Hello m’darlin’s!
There’s been so much newness round here lately I thought I’d carry on the trend today and share something else we’ve just updated…The Subscription boxes!
Year One
We’re heading towards the end of our first year of Yarn Subscription Boxes and it’s been absolutely incredible. The Sub Boxes and your reaction to them has completely surpassed my expectations. I thought maybe a couple of people would sign up and we’d have a bit of fun chatting about the limited colours and what we’d make with them, I figured maybe we’d just do the one year as I assumed no one would want that much yarn but HOLY COW…Our subscribers are keen to build their yarn stashes and I LOVE IT. The Sub Boxes quickly took the top spot on my list of favourite products (to confirm: it is a metaphorical list). The Subscribers feel like a kind and friendly community of yarn loving BABES, the ‘treats’ from fellow small business owners to go in the boxes have been UNREAL and OMG it’s a joy to work with and share the limited edition colours.
Needless to say, we’ve unanimously decided to continue the subscription boxes for another year, we’re not ready to say goodbye yet!
The Challenges
Running our first subscription products has undoubtedly been a learning curve in many ways. We’ve had supply issues, timing issues and endless ‘I paid for this ages ago, why hasn’t it been despatched’ emails (because no one understands the billing/despatching system)… Not to mention the time the website provider cocked up and messed up all the subscriptions! But we’re slowly getting there and making the whole process more streamlined and hopefully customers can’t tell that occasionally we’ve winged it!
One of our biggest challenges, being so shockingly indecisive, is settling on the colours. Choosing the Seasonal colours so that they all work well together and don’t repeat and include enough of the limited colours was hard enough the first year and so as we were prepping for the next year we had to tick all those boxes as well as making sure we didn’t replicate the previous year too much. Last year when we planned the colours we weren’t thinking long term so this year I’ll be honest, we were left with some duds. A few combo’s that just didn’t work or weren’t fitting for the season so we’ve taken a mildly risky decision to have more colours dyed specifically for the subscription boxes. This is riskier because we have a (large) minimum order to reach if we have colours dyed specially, which in turn means we’ll have to be ON THE BALL with our numbers… but assuming we keep a close eye on it, I’m confident it’ll be worth it because the colours are incredible.
Let’s see these Colours!
But we finally decided and locked them down so this week we’ve shared the final 2020 grid for the seasonal subscriptions (YAY!!!) Here they are…
So some of our 2020 colours are repeats of our most popular colours from the 2019 Sub Box but (other than the Olive which will be in the final box of 2019) we’ve tried to spread them out as much as possible…. Every box has at least 3 Limited Edition Colours and as always we’ve worked it so that if a subscriber goes for the 3 hank option they still get a BEAUTIFUL selection.
I keep thinking one box if my favourite then look at the others and change my mind again! I think each one suits its season really well so I’m excited to see what everyone makes with them.
The Subscriptions
The Seasonal Subscription will continue to have a pattern in each month to give customers something to make. The final box (Box 4) this year has got a special jumper pattern I’ve been working on and can’t wait to share. I’m doing a breakdown to show how you can use all 5 colours from one box to make one jumper but it can also be made in one colour (obvs). The Final Sub Box (as shown on the listing) will be leaving early November so there’s time to sign up if you’d like it – it’ll then roll on into the 2020 subscription with the above colours.
It’s ideal to make Gifts for people using one or two hanks at a time and we design each box so that all the colours work well together. If you need some inspiration on what to make I’ve done a blog about it with plenty of ideas and a pinterest board. You can find it by clicking here.
The Surprise Box is leaving at the beginning of October and then again in December. It will also continue next year but obviously I can’t share much information about that one as it would defeat the purpose. I will say that the Seasonal Grid has a few hints to the new Surprise colours and we’re planning on getting some more yarn dyed just for this box too. We plan the surprise box well in advance as well but have more flexibility with it as we don’t have to commit until the yarn needs to be ordered. I LOVE that about the surprise box because it means that we can be more responsive about it depending on what seasonal colours go down well.
Small Business Treats
We’re so incredibly lucky to have treats sent from other small businesses to pop into our sub boxes and we have some amazing things stashed away for the next box! I’m delighted at how well this collaboration has worked so far and can’t thank the businesses who have ‘donated’ enough. I know that our subscribers LOVE opening their boxes and discovering the treats and that it’s lead to some wonderful relationships between our gorgeous customers and the businesses we have the honour of introducing them to. If you’re a small business who’d like more information on using our subscription boxes to introduce yourself to our magical customers (I’ve been informed that they are, in fact….the greatest and I can confirm it.) then there’s more info on the Working Together page. And if you don’t know what I’m on about then I’ve done a few blogs on the subject.
Christmas Subscriptions
I thought I’d just sneak a cheeky word about Christmas in at the bottom here….We’re planning some Subscription gifts so that you could gift someone 3 boxes of a subscription without it being ongoing. We’re still ironing out the details so if you have any thoughts/preferences do drop me an email as we’d love to hear them. Our main aim is to keep it as simple as possible and the questions we’re working through with this subscription are things like: Should it be the same as the existing subs or stand alone? Should it be a one off payment or come out bimonthly until all 3 boxes have left? Should we only offer 3 month subs or 6 months? Should it be a set amount of hanks or do we let the customer choose?…so you see, we have some questions to iron out haha!
OK I’ll leave you now!
Thanks for sticking around pals, I can’t wait to hear which colours you like best for the new Seasonal Sub Boxes. thank you as always for your support.
Take Care,
L x
