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Posted on Saturday, March 17, 2012 By Cynthia Luvs Setting up Fashion Hooks wasn't easy, we went through many ups and downs before business was much more stable. Stylishyou was our initial blogshop name when we first set up in 2007. Reason for setting up is to earn money so that I could reduce mom's financial burden (Not to act one filial here).Dragged one of my good friend, Tessly into the partnership. We started by selling basic tops at really low prices; $5 but it didn't went well! We didn't even sell a single piece! That's how bad business was! Make a loss of $60+ which I forked out even though I was having some financial problems and also, Tessly didn't have any spare money to pay too!  Didn't managed to sell any when it's $14 each. Due to stocks jamming problem, reduced the price to our cost price which was $10. Sold 80% of it due to many supports by classmates, friends and cousins. It wasn't what I expected it to be, I want to sell my items based on others interest and not being they take pity on me. Sigh.. but I wasn't willing to give up because I made so much loss although I put in my 110% effort! Jasmine joined 'Fashion Hooks', started to plan and observe. After much discussion, we decided to do preorders. My very first preorder on geek spects which was really trendy at that time got me 30+ orders. Paid a super irresponsible and bitchy blogshop owner $80+ and got SCAMMED! Yes, it might not sound alot now but you have to understand I'm really poor and broke at that time plus I doesn't get ANY allowances from my mom. There wasn't anyone whom I can really pour out to except Jasmine. Although being scammed, I still have to raise money to order another 30+ spects from another owner to return all my customers and blogshops getting stocks from me. Luckily the 2nd blogshop owner allows pay and get on spot because I was really afraid of getting scammed the 2nd time. I mean I will really suicide if I got scammed again, not kidding! Didn't dare to open the 2nd geek spects preorder aftermath. Once bitten, twice shy! Imagine the loss I made from those failed attempts. Tried many ways to contact that damn bs owner, her pattern more than badminton! Want step one lian, then cannot pay the money she scammed! Even can play suicide on blog, WOW! Well, karma!!  Due to many untrustworthy blogshops online, we went to get stocks from Bugis but was only earning like $1-$2 per piece and each preorders only have around 12 orders. Imagine taking all the pictures, watermark, upload, take orders, go bugis and collect before meeting up everyone to pass stocks as we were real noob at postage at that time. All for only at most $24 earnings for both of us! But still, we did quite a few preorders from Bugis before we finally stopped at mid 2008 as the earnings was too little, and I find it wasting of time and effort. After many failed experiences which cost us alot efforts and money, we finally found an oversea supplier whom is super trustworthy and can supply us with apparels and accessories. Only bad thing is long waiting time but at least they are trustworthy which is the most important! We hold apparels sprees and accessories sprees, responses wasn't very good. Most orders comes from friends' supports which was the last thing I wanted because as I said, I want people to buy stuffs from me of their own will and not because to support me. We do have alot designs, the problem is because we are not well-known and nobody knows whose Fashion Hooks at that time! Imagine each spree with only around 10 orders for apparels? The kind of feeling you get when you put in 110% effort to upload pictures and descriptions yet the results is so disappointing ! :(  Was looking for ways to do advertisings and saw that blogs advertising seems rather useful. At that point of time, I was rather addicted to Qiuting's blog. Approached her for the advertorial rates which was $90 that time for a full post. It might seems rather affordable now but at that time, we were so broke that having a good and sumptuous meal was impossible, how to afford the $90? Told her frankly and was rather shocked with her reply because she allows us to pay her $30 with sponsorship of 4 items. How could a famous blogger who don't know us at all actually willing to reduce her advertorial fee because she knows that we couldn't afford the $90! Shocked and thankful! It's like God actually didn't give up on us! Feeling a tinge of hope that Fashion Hooks still can goes on! Paid her $30 and sponsored her the items after they arrived, the advert post was promptly up within 2 days after Qiuqiu received them.  Didn't expect much from the advertorial, only hoping it attracts some business but the responses was MADNESS! Like really, 20+ paid orders in a day! Got like 40-50 orders for the whole spree, was really mad excited and thankful! It was so muchhhhh more than our 1 month business leh!! Business went fine after that preorder, at least orders was more than when we first started. Stocks for that particular spree arrived after 14 working days but the bad thing was, it clashes with my EOY exams. Didn't wanted to make my customers wait any longer after the 14 working days of spree waiting, packed everything together with mom because my partner, Jasmine couldn't come out of house due to exams period. Standard. Was a real noob at packing the items to mail because it's our first time packing and mailing stuffs! Serious! Spent like 4-5 hours packing like 40+ packages and mom mailed out the following days for me because I couldn't cycle :x Didn't really do well in my EOY because all of my attention went to Fashion Hooks but was still really lucky that I went up to 4E ! :D Fashion Hooks was surviving in blogspot.com after Qiu's first advert. Tried various bloggers adverts and we kinda got 'scammed' by a teen blogger. She approached us and showed us her views which was 600 uniques per day, $50 per post. We tried using her advert and there wasn't a single soul after she posted! Our daily views has no changes AT ALL! Worst thing? She deleted her blog, changed link after a few days and even claim that she will repost the advertorial. In the end, she didn't repost and I doubt her blog views has 600 uniques. Bet the views stats is Photoshopped since she's so good in Photoshopping her damn face. There was nothing we could do so we tried doing advertorials with other bloggers, at least there was some responses, much better than having zero response at all!  Everything went rather smoothly until my email account got hacked! We was using my personal email account as Fashion Hooks' email so I doesn't have to log into 2 accounts to check for emails. Couldn't retrieve back despite many days of trying thus we created Fashion Hooks email to deal with enquires or orders. Was like super lost after email getting hacked and there was no way Hotmail could help with :( Thus I'm not really sure there's any emails at that old account but have posted up saying our email got hacked and ask them to email to our new account. But I do have a feeling there's a number of emails because our business dropped in terms of responses. Not as much orders as before, maybe they think we are scammers? :/ But no point harping on it since there was really nothing we could do. We soon brought in instocks so that customers do not have to wait so long, at most is a week after we mailed out and also because some items from preorders/sprees are quite different from the pictures and details of what supplier sent us. When we received them, there's really no chance we could send back for a refund/exchange. :( Unless the difference are really big then we will talk to customers and if they doesn't want it then we will have to do a refund and sell the item(s) online. Sold items on blogspot until around November 2010 whereby we think it's time to move! Moved to .com around late November 2010, everything was so new to us but it was much convenient because invoices are automatically sent to customers by the system. Not like blogspot where we have to manually send invoices to customers. But we took quite a long time to get used to it because uploading items weren't as easy as blogspot, much more stuffs to fill up; Model number, description, quantity left etc for each item! Was mainly focusing on accessories at that time. Approached Qiuqiu for another advert while our stocks are on their way to us. We sent her some items for the advert and we postponed the advert for quite a few times because there was some major delay in the stocks >_< Luckily she wasn't pissed at us! *guilty* Had only half of the stocks with us as the other half are still on the way, advert was up on 3 December 2010! See here !   Qiuqiu modeled some accessories for the post, it was only 4 pictures as said in the email but she took extra 2 for us, didn't even expect us to pay her for the extra 2 pictures! She's real nice and awesome! Responses was also rather crazy when the advert was up, payment was made promptly and we had a long time packing the items etc for following few days. And it was rather messy because many items were delayed and customers has made payment but luckily everything has past and has been settled asap! :D Discussed on selling clothes with Jasmine around Feb 2011 because we feel it's time to sell more clothes to give customers more variety of choice. We wanna shoot it ourself and not using pictures from supplier because some of the pictures aren't as accurate as how we shot ourself. Ordered quite alot of stocks with some loan from mom, really thank her to fork out some money to let us order stocks when she was up to her neck will many bills and debts :( Approached a few friends to help out with the modeling but brother said it's not good because they are inexperienced and will take up more time to shoot plus we didn't know much about modeling stuffs. :( Then we went to approach Jayley and Hayley as they are experienced in modeling and blogshop shoots, also got Qiuxia as our third model to save time :) Went for the first Fashion Hooks shoot during March 2011 after our stocks arrived. Left house 1 hour later than planned for the shoot because of the cab's delay. Lived at Bedok previously, cabbed to fetch photographer then Qiuxia and lastly the twins then down to Joo Chiat for the shoot. Was rather lucky because Jason, boss of studio allows us to push back the time *heng* I still remember it was rather awkward on the trip there because no one actually spoke! Can you imagine the awkwardness :x Plus I wasn't good at starting topics, super awkward I swear!! But still the shoot went rather alright except that Qiuxia only put 1 thin line of eyeliner thus she look rather pale in pictures but still, the shoot was awesome ! :D Some pictures of our first shoot! :D     Responses of the first launch wasn't as good as what we expected but still it's manageable ! :D Had our 2nd shoot on 10 April, 2 days after my birthday ! Real little people who attended the shoot compared to the first time. Second shoot got only me, Jasmine, Jayley and Hayley who went. Jayley and Hayley made their way down while Jasmine and me made our own way down because it's quite bohua to go from Bedok till Jurong then to Joo Chiat so we just paid them the cab fare :) That day was also a Sunday and we had a flea in the afternoon! Imagine a shoot at 9! *yawn* The twins was late because I think its because there's no cab until they have to call for one, ate Char Siew Bun and Siew Mai bought from downstairs the studio! Cannot forget the taste! SUPER HO JIAK ! X) They were super awesome, finished shooting 40+ designs in 70minutes ! Some pictures of 2nd shoot !    Remembered that we rushed like crazy after the shoot, went home and immediately went out for flea at *SCAPE again! Jasmine went to attend poly and left me to handle everything. It was rather hard at first because 2 people's workload into 1, got used to it after a week. Really miss her coming to my house and we do some Fashion Hooks stuffs and then we can go to slack or even shopping and movie! Moved to Bukit Panjang during mid May, doing everything in Fashion Hooks myself except for mom who will help me mail packages before she goes to work. Went for 3rd shoot during late May with Jayley and Hayley only, luckily they help me out with hanging the clothes if not I think I would take forever to hang them and delay the shoot. Successfully shoot 70+ designs within 90minutes, went to Novena to eat laksa together after the shoot! First time ever going out with the twins after shoot because usually we would just go off separate ways after the shoot. Some pictures of third shoot!    Sales online were like up and down! Mostly depending on flea to survive X) Soon after, Jasmine also left the partnership due to school commitment ! Obviously more stress because 1 lesser people to discuss with on Fashion Hooks. Had to do everything myself or hire people to help to reduce time needed to pack or upload! Got used to working alone soon after a few weeks because it's a rather new environment. Fourth mini shoot at a different studio; Candle Boutique! Jayley even showed us the way there because I really didn't know where is it! X) Some pictures of the fourth shoot ! :D     We even went to Bugis for Sakae Sushi and Neoprint here ! Responses for fourth shoot was so awesome, maybe because it's a small launch of 20+ designs but 50% was sold out in the first week ! :D Had a change of models for the 5th shoot due to some costs problems. Had Qiuxia & Kiyomi for the 5th shoot during late July! Went for dinner at Iluma after shoot. :) 5th shoot pictures ! :D    Responses were rather good for 5th launch and alot people actually told me they love the 5th launch! I personally also love it X) Hold the first home boutique event on 12th August 2011, responses were real awesome, big thanks to Pxdkitty and Kiyomi. Sold quite alot of apparels, super thankful for those who make the effort to come! Details @ here ! Hold another 2 events consecutively due to no flea market available for us to attend, responses was still okay for the second and third events. Some of the really sweet girls actually come 2/3 events! Super nice and supportive ! :D Had been attending fleas rather regularly on every Saturday if you know us well! Our first flea which we attended still hatched on my mind! We was real noob about flea and we actually brought so many stuffs like we were moving house ! X) Our first flea was at St James with Swap & Shop but it wasn't a good experience! We booked 2 booths whereby we was supposed to have 4 small round tables but we only got 2 tables while a stall beside us booked 1 booth and got 4 small round tables yet the organiser didn't do anything about it! :/ Our booths was in a bad position, wet floor, dark and narrow area. The amount of stuffs and people went was the most exaggerating one! We brought 1 stand w extensions, 4 big china 跑路 kind of bags full of clothes, all accessories stand and one trolley! Mom, Brother, Jasmine, Me, Mervin and his cousin, Daniel went together for just 2 booths! Super 夸张 I swear! I still remember when we first reached, everyone look at us with those 'you moving house ah' face! So embarrassing ! *flicks hair like Aunt Lucy* Sales were rather okay despite many 'competitors' with their below $5 items but our cost was already 80% of the sales :/ All due to the cost of the hangers, clothes stands, accessories rack etc which comes up to a rather big amount! Having all the necessities for flea, how can we not attend more fleas right? We soon attended flea at *SCAPE around around end December, sales there was much better and organizers was so much better than Swap & Shop. Also a countdown flea @ *SCAPE which was the first midnight flea I attended ! :D We had since attended fleas on Saturdays since Jan 2011 ! Almost every week, we will go for flea unless we do not have enough stocks or we have something on! Flea-ed before at St James, *SCAPE, East Coast and Singapore Flyer! *SCAPE is still the best ! :D Seen all kinds of people during fleas; Good, Bad, Nice, Friendly, Stingy, Generous, Annoying! Didn't regret going to flea(s) although it's rather tiring to hang at there the whole day despite whether there's good business or not. It's the experience and I really enjoyed going to flea with friends ^^ Fleas was like 1/3 of Fashion Hooks life and I do feel rather awkward when I stay home on a Saturday X) More details on current Fashion Hooks... read back soon! :D |
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