Fighting Back Against Shopper's Guilt

Today's economy has lead to people feeling "shopper's guilt" and "luxury shame" which has caused a problem for many luxury brands. How do we fight back against this? Here are some tactics being used by the many companies trying to solve this problem.

Three Main Tatics:

- The Internet/Online Shopping: having your product avaliable throughout the internet is are very effective way to avoid shopper's guilt because people don't feel as guilty when they are purchasing luxury products over the internet because it is much more personal; you are the only one that knows you are buying the products. Online shopping allows you to purchase the luxury brands and products that you want while having the privacy of being in your own home.

- Charity: Having money being donated to charity whenever one of your products are purchased is another way to help get passed shopper's guilt. When people know that their money is being given to a charity it makes them feel alot better about buying the luxury brand because they know their money is going to a good cause.

- Novel Shopping Experience: opening up pop-up stores in malls and other new locations is another method of helping avoid shopper's guilt. If people are surprised by new luxury stores that they didn't know existed they are often tempted to go inside and look and by just seeing it by surprise they don't get the chance to avoid it in the first place.

Graffiti Removal Service

Paul Watts came to the sharks with the offer of 350k for 15% equity of his company. Paul Watt's company is a Graffiti Removal Service (GNS) which is a completely mobile graffiti removal service. Paul Watts used a special chemical to easily remove the graffiti from a stop sign to show the sharks how easy it was for him to remove graffiti, but the sharks immediatley jumped on him by asking if he owned the product which no he didn't. They questioned whether other people could simply get the product and how his franchise would work if other people could just start their own business doing the same thing. Also, Paul Watt overvalued his company hugely, his offer ment that he believed his company was worth over 2 million dollars which at the time defintly was not.

Soul's Calling Inc.

Gina Cotroneo from Dallas presented to the sharks her company Soul's Calling which is a company that creates and markets a "fashion-with-a-purpose" accessory and gift line. She wanted 150k for 25% equity of her company but the problem was over a 5 year period her sales have only been 18k. These numbers were way too low for the sharks and therefore none of the sharks were in. All of the sharks offered her free advice though, Kevin O stated that "numbers never lie" and that people should never let emotion get in the way of business and that she should let it go. The overall basic message was that Gina should stop proceeding with her dream of this business because realistically it was not working.

Jump Forward

Brian Duggan and Adam McCombs are two business entrepreneurs that run a company calls Jump Forward. Jump Forward is an online system that allows high school athletes and their parents to create detailed profiles and market themselves to college coaches. They also created a Blackberry application, that allows coaches to negotiate the difficult rules on contacting high school athletes. If these rules are broken it could lead to large fines for the universities. The colleges pay a subscription fee and so far 30 different schools assigned up, and they have 60,000 students who've created profiles, for free. Kevin O was the first to bite, with an offer of $200,000 for 20% of the business. Robert quickly offered $300,000 for 35%. After asking entrepreneurs to step out of the tank Robert and Kevin came to an agreement, and offered $400,000 for 50% of the business. Brain and Adam rejected the deal which lead to Robert offering $500,000 for 50%, when it looked like they wouldn't accept that he offered $600,000 for 50%. Brian countered with $750,000 for 50% or 300,000 for 25%. Robert and Kevin were unwilling to budge from the $600,000 offer, just when it looked like the deal was going to fall aparat Brain and Adam said Done and accepted the deal.

Mr.Poncho and URO club

Mr.Poncho:

Sandy Hyun and Roman Pietrs purposed the business Mr.Poncho which is a protective cover for MP3 players, with the way to keep your headphones from getting tangled. They were looking for $50,000 for 25% stake in the business. The business is two years old and last year had sales of $35,000, the protective case is patent pending, but the innovative cop is just a re-purpose patent. This means that somebody else owns the only innovative or interesting part of this business. Also, the competition of the business they were going in was huge. Their are tons of different businesses putting out different types of cases, and plastic covers. No sharks were willing to invest in the business and the young entreprenuers left empy handed.

UROclub:

Dr.Floyd Seskin was a urologist and an avid golfer, who purposed his business called UROClub which was a product that allowed men to urinate into a hollow club that looks like a seven iron. The doctor had sold 3000 units last year and had sales of $70,000. This was not enough to convince most of The Sharks and one by one The Sharks dropped out. All expect for Kevin H who offered $25,000 for 70%, Dr.Seskin was looking for a business experience and not moeny so he accepted the offer.

The Bobble Place

Jeff Wolsky was an entreprenuer who ran successful online business selling custom-made bobblehead dolls, but the business he purposed to the sharks was a business called The Bobble Place which was a kiosk system that sold these custom bobble heads Customers would provide a picture of themselves and pick out the body for their bobblehead. Then the bobble head would be custom-made by Jeff's already existing business, The Bobble Place is a seperate business from his wildly successful online business. Jeff was looking for $75 000 for a 15% equity in his business.

Seven Keys to Success - Eric Van Maren

1. The value of hard work
- be prepared to work harder then your employees

2. Be passionate...love what you do

3. Make mistakes and learn from it
- don't make hasty decisions

4. Guard your reputation
- you spend a lifetime building a reputation but you can lose it quickly

5. Networking. Build your network.
- 5000 names in his contact
- use your contacts, ask for help

6. Hire smart people

7. Partnerships
- what does your partner bring to the table

*Known Knowns - lumber cost
*Unknown Known - snow removal
*Unknown Unknowns - CRISIS - exit strategies