Our Year In Review And A Look Into The Future
As the year quickly comes to a close, we thought an update blog would be great this month. From growth updates to future plans, this blog will discuss 2021 in review and upcoming goals and plans for the new year.
Sales
In 2020, we had 93 online website purchases and this year we have had 60! We didn’t beat our record number of sales for the year, but we are over our goal of 150 website orders! We are so thankful for all of the support!
As you probably know, close to the middle of this year we got to open a pop-up shop inside Sip & Dipity in downtown Springfield, Ohio. This was our first in-person retail location and we absolutely love getting to tell people a physical place when they ask us where they can find our products! (Thanks Tracey!)
We made 113 in-person sales (between the shop and any vendor or in-person sales events we attended) and we’re incredibly proud of that number! Deciding on how to display our products, finding time to be open, and just learning how to help our customers navigate their way through our products were all new challenges for us this year that have really helped us grow as a business.
Customs/Commissions
On top of the online and in-person sales, we’ve gotten to help brand many small businesses this year. We’ve made lots of custom products for people like the embroidery hoop ornaments you’ve seen us make recently! We had almost 20 of those over the course of the last two months. It was so fun to create so many unique and special ornaments and we are already looking forward to creating new custom holiday gifts next year!
In case you didn’t know, I am a graphic designer. I create a lot of branding materials and do a wide variety of other designs for things like businesses, bands, and various entrepreneurs. I am almost always accepting commissions for any type of design work. From baby shower flyers to complete branding guidelines, I am available for custom work. Feel free to reach out via email if you or anyone you know may be interested in, or have a need for, my design services.
Follower Growth
As word got out, our social media accounts grew. You guys helped share our business and that has helped us gain new followers from all around the world. Watching the numbers of followers we have grow has been very rewarding for us and has also served as a neat little reminder that both our world, and the number of people on it, are quite large. Our business might be small, but the world is large, and we are happy to be a part of it.
We started off the year with 1,050 Facebook “likes” and we are ending the year with 1,596. We gained over 500 new Facebook followers through out 2021 organically without paying for ads at all and that’s Insane! We’re so happy to have “met” every one of you.
On Instagram we doubled our number of followers. We went from 295 to 594 in 2021! We can’t wait to make more friends on each platform. We love following all of our small business friends and staying up to date on what they are up to!
Packages Traveled 6,664 Miles
We mailed close to 60 packages this year (we offer in-store pickup online as a delivery method so not all orders were mailed) and they traveled over 7,000 miles! That’s over 2 trips from US coast to coast. Absolutely insane to put it into perspective that way.
Website Sales Map (17/50)
We are currently up to 17/50 on our United States Sales Map! A goal of ours is to make at least one sale in each state. When we get our first sale from a state, we throw in extra goodies as a special thank you for helping us reach our goals.
We have a sales map of the United States and currently we are at seventeen out of fifty. We have a goal of trying to make one sale in all fifty. All though it is probably an unobtainable achievement to say we would like to accomplish this goal by the end of 2022 (or probably ever because who would get our products shipped to the likes of Alaska or Kansas) we really would love to fill out the whole map.
Sage & Oak Website Sales Map shows all the states in which an online order has been placed.
Goals for 2022
We have so many goals for our small business in 2022. We want to push as hard as we can to see what works and what doesn’t, develop bigger and better products, and to spread the word about Sage & Oak. Honestly our list of goals is kind of overwhelming so we’ll narrow it down to a few to keep it not-so-boring.
We’re currently at 153 online orders and our goal for the end of 2022 is to get 300. It’ll be tough but we’re going to spend more time working on marketing and less time stressing on whether or not something is good enough to post.
We’d like to post on social media more consistently than we have been. We’ve cut ourselves (maybe too much) slack and allowed ourselves the breaks we need, but in 2022 we need to be more “out there” so that’s what we’re going to do. Planning in advance is something we’ve gotten better at so this one hopefully isn’t too much of a hassle.
Without a doubt our stickers are our best sellers. They’re waterproof, super high quality, super adorable, and support a small business so it’s no surprise. We’re so happy that they sell as well as they do. They’re some of our favorite products as well and we love seeing them gain popularity over time. In 2022, we’re going to launch at least one new sticker every month to keep things exciting. The stickers we have are great and we love them but it’s time for change. You probably remember us marking down prices on a few of our older designs to make room for these new stickers recently.
This year we had a goal of X amount of website views per day and honestly that was kind of a lot to hold ourselves accountable for. Not every day we posted on social media to drive traffic to our site so we fell short many of those days. It got discouraging over time. In 2022, we think it’s best to worry less about the numbers and more about the quality of the content we post. That way, everything will come together.
I have worked on a lot of freelance design projects as well as custom product commissions this year and those account for a huge chunk of our income. In 2022, we’d like to have at least 2 new clients or projects each month. Networking will become a huge priority so we can figure out how we can help those in our community. I absolutely love working with local business owners.
In 2021, we wrote one new blog post a month and that was great. It didn’t take up too much of our time and we had plenty of time to work in advance to plan and research. We’ll continue to write 1 new blog post per month as we are currently doing.
While we love our retail space, we want to branch out! 2022 will focus on finding other locations where we could sell our products. If you have a space and would like to have our products there, reach out to us via email or DM! We’d love to discuss our options!
A Look Into the Future
You may remember us recently selling some of our older products at a discounted price. We were making room for new (and in our opinion better) products for this coming year. We learned a lot about our products in 2021. We are always working on ways to make our products, new and old, be better and better and in 2022 we hope to put out our best products yet!
We plan to make more vinyl decals and waterproof stickers, more reusable canvas totes, some punch needle decor, we will have new polymer clay earring designs, basswood earrings, new faux leather earrings, etched drinking glasses, graphic prints, and much more! We’ll be launching things periodically so be sure to keep your eyes out for any of our new products!
Wholesale Stickers
In the past, we’ve had requests for wholesale pricing on our stickers and we’re happy to announce… wholesale sticker pricing is now available!! From our website menu, there is a link to our “Wholesale” page. Simply fill out the form with the sticker(s) you are requesting and we’ll reach out with a confirmation and an invoice via Square. If you need help or have any questions, you can reach out via email or social media and we would be glad to assist!
Click here to learn more about wholesale sticker pricing.
Thank you all so much for your support this year. We are so excited to move forward into 2022 with new goals and plans in mind. We’re ready to do so much better in 2022 than we did this year. We have already started working on new products to launch later in the year.
Thanks again and happy New Year! May 2022 bring you so much joy, adventure, and growth.
Also as a special thank you for reading this blog, take 10% off your next order with promo code: “BLOG10”!