together and there is life”.
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