Week 3 Blog Entry: w/c 5th October 2020 - Creative Enterprise

This week, I started working on my business plan. Last week, I started my proposal and whilst I've completed most of it, I'm still in the middle of gathering resources to read up on to aid my learning. One of the main things I want to do this week is look into the things that need to go into a business plan and what costs I am likely to need to consider for this project. I have completed a business plan before, but this time it is going to be a real product that I'm actaully going to sell, so I'm hoping this will give me some idea of what I can expect in the future, when I actually have my own business.

I have to started collecting and printing off my secondary research this week, especially now that I have access to the university library online. I wanted to look at some entrepreneurial books, specifically those teaching you how to start a photography business. I wanted the subject matter to be specific to selling products rather than services. The first thing I found was a new article written in the Telelgraph in 2018, where a photographer had set up her own business. It is quite an informative piece, about qualities that someone who wants to own their own business must have, such as the latest equipment, financial knowledge, a Social Media presence and an eye for detail. It sounded quite simple and there was a lot of information in there that I felt I already knew, but it's good to get some clarification of the dos and don'ts of running a business.

To start my business plan, I looked up examples business plans online. I found a blog post on Hubspot, which detail some of the main criteria for a business plan. There were some examples of some simplistic business plans and then some more complex plans. Although this was helpful in showing me the layouts of business plans, I ultimately decided to create a layout of my own that helped me to collect all of my information together.

I didn't do much in the way of research for this this week, because most of my information was gathered last week when I created my proposal. However, I did do some more digging into supplier costs, because I suddenly realised that all the working out I did last week was for one design and not three. Instantprint will print 50 cards for £45.00, but that is only for one design. For three design and 150 cards, it would cost me £135.00. This is a little bit on the expensive side, so instead of 50, I'll print 25 of each design, so it'll come to £105.00 for 75 cards. This is a better price and it means that the unit cost for each card is £1.40. I feel this is achieveable amount of cards to sell and even if I don't this year, I can always try again next year.

Next, I looked into the "Market Research", which also fits in with the "Competition" section of my business plan. This had me looking into potential competitors both large corporations and smaller, more independent creatives. Firstly, I looked at Etsy, which has a large number of independent creatives who all sell similar products to mine. I looked into this resource, because people on Etsy would be my main competitors and I intend to sell my work. What I did notice on Etsy was that there wasn't much in the way of photographic images, just art and typography. I'm hoping this'll mean that my cards might offer a little bit of a variety amongst what is already out there. Not on the High Street is another potential competitor and I looked into this resource because they offer high quality products, at a higher price (something similar to what I would expect at John Lewis). Again, there was a lot of typography and artwork, but not a lot in the way of photographic imagery. I was tempted to try selling here, but they only accept people who have an established business. Not on the High Street is somewhere I am definitely going to look at in the future, as I think I would be able to grow my client base by offering high quality products.

I also had a look at bigger corporations like Clintons and Card Factory. These would be my more obvious competitors in the market. I feel that Clintons will be more of a competitor as they sell products that have similar pricing to mine. Here, I expected there to be much more competition, with a large product range, having been established for a long time, reasonable prices and having a good reputation. I was really surprised to see that they barely have anything in regards to photographic imagery, just like everywhere else. I still feel that companies won't sell as much photography as artwork, because Christmas is a nostalgic time and artwork feels more sentimental and warm than a photyograph does. Photography pauses a moment in time as a memory or a document, so putting an image of a place or person that is nostalgic to the photographer but not the customers wouldn fail to sell, as the customer doesn't feel the same way. This may be different if the work was commissioned or sold somewhere that was a tourist destination, but not so much for Christmas imagery. I'm glad that there isn't a lot in the way of photography on greetings cards as it means I can work my way into the market with something different, but it also might mean that I'll struggle to sell anything as it's just not what people want.

The final thing I researched for this section were trends within the market. For this, I actually found an article on John Lewis' website. It was a very in-depth description of what sort of things have inspired the trend for 2020. I was really pleased to see that a lot of the trends are based on art movements, with colour schemes ranging from warm and sentimental, to bright and bold. I did this research because it is important to keep on top of what people are buying and what is likely to catch their attention and sell. I will do this every year and expand my product range based on these themes. I mentioned Shutterstock and Alamy in my research because I think that these are good places to sell my photography digitally. Alamy also gives you an idea of what sort of imagery is trending and the sorts of people are more likely to buy. This'll be good to do some "freelancing" with and whilst it most likely won't be the photography I'm into, it'll still offer me a way to keep my name out there and keep me on top of my photography skills, maybe whilst learning more.

My next bit of research was for "The Market" section of my business plan. I wanted to look into the amount of people that bought Christmas cards last year, because this could effect who buys my cards this year. I found that the market for Christmas cards is still very strong and although 34% of people between the ages of 25-34 don't really buy cards anymore, because they feel it's a necessity rather than a choice, people still like to send online cards, particularly on Social Media (Mintel, 2017). I've discovered this could actually be an option for me - instead of selling them physically, I could create an online greetings card where people download them for a small fee. This would enable me to cater to a larger audience, rather than just the older generation who prefer to send physical greetings cards. It would also mean that whilst I want my cards printed and handed out physically, I can also create e-cards and sell them for something as well. This way, no-one gets left out and I am selling to a wider variety of people. Whilst the UK spent £1.7 Billion on greetings cards in 2019, in 2017 74% of people thought cards were overpriced (Brown, 2019). This might be true for the larger corporations, but I tend to think that for quality it will cost a bit more. As for independent creatives, it's about the time and cost it has taken to create the product - so things like that might be a bit more expensive. What I found interesting is that Christmas cards made 12% of the market. Whilst this is quite small in the grander scheme of things it's still quite large considering Christmas only happens once a year. This is promising, but also shows how much competition is already out there, so I would really need something that's original when I create my own products. I was glad to see that that greetings cards market was at £133 million and 271 business were trading with greetings cards. Whilst again this means that the competition is big, it looks as though I will be able to create something in a market that will continue for a long while yet. It was important I did this research, so that I know that the products I'm making aren't entering a market that's dying off - I won't sell anything that way and I'd be buying produce at a cost that really isn't worth it. I will continue to do this sort of research every year.

I did a quick bit of research on extra equipment, meaning lighting. After doing a workshop on LED lighting, I realised that I think this is something I might be missing from my own studio set-up. Sometimes, I struggle to get the lighting right on an object and I now think it's because I'm missing a backlight. I plan to do a shoot where I can test the set-up first and then if I'm still not happy with the outcomes I'm going to search more on LED lights and see if I can get one at a decent price. I have looked on Amazon, because they have the best price on things like lighting. Currently, I can get a Neewer, single, bi-colour LED for £72.99 from Amazon and this allows me to change the temperature of the light for cold or warm light. However, it doesn't come with a diffuser, stand or barn doors. I can also get two Neewer LEDs that come with barn doors and stands for £146.99. This is quite expensive and something I would need to consider adding to the price of the products I sell, so I really need to take some test shots and make sure this is something I definitely want to do before I do it.

The last part of my research was the "Estimated Expenditure & Income" section of my plan. At the moment, I don't really know if I need to consider all of these costs, so it's more of a work-in-progress. Firstly and most importantly, I considered the costs of my cards. For 3 designs, it's going to cost me £35.00 for each for a pack of 25. This is from Instantprint. Overall, that'll be £105.00. I ordered one of their sample packs to see which material would be best for my cards and I really like the shiny effect of the 'Gold Dust' card. All of these samples can be found in my research file. Considering I'll be using Photoshop for editing, I've included this as part of the cost, which is £9.98 monthly. As I would like to sell my photographs on my website, buying the domain will cost me 99p for the first year. I've included car running costs, just in case I need to go out and buy props. This'll be approximately £5.00. Lastly, I thought about delivery costs for if someone buys my products online. This is something I thought about last minute, but Royal Mail charge a delivery cost of £2.45 for a small envelope. I have done all of this research so that I can work out exactly what I can sell my products for. I expect this will change once I've created my products as there are things I haven't considered yet. I don't want to charge something too excessive otherwise my products won't sell and people will go to people like Clintons, who have a better reputation that myself.

Next week, I'm going to start taking my test shots using props and seeing exactly what it is I want to create and how I'm going to go about it. This'll help me to narrow down techniques to the ones that I think look the most original and people will most likely buy. I will also look into the more artistic techniques that I could use on my cards to make them stand out from what's already out there. To do this, I might look at art shops like Hobbycraft to get some inspiration and also start looking at threads I can use for my experiment with sewing into card.