Saturday 7 March 2020, Southside Shopping Centre, Wandsworth
Over the past few month we have been working hard, overcoming setbacks and developing our business so we are really excited to announce that the long anticipated launch of the EcoBag this Saturday at the Southside shopping centre in Wandsworth. We will be there all day from 8:00 until 4:00 and there will be lots of other young enterprise companies there as well. Come along to have a chat, find out more about our product and have the change to buy one of the first ever EcoBags.
We want to keep our customers connected through every step of the process so, in anticipation of the launch this weekend we though we would update you on what we have been up to over the past few months and explain why it has taken us quite so long to reach the launch.
Since we where at the Putney High Christmas Hair with the prototype the team has been working hard to get our product to market but there have been numerous setbacks that we have had to overcome in order to get to this point from the trials of setting up our bank account to creating a strong brand and online presence.
Our biggest issue throughout the process has been setting up our bank account and using the money to buy the product which all proved to be a lot harder than it would seem. In December we began selling shares in our business to raise the money needed to buy the product. We were selling 500 shares for £1 each. This money was all transferred into the account and we were all ready to buy the product, or so we thought…
Unfortunately when we initially set up the bank account back in October we had forgotten to apply for the bank card. This meant that although we had an account the only way to take the money out was to use a chequebook. This meant that we couldn’t make any online payments or access online banking, we were stuck. For the next few months we spent time applying for a bank card and sending numerous letters and emails to the Bank. A few weeks ago the card finally arrived and it is fair to say we were all relieved.
However after a few days the problems continued. We were running out of time to order and assemble the product for the trade fair on the seventh and our bank account had been blocked. With less than a week left to go before we should be launching the product we had to change some of our suppliers for reduced delivery time and we had to pay for the order out of our own pockets.
In the past few days things have however been improving: Our financial director has been on the phone to the bank, the product has arrived and we have nearly finished making our handmade tote bags. While it has been a bit of a bumpy road so far we are really exited to see some of you this Saturday and to start selling the first few products.
