Envoie Tes Boules
// Creating, Launching and Selling a New Product

The Concept

Being very attached to traditions, we were keen to offer people far away from their families a way to express their wishes and love with a powerful emotional impact.

Envoie Tes Boules reinvents the way you wish for the holiday season. Send each of your loved ones a personalized message contained in a snow-filled Christmas bauble.
Share the magic of the holidays in an original way.

To pass on your wishes to friends and family is one of the most heart-warming Christmas traditions and a great way to celebrate the cold season. But year after year, the postcard or even the SMS loses its originality.

Displays a message of up to 140 characters. Inscribed on a silver card, it will be integrated into the snow filling the ball. Sent directly to the address indicated above.

My Role

Because we launched that project in less than 48 hours, we had to have complementary skills !

In that project, I did:

Cost Breakdown

The cost of 1 ball is 0.80€* !
*Prices shown are for one bauble

• Bauble: 0,4€
• Organza Bag: 0,24€
• Snow: 0,13€
• Ribbon (20cm): 0,027€


• Shipping Fees: 8,5€
• Sale Price: 14,90€

It was obviously impossible to put the product at 6€ and add 8,5€ in shipping costs when the user placed the order.
That's why we decided to hide part of the shipping costs in the price of the ball.
This gives a ball at 9,90€ and 5€ shipping cost.

Seed Capital in Details

Our initial capital consisted mainly of our stock and the creation of the website.

• 300 baubles (120€)
• 300 organza bag (72€)
• 2 ribbons (6,60€)
• 4 pots of snow (25,96€)
• Website + URL (50e)

Key Figures

Analysis

"It's not a failure if you learn something !"
Here is our analysis on that project and what we learned from it.

Late Release :

Because Envoie Tes Boules is a seasonal project, it has a limited lifespan.

Even if we launched the project in less than 48 hours and it was launched on December 2nd... We didn't have enough leeway to communicate and approach the press in order to get media coverage...
Knowing that it takes a minimum of 2 to 3 months before a project really works, it's as if our project was dead even before being launched.

Problem of name, communication and target :

Knowing that we had little time to make ourselves known and make money with this project, we thought it made sense to have a provocative name and offbeat communication in order to make an impression as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, our lack of experience and speed caused us to lack discernment regarding the marketing of this product.
We created a name and a communication young, offbeat, deliberately provocative while the proposed price and the very concept of the product reaches an older target...

This is why, for any project launch, whether it is a service or a product, it is essential to define the target's expectations and needs.

Otherwise, the project could fail or take time to take off.

Stock :

Our biggest strategic mistake was to have a stock from the outset knowing the fragility of our project.

As soon as the project was launched we were approached by companies to take care of their year-end wishes.
And with such short deadlines, we could not meet the potential high demand.

Knowing that all our suppliers had only a limited stock, we decided to have a stock in order to be able to meet the demand immediately and not to suffer possible delays with our customers.
Unfortunately after several days of negotiation with potential companies, they did not follow up on our quotations.
And we ended up with a stock...

With so much stock, the pressure was on us to make a decision and find a solution to get back into our costs as soon as possible, knowing that the project only lasts a few days/weeks.

Ads :

Due to a lack of budget we couldn't do Facebook, Instagram Ads and even if we had done... we had the wrong target from the start..., so it would have taken us a long time to find the right targeting criteria.

However, we had sent the media a press release accompanied by a personalized ball explaining our project and our approach.
We suspect that because of a provocative name, an offbeat communication and a short timing, the media were reluctant to relay us.

After reflection, no matter the project or the service, communication and advertising are the sinews of war in this consumer jungle.
"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory" Sun Tzu - The Art of War

Which is What Saved Us :

Not having been covered by the press and not being able to advertise, we needed a strategy to sell the stock we had... Or at least sell just enough to pay back our initial stake.

Then after some thought, we realized that our most suitable target was expatriates, people who were not going to be able to spend the holidays with their families!
So we signed up with all the Facebook groups of French expatriates to advertise.

This worked much better than we had imagined. Since we were able to make almost 45 sales in 3 days!
Which paid back our stock!

Saved!

The Future :

Even if we made sales, we didn't make any money, we just refunded our stock...
Even if we still have 250 Christmas baubles left, we preferred not to continue and/or relaunch the project, since we should have modified everything, changed the communication, the website, the price etc...

So we preferred to move on, and leave this project as a wonderful experience and a beautiful memory!