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Fei Wang, Designer Sunglasses for the Asian Beauty. The Worlds only international Fashion Brand dedicated to making Eyewear for Asian/Oriental Women

Business Details

Short Description

Dear All,

My name is Fei Wang; I have a small business in the UK selling sunglasses to Asian/Oriental girls around The World. I seem to be the only international brand that really does it and I'm looking for a partner.

I've had good responses from retailers around The World and now a distribution deal back home in China.

I manufacture in the UK but am finding difficulty transforming what I think has been market research - I've been selling in different countries to find out which are the best - into a business able to exploit all the possible opportunities that seem open to me and my enterprise.

Can anyone who has experience help at all?

Patiently awaiting your response,

Fei

Executive Summary

A Brief History of Fei Wang (or) Why pay £15000 on a Market research report when for the same money you can place the product in the shops and see if it sells?

'Fei Wang' is a London Based international eyewear brand owned by the designer Fei Wang dedicated to making sunglasses for fashion conscious Asian/Oriental women. The European designs simply don't fit Asian/Oriental Girls correctly and the major fashion houses have not made their designs for Asian/Oriental women. There are no other international brands doing the same thing at the moment.

We manufacture these high quality Sunglasses in the UK. We also manufacture the leather cases and the gift boxes in the UK. The lenses and Acetates are currently sourced by our manufacturer from Italy and the cloths bought through a wholesaler.

Our Target market is the Luxury Brand buying Asian fashion conscious Female aged between 18-50. This group is responsible for 7% of sunglass sales. That's to say 7% of all sunglasses sold fall into the high quality luxury product that 'Fei Wang' sells.

When thinking about Sunglasses it's important to remember that there is really only one season a year. Though sales are made throughout the whole year the Summer must be considered the most important period. Summers do of course happen alternately in the different hemispheres but the lion's share of the Asian populations are in the northern hemisphere.

2008, the first year of the business, was spent organizing the product and building a website with the intention of starting sales online and examining the attitudes of our customers from there. Sales were very poor amounting to no more than a dozen pairs that first summer. We put this down to a lack of exposure and the hard fact that people don't feel comfortable buying a product like Asian-fit Sunglasses online.

In 2009 we decided to take up an invitation by UKTI to come on a fashion trade mission to Japan. This was much more successful. We took small orders (around 35 pairs each) from two of the very best independent eyewear shops in Tokyo and one in Kyoto. We also excitedly took an order for 50 pairs from a major chain of shops with 170 stores throughout Japan.

For 2010 these same shops increased their orders and we picked up another retailer outside Tokyo. This was all done with no marketing or advertising at all. We concluded Japan was a very fertile country for our product.

Also in 2010 we were approached be a venture capital company called Vividus who wanted to buy 49% (reducing to 33.3% when their investment was returned) of the business with the intention of investing the monies needed for the expansion that we could see was due. The rest of the year was taken up by this deal and the plans for the expansion of the business in 2011.

Inspired by the many emails we receive from The States we also made a trip to the US in 2010 to discuss with retailers what they thought of the product.

Unfortunately, through no fault of 'Fei Wang', the deal with Vividus fell though which left us effectively high and dry for 2011.

The year wasn't a complete write off though as in August we were approached by a massive new e-tailer/distributor from China called She Shang Hui who courted us (again with no approach from us) into letting them carry our brand along with many other much more famous names. The initial sale of 50 pairs was set for October. Not all the sunglasses sold but they were so pleased with their customer's anecdotal response to the product that they made 'Fei Wang' a permanent brand in their inventory and they have high hopes or 2012.

So, as we stand today 'Fei Wang' total sales amount to 400 pairs. But we've learnt that the product is indeed viable and we believe highly scalable. Internet sales are hard but retail sales much easier.

The designs are now considerably better than the original collection and we're very excited about next year's collection and the new website; our shop front.

The cost of the product to manufacture currently sits at £60/$90 for an individual pair of sunglasses including lenses. The case is £10/$15 and the gift box and cloth another £2/$3 bringing a total of £72/$108 ex VAT. The online sale price averages at £200/$300 with some of our retailers charging up to £300/$450. Our wholesale prices vary from £115/$172.50 to £175/$262.50.

Going forward

The purpose of this plan is to examine the possibilities of taking on a new partner in 2012 who can help us grow the 'Fei Wang' business in the directions identified by the research of the last few years.

We believe by manufacturing in larger quantities (100 per design) in France or Italy we can reduce the cost of the Sunglasses comfortably by half to £36/$54. This will enable us to lower the wholesale price of the product letting us expand more easily into the market.
Next year we would like to press on with marketing this product and taking it to sales conventions in Europe which will give us much larger exposure than we've managed up until now.

With the new lower price we'd like to approach distributors in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China and North America and Europe with the intention of having them carry our brand.
I see no reason why sales can't increase to 2,500 in 2012 and growing consistently year on year after that.

What we need

'Fei Wang' is confident that fertile markets can be found for its product in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, North and South America, Europe and Australasia and many other East Asian countries and therefore 'Fei Wang' is potentially an extremely scalable business.


Launches

Saying this we do not propose launching in all these countries simultaneously. Our research suggests that success in Japan is important as that opens up, Hong Kong and Korea. The other East Asian markets (excluding China) can be expected to fall into place after that.

Hot Spots
The secondary section of the markets we think can be simplified as ?Hot Spots'. There is no point for instance to afford a pan American launch as 80% of the Asian populations are concentrated in 'hot spots like California.

Also, China's middle classes can first be tapped in Beijing, Shanghai, Guong Zhou.
Examples of further ?Hot Spots' around the world would be Richmond (Canada), Rio (Brazil), London (UK), Melbourne & Sydney (Australia).

Pro Forma Profit and Loss
FY 2012 FY 2013 FY 2014
Sales $749,877 $1,312,500 $2,362,500
Direct Costs of Goods $437,326 $761,250 $1,365,000
Other Costs of Goods $0 $0 $0
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Cost of Goods Sold $437,326 $761,250 $1,365,000

Gross Margin $312,551 $551,250 $997,500
Gross Margin % 41.68% 42.00% 42.22%


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Total Operating Expenses $51,100 $154,500 $236,500

Profit Before Interest and Taxes $261,451 $396,750 $761,000