All Work and No Play...

I know I haven't blogged in awhile, but I have been thinking about it (does that count?) I have also been working hard on something special for fall from These Two Girls. I will tell you all more about it as it gets closer, but I can say that I am working with a wonderful designer named Laurie Brown that has made developing this product a dream.

What else have I been working on? Getting Woobee Kids into the international market. This is no small task. Getting your products into the right distributors hands and making your price point attractive to them is all very tricky. I now have connections with Japan, Israel, Australia, Sweden, Germany, & Switzerland. Most of these relationships still need to grow and solidify, but just having the interest and contacts is a good first step. I anticipate some of the markets doing better than others. Where the US dollar is the weakest lends to better price points and more money for the distributors. A $70 blanket here in the US is around $45 in the EU. Crazy.

It is a little ironic that the product I am currently committed to having manufactured in the US I am looking to export. I find it very interesting that other countries value US made products more the US consumers. It has been my experience that many countries are willing to pay more for quality products and have less things, while the US consumer would rather have lots of "great deals". This is why selling to Target, Babies-R-Us, or Walmart are essential if you want a multi million dollar children's company. That my dears, is a whole other bag of worms.

Check out this picture of Ava and her Super Woobee, the perfect luxury beach towel.

More Celeb Baby Stuff

The Ellen Show choose other baskets for today's show. Oddly, I am not disappointed. It was actually stressing me out to think about life post Ellen. I know it is one of those opportunites every company dreams of, but I have some other goals I am working towards with Woobee and that could have put me so deep in the weeds I would need a snorkel and weed wacker just to see the light of day. So I push on without an Ellen show under my belt.

I know I have talked about celebrity gifting suites in the past, how I have done them but don't always believe they are worth the money and time you spend. Well...Woobee Kids is currently at a gifting suite this weekend in Beverly Hills called the Silver Spoon Baby & Doggie Buffet. Bizarre. Anyway, Victoria from a LA based e-retailer called The Traveling Tot contacted me to ask if I would like Woobee to participate in her boutique booth at the event. She was asking for a small fee and would display/market the blankets as a travel must-have, as well as order the minimum wholesale order. I only sent a handful of blankets to hand out to a select few celebs. So, yes I did do another random celeb suite BUT I have wanted to market to the travel market which she is doing, I have opened a new retail account, and she hired her own photographer so I may also get some good pictures as a bonus. This is my kind of event!

Happy Mother's Day to all you that are mothers! Try to stay away from big brunch's...it is never the restaurants best food and your kidding yourself if you think your children will behave, and no - your husband will not be the one who reins them in because they will only want you.

The excruciating pain of waiting

I am in a holding pattern so ridiculous it's scary. The Ellen DeGeneres Show had told us that we would hear back yes or no by the end of the week if our fabulous gift basket (SaraBear Basket, Woobee's & BabyLegs - awesome!) was going to be the audience give away for the Mothers Day Show (which btw airs this thursday). We haven't heard back yet and Friday has come and gone, but a handful of PR people tell me not to write it off yet. Apparently they could contact you as late as the day before the deadline so you spend enormous amounts of money on overnight shipping. What a nightmare!

We were forced to ship all the product to the BabyLegs fulfillment center, which is in California, just to be prepared in case we get the call. That's preparing and shipping product for 300 people just in frickin' case. It's crazy. The real issue for me is that I am unable to pursue any other large sales opportunities until this one exhausts itself. I need to have the inventory in stock to support the possible windfall of attention that Ellen could cause. Aaarrgghhh! My husband is getting a little tired of my neurotic behavior but not as tired of it as I am.

I gotta give a shout out to my PR girl Liz from 32FlavorsPR for getting Woobee into the May issue of Pregnancy & Newborn - yeah Liz!