How it all begun - Prelude
When I moved in 2011 to Sweden, I was so impressed by Scandinavian interior design. So much, that I decided to start my own business with the goal to bring more and new Scandinavian design to the growing german online market. Its beautiful design, the clear lines and shapes, its perfect functionality and last but not least its sustainable approach.
I started the brand âKings of Swedenâ, opened the web shop Kingsofsweden.com and moved hundreds of items into a predesigned shop software (texttalk). I had zero stock items and no warehouse at all. All was planned to be handled as easy as possible for me via Dropshipping (where orders were shipped directly from my suppliers warehouses via DHL, Fedex, UPS directly to my customers doors - smart set-up one could think. Everything was ready to roll and I started to attack potential clients - earlier adapters I wanted to start with first. Something I learned in UICs (Uppsala Innovation Centre) Lean Start-up course.
OK, I said to myself âletâs do some marketingâ. I found interior design magazines, who were more than happy to print the brand new discovered Scandinavian designer products. Many of them never had been seen before in Germany. I had some bloggers doing product tests and influencers were hyping the new site. Additionally I did some Google Adwords as well as social media activities via Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. I did a good job - sales were continuously on the rise.
Until that one day, when I sold more items than my suppliers had available. I had the money in my bank but no products to send to my customers in time. This happened more and more frequently as I could imagine from the beginning. The consequence was more handling time on customer issues, less time for sales and marketing. I was spending more and more on handling others problems and if as this was not enough, some fancy new design web shops popped up (like e.g. Monoqui.com), started investing massive money in just my speciality: Young and New Scandinavian Design! They did flash sales and as a result my business went more and more complicated. I needed to find a solution - urgent!
On the hunt for investors and partners I learned very fast that NOBODY was interested in putting a few thousand Euros in an online web shop for Scandinavian Interior Design but EVERYBODY was willing to invest millions in investment deals with either game developers or Life science newbies. Tuff luck, I thought to myself!
But there was this one guy during an investors event who had been quite successful in his business and started now investing in other companies. We had a short conversation about online business in general about why he did not believe in my business model. He said he liked my brand and logotype but he wanted to ask me these two decisive questions:
1. âHow do you drive traffic to your web site in the future?â and 2. âHave you ever thought about selling on Amazon?â Honestly, I didnât had any good answer to question number one, because I thought that time I did a good job regarding to driving traffic to my shop site (but in the future?!?). Question number tvĂ„ made me curious because I had heard a lot about that growing online giant called Amazon. That platform were millions of germans were shopping what ever they needed online - fast, easy , safe and reliable. Amazon was then already known in Germany as a trusted and well working online shop.
This guy - letâs say John, a very friendly Swede - was very open and invited me to learn more about selling via Amazon, a platform he was selling products for millions of dollars per year (this is what others said about him). I was not sure if that could be true because there are so many people out there waisting others time with their fantasy and lies about their huge business. But somehow this guy seemed to be trustworthy - and what did I had to loose? I was very grateful for his kindness and accepted this opportunity to learn more about AmazonâŠÂ
That was when all begun!
Read in my next episode what happened when I discovered the truth and saw real figures. How I realised that I had to âkill my darlingâ (the Kings of Sweden design web shop) and how I converted that brand to something totally different, entering into an Amazon based business.
Thank you for reading and feel free to share - if you dare ;-)