Questions

We have been wholesaling them out locally and selling them through our website. However, we are limited in this regard because we can only sell locally on our website. This is because they must be refrigerated so they cannot be shipped unless we overnight the cupcakes and obviously most don't want to pay overnight shipping prices for dog cupcakes. We are stuck but I am convinced there is a market for them. Retail? Wholesale? Franchising the brand of Canine Cupcakes? Please help, any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much.

Having 4 dogs and being a former sugar addict, I love the idea of dog cupcakes, kudos! My wife and I are currently solving a very similar issue with her t-shirt business. We don't have a freshness issue to deal with like you do, however we do have a scalability and growth issue that we are tackling.

Understand, there isn't really anything that remarkable about dog cupcakes, it's cool concept but it would be very easy for someone to deconstruct and create their own recipe and brand. So you'll need to focus on how you sell your cupcakes. What value you offer your customers? Why your recipe is unique? Is there any portion of your product, formula or service that could be trademarked or patented? Do you have a memorable name, tagline and mascot? Are the health benefits to your product? I know that in some cases pet food can be highly regulated so you may not be able to make specific health claims.

Next, I think you should look at a three pronged approach that is scalable:

1. Continue to develop your local market, treating it like a test kitchen. Work on new recipes, concepts, products, ideas and test them locally. Build a unique product line and a unique system for creating those products.

2. Develop a strong network of pet owners, pet shops, boutiques, organizations and so on.

3. Market your dog cupcake system and sell it as a turnkey package. This could be as simple or as fancy as you want to make it. The simple way would be to sell one time "starter package" with upgrades on a subscription model. This would include order forms, marketing plans, marketing materials, new product ideas, training videos, shopping lists, ingredients and so on. The expensive way would be to lawyer up and create an actual franchise but this can be very very expensive.

I hope this was helpful and I'd be happy to work with you further on developing your business. Good luck and I look forward to buying Sadie, Charlie, Nixie and Sachi some tasty treats from you in the near future!


Answered 10 years ago

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