#077 Next year's plans: professional photo introduction, promotion, and storefront (19/11/2023)

Image: My desk at home. I just changed the interface for selecting "Top Sheet Color" on the new bed sheet set from plain text to "Color Checkered," so when a customer clicks, it also displays the name of that color. Actually, I've been saying for a while that I'll be making this kind of website.

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Welcome to this week's journal! It's my turn to share this week's progress. This week it suddenly turned cold. I know it's not really that cold in the city; some areas might even still feel around 25 degrees Celsius. But for us New Territories locals, it's cold here. When it reaches around 20 degrees Celsius, it's already tough, and we need thicker blankets. Even the Re Quilt 2 isn't enough. Therefore, we launched Re Fleece on Monday. Fortunately, the product was prepared in advance, but the only problem was writing the product description page within a few days. Why wasn't the description page prepared in advance? Because I was busy working on the Re Bedding new bed sheets. Two products, one launched on November 10th and the other on November 13th, both were really hard work. However, being able to launch winter products in this cold weather, and receiving some positive feedback from customers, makes it all worthwhile.

Timing is crucial, not only for launching winter products during cold weather but also for the economic environment. In 2023, with high interest rates and an uncertain local economic outlook, doing business is indeed difficult. I see many shops and restaurants employing various strategies to attract customers, and they're genuinely offering discounts—not just raising prices and then lowering them again—showing they're facing challenges. As someone in business, I understand the situation. For example, at our Re Pillowcase 2, when customers buy pillows or new sheets, they get a $100 bonus. We didn't do this before, and the reason is obvious. Doing business now requires careful budgeting; it's truly not easy.

So at these times, working for someone else is definitely better than running your own business. And when you are running your own business, you need to enjoy what you do even more. When you enjoy it, the difficult days won't be so hard to bear.

Next year's plans: professional photo introductions, promotions, and physical stores.

This week, a colleague told me that one problem with Re Pillow Co. is that their product promotions lack realistic portrayals of usage and actual product photos, especially in physical stores. This makes it difficult to attract customers and allows people to imagine how the products actually work. I think what he said makes a lot of sense. In fact, if you look at the Re Bedding page and then click through to the various Pillowcase or Top Sheet product pages, you'll find that I've actually added many more real-life photos this time. Although I took them myself by phone, the underlying principle is to provide more authentic images.

However, this colleague's suggestion was actually quite insightful, and since we know it's the right thing to do, we should act on it instead of saying we'll do it later. Therefore, I've already started arranging for more professional product photography and better promotional materials, instead of just rehashing the same few photos. Furthermore, because of this, I also hope to place these promotional materials in stores and improve the in-store experience. It's already mid-November, and this will be a major project next year.

I'm very grateful for this colleague's advice. Actually, I knew very little about this issue, but I kept putting it off because I was busy with other things. What he said was very kind and thoughtful. We should cherish these colleagues. I really want to thank him.