Business plan GO...

So far so good for my business plan....At the moment I'm writing a bullet point 'draft' version so I can get this checked and then bulk out with my information. I'm quite enjoying writing it, as I can finally...(slowly....)see my ideas and business project coming together...

Inspiring image....

http://weheartit.com/entry/12186944

I would like to have an image similar to this to advertise my business....

Apple&Pears clothing...

Another piece of information is that Apple&Pears will mainly and 99% of the time be providing sophisticated evening wear, so long dresses, short dresses, glamorous tops, trousers and skirts will be the main pieces. There won't be any casual pieces unless we decide to bring out one off collections.

Like this very glamorous dress from ASOS Curve....

Apple&Pears PARTYNights...

Obviously the way my company is selling their clothing is through direct party evenings. SO a good way to promote the business is to have a big 'PARTYnight' each time a new catalogue comes out.....

so when the first one comes out for example could be hosted in London, and then the next one in Bournemouth and basically go round the country as each catalogue comes out OR another idea would be to have the 'PARTYnights' in the county that gets most sales, as a reward to the representatives and a thank you to the customers...

Seems a good idea, if the clothes are selling and the moneys coming in steadily I think it would be a good way to keep customers interested!

AVON research...

Seeing as I want my business to be direct selling I have been looking into AVON as they are also a direct selling business and I have found that they make their money by having the representatives do the selling, for instance if the representative gets an order of over £148 then they will earn £1 to every £4 they make, so the Avon business gains £3 for every £4 the representative makes. Also if the representative doesn't at least earn £78 in an order then Avon gets all the commission and the representative doesn't get any. They also only get 20% which is £16.50

For my company I would probably use the same basic scheme but perhaps could sort money out from how many garments the representative sells and at what price the clothing is going for.

(obviously at the moment this is just ideas milling round my mind!)

Direct selling business

'Apple&Pears PartyNights'
....Is going to be the name of the 'direct selling evenings' that will be hosted..

^logo will be uploaded soon^

ALSO...

I completely forgot to mention that my business is not going to be the 'norm' and isn't going to be in a shop...I am going to provide a direct selling business, going straight to the customer and offering them 'party evenings' with wine, nibbles and lots of clothes to try on and buy! (kind of like AVON, but with clothes!!!!!!) now I just need to research into companies who already provide this....

Business plan drafts...

Sooo today I have begun my business plan draft, which is going to be a very rough idea of what my business plan will be like, once I have done this I will have a tutorial with Tony and after this I will begin to bulk out the business plan to produce the 4000 words required.

Alssso

I am liking the fact at the moment all my projects are tying into one, my Entrepreneurial unit, then my diseration and finally even my final major project are all based around the same issues that I feel very strongly about...

THE COMPETITORS...

I have began looking at companies that would be providing for the same target customer anddd so far I am not very impressed with what I have seen, so am fairly positive for my business ALTHOUGH I love the fact that ASOS have a section for naturally curvy women (DIDN'T know this and ASOS is very fashionable!)

Other companies I rather liked were: La Redoute, Yours, Simply Be, Wallis, Next Lana Bryant and many more....

Names...

OH ALSO....
before I forget, I have decided on the name of my business and its going to be (drumrollll):
APPLE&PEARS *

*I initially got this inspiration/idea from a girl in my class (so thank you) and I really like the name as is unusual compared to the normal curvy clothing companies!

DEADLINES eeeek

So the deadline is steadily creeping up(like they always do!) and I 100% need to up my work load so I can do well! We have to produce our 1000 word research report and have a draft sorted for friday 25th, so from today its go.go.go

SO TRUE...

'blogging' along...

So far I am actually enjoying the project, although obviously I am a little stressed. But is very exciting planning your own business and having an image of what the future business would be like! AND I had forgotten how much I lurrrve blogging, so all in all the life of a Entrepreneurial student is going relatively well at the moment...

....

Ideally in the beginning I wanted to aim my business at naturally curvy women who were aged 21+ but from doing research I have found that most women this age, don't have the disposable incomes to be able to spend for example £70+ on an outfit and because I really want my clothing to fit well and look amazing, I need to aim my business at an age group who are more willing to spend more money on high quality.

check.check.checcck it out!

From looking at my results I am going to be providing my clothing for naturally curvy women who are aged 36+ and looking for sophisticated evening wear....

its ALL about the research....

I have began gathering research for my business plan, at the moment I am doing surveys to find out where the gaps in the market are and then from this I can decide where to specifically aim my business and I can begin looking into my competitors.

All is going OK so far, I feel I'm struggling slightly as I am more creative then business orientated but Rome wasn't built in a day and everyone has to start at the beginning before their good at something!

LETS PUSH THINGS FORWARD...

IDEAS.THOUGHTS.

After initially getting my idea for my business plan, I showed the rest of my class to see what their opinions were and generally all the feedback was pretty positive and they all liked the idea. NOW I just need to go further afield with my research...

AND SO...the Entrepreneurial business plan commences...

From today onwards I will be beginning my ideas on my business plan, so what I want to do, how I'm going to do it and why....

I already have a vague idea of what my business will be:

Basically I find in high street stores they do not provide enough fashionable clothing for naturally curvy women that fit well. So from this stage I need to gather research and see if there is a gap in the market for my business idea.

SO FAR. SO GOOD???. yep.