Whitstable Craft Co

Handcrafted leather goods

Under 10 Employees
Founders Don't Code
Solo Founder
B2C
E-Commerce
Sales
Shopping

I struggled to find a high-quality, minimalist wallet, so I learned how to make them myself. I now hand cut, glue, stitch and finish leather goods with the best available leather.

July 10, 2019 Rebuilding, repositioning, repackaging

Most recently I have been doing a lot to think about how I am going to relaunch the brand, the positioning and the products.

I wasn't happy with the customer experience with the dropshipping method.

Here's an outline of what I'm doing.

  • Batch ordering all of my products, then taking pro photography of them
  • Ordering all of my competitors products to understand their user experience, marketing and packaging
  • Researching the best and most cost-effective packaging and distribution methods, with 2-day shipping in the UK
  • Commissioned a photographer to take photos of the leather bags
May 25, 2019 The idea in Spain

After my first 2 sales and IG campaign, I'd left the store dormant and not touched it. I intended on doing something at some point, but I wasn't really passionate about it.

3 months roll on by and I find myself in a small village in Spain (Mijas). There is a leather seller that I go to every year, I usually buy a wallet or belt from him. Something small. This time around he sold me on these 2 bags, a briefcase and a duffle bag.

When I got back it got me thinking. I love these bags and I think a lot of other people would love these bags, and I reckon I could get a lot more reach than a small town in southern Spain.

I decided I was going to relaunch Fiberoll, but as a premium lifestyle goods brand.

March 10, 2019 My first sales!

I am absolutely delighted to report my first 2 sales... from my mum and dad.

I sent them the link to the site (with about 6 products on at this point) and they both chose the same item:

https://fiberoll.com/collections/fiberoll-x-baseus/products/fiberoll-pouch

This was a way of me testing the dropshipping method and using Oberlo.

There was a problem though. I couldn't get my head around why anyone would wait 20-40 days for a product (and I wouldn't even manage the packaging or anything).

March 1, 2019 My first Instagram campaign

I thought it would be a good idea to chuck £50 at an Instagram to see if I could make any sales. It didn't work.

I was just funding this with my salary and so £50 was all I could think was worthwhile. I ran the campaign for 5 days with generic targeting and an image I found on Unsplash (it wasn't even an image of the product).

That's when I realised I should probably work on my product some more.

February 26, 2019 It all started with a Twitter thread

I've always been interested in having a consumer brand and selling a physical product and an idea came to me one evening in February. I also wanted to have a Shopify store, see how the platform worked and potentially do it all through dropshipping. It was all a ploy to try and get some extra income, but as I'd been in B2B my whole career I thought it would be good to learn more about how to market to consumers.

It all started with this Twitter thread:

That evening I did it all. I came up with the product idea, the name, the brand, the logo, made the website, set up all the social profiles. It took me about 4 hours in total and I was delighted - I had my consumer brand up and running.

About

I struggled to find a high-quality, minimalist wallet, so I learned how to make them myself. I now hand cut, glue, stitch and finish leather goods with the best available leather.