After years of selling t-shirts and other branded items on Twitter, WiiCreate saw a need that companies had. After spending long days calling various vendors for different branded items and losing track of inventory, WiiCreate saw a need to source, design, pack, store and ship branded boxes for companies. Being the first branded merch service in Nigeria, how might we communicate our product offerings and the value we bring?
THE PROBLEM
The idea of a branded Merch service was still pretty foreign within the Nigerian tech scene before WiiCreate showed up. Companies had tried to assemble something that resembled branded boxes/packaging however they often had to source the products they wanted from different vendors, go through the hassle of managing that several print vendors and take precious time away from their business assembling the Merch they wanted to give out.
WiiCreate had a plan to fix that. After investing thousands of dollars getting the very best print equipments and partnering with global brands, they were ready to launch the Merch by WiiCreate service.
WiiCreate has always had a sizeable amount of social capital and excelled in selling branded t-shirts to consumers and tech startups. 80% of orders we received came from customer referrals. By launching a new product offering, the Merch by WiiCreate website had to do two things exceedingly well:
- Capitalize on our existing standing within the tech community and
- Explain without any doubt what the Merch by WiiCreate service really is.
THE PRODUCT
During one of our testing sessions, we had realised we couldn't add in payment to the flow as most customers requested to see a design sample before giving us the green light to print in bulk. We also had to consider the reality of building a product like this within Nigeria. Several companies would not authorise such large purchases to be made without due diligence. Although this seemed like a setback, we also saw this as an opportunity for our Sales team to close their client by offering other products that might be a fit for their brand - when necessary.
After weeks of iterating and working collaboratively with 3D Designers within WiiCreate, we finally had a design that adequately communicated our goals.
OUTCOMES & LEARNINGS
Less than a year after the website launched, WiiCreate has generated over $100k in revenue from Merch Boxes alone and is well on track to generating over 300k before the 1st year anniversary of the Merch launch.
Check out the WiiCreate website here -> www.wiicreate.com
