Perth CBD Lollypotz franchisee case study

John Western is one of the business partners in the Perth CBD Lollypotz giftware franchise store, and with four partners to support, the WA team knew that they had to get cracking.

The Perth Lollypotz gift franchise opened their doors in November and they have done a mixture of Casual Leasing, have a beautiful store front (without a lot of foot traffic) and have hit the ground running with corporate marketing.

Perth had a very busy Christmas and they were very happy with how they went, although John openly admits they were extremely underprepared and they worked ridiculous hours (14-16 hour days) to ensure that they did not turn down 1 order.

Their biggest issue starting up so close to Christmas was getting the stock that they required at such late notice, when most of the suppliers were now preparing for Valentine’s Day.

This year, the Perth Lollypotz giftware franchise is going to do things very differently and will ensure that they are prepared. They intend to order stock and start fluffing and wrapping in August and expect that they could easily triple their turnover from Christmas 2009.

John believes that the corporate side is going to be a very big part of their business. They have been speaking to a number of potential corporate clients and expect that they will start ordering from them more regularly within 6 months, the biggest challenge is that the sales cycle is much longer and people are waiting for an excuse to buy – but he is confident it will happen and in the meantime he is going to press on with the marketing to corporate clients. The Perth CBD Lollypotz giftware franchise has been receiving numerous large corporate orders, which they have generated themselves.

Johns says he “loves” casual leasing and the Perth store has had some really successful weeks in their local shopping centres. He says that casual leasing is something that everyone needs to be doing.

“We have a shop, but I still get such a buzz from the reaction the bouquets bring out in people when they first see it – you just have to get the product out to the people,” he said.

They have booked 2 different shopping centres for the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day, and will continue to do casual leasing throughout the year, this all at the same time as managing their shop front.

He feels that the incredible success that they have had from casual leasing is because it is such a visual product, saying a radio ad, or even a TV ad will never get the same reaction as someone actually seeing the product. Their approach to casual leasing in the beginning was “we don’t care if we don’t sell any bouquets, we just want to get the product in front of as many people as we could – but the sales just came from this.”

During their first week of casual leasing, they handed out over 1000 postcards; meaning another 1000 people knew about Lollypotz.

Even though Perth have seen success at casual leasing, John is certain that if they were more prepared, they would have sold more. He believes that it is important to have 2 people at the stands so that the customers can be serviced appropriately and to ensure opportunities are not missed. He also is a big believer in the location of the stand. Before going into a shopping centre someone from their Lollypots giftware franchise will spend 1-2 hours walking around on a Thursday night or a Saturday to see which areas are getting the most traffic. He says that it is very important to talk to centre manager about where is best to be located and not to just let them pick your location. Location can mean the difference between a slow week and an $8,000 week. To date they have found that being close to the food court has been the most profitable location.

Good foot traffic helps make your shop more successful and is one of your best forms of free advertising. It is going to take more time to get the people into their store, so they acknowledge that they have to do more marketing for this to happen. Whilst traffic in store at Christmas was good in Perth CBD, it needs to be enhanced throughout the year.
John offers this tip with corporate orders: they always send a bouquet to the person who has sent the order. Most of the time they are “spending the bosses money” and they feel that this is a nice touch. They always give a small gift for large orders.

John honestly believes the secret to their success in Perth is Lollypotz itself. Not enough people know about the product, but once they know it, the bouquets sell themselves. The other secret is undeniably the casual leasing. He says the response is unbelievable and continues to blow them away. If you have the shelves well stocked and looking good – they just sell themselves. He says that in their experience, you can always sell one more bouquet. If it is on the shelf it will sell. For their last casual lease they sold over 110 mini bouquets and know they could have sold more if they could have kept up with the demand. They plan to make 300-400 for their Mother’s Day leasing.

The Perth Lollypots mobile franchise takes care of all their own deliveries and also has a van sign written with Lollypotz logo, which they believe allows them to give a personalised service with better customer service. Unlike a courier, they will say the big happy birthday, make the recipient feel special and ensure the bouquets are always looking good. Another Customer Service bonus: Perth have bought a Pay-as-you-go Tesltra mobile phone package with 1c texts and following the delivery of each bouquet, they will send a text to the customer saying something along the lines of “Dear Holly, Thank you for choosing Lollypotz, your bouquet has just been delivered to Jane”.

John’s advice to potential buyers of a Lollypotz franchise and new franchisees – Get a shop in a good location and do casual leasing on top of that. And definitely buy the franchise.

He says “don’t be scared, be prepared! The only thing to be scared of is being unprepared and not having enough stock”.