First things first —

this is specific to swim and athletic wear because I investigated both, and I think this works as a great case study. My content has always been all over the place from travel to workouts, fashion, to life updates, college, to career… so that was the first downfall!

successful product launches and brand collaborations come from things being in brand and products that just make sense. Those who buy into an existing influencer or business owner’s content, will probably also buy the product if it’s in line with the current content they are consuming. So when does it not work? When you don’t niche down, and you’re not specific enough or on-brand in what you’re doing. I learned this first hand!

So ICYMI….

last year I launched the Resort Edit in line with Megan’s Edit. The concept was that I was sharing vacation clothes, always in a swimsuit, and wanted unique patterns and different swimsuits than others. I also am in Colorado, and was frustrated I couldn’t find swim year-round — there’s a reason for that by the way! So, flash forward to the middle of fall, the sales decline, fewer purchases are made. No one sells swim year-round because even though you may want it, it’s not valuable enough for a business or brand to keep producing in the “off-season” months! Duh! I really thought the draw would be there but turns out… you gotta compete with fast fashion and SHEIN has things all the time.

We should talk about inventory + size range.

speaking of inventory, let’s discuss sizing too. So, already only carrying S-XXL, not enough variety in sizing. The manufacturer I purchased from — there sizing was SMALL. I personally could fit into the larges as someone who is traditionally a size 6-8 — that’s a problem!

& how about… those who you think would purchase, don’t, and those who do, you don’t think would…

let’s also factor in, who I thought would purchase vs. who did. We had purchases coming in from Hawaii, the mid-west, east coast — loyal followers who’ve been with me since I started sharing my life on the internet 8 years ago. It’s weird since I hand-packed everything I recognized names, and then friends wise not a ton of friends ended up purchasing — totally okay, but you have an estimate in your head when first launching of how much you need to make to go out and buy more products, and if you’re not there, the risk to continue the business is inherently higher.

Anyways, I would probably open another e-commerce business, and maybe even do swim again, I just think I wasn’t ready or aware of how much I’d have to invest to get it off the ground. I am so proud I did it all, saw it through, and sold everything, but yeah!