In more ways than one, 2010 was an Olympic year for us. Obviously in February, Vancouver played host to the 2010 Winter Olympics and yours truly had the pleasure of volunteering at BC Place Stadium. Leading up to the games and during the 14 days of the event, we immersed ourselves in all things Olympic and had the time of our lives. On a business front, Raspberry Kids took a back seat during this time but boy did we ever make up for it throughout the rest of the year.
We feel so privileged to have an incredible amount of support from our Raspberry Kids community, whether it be through our Facebook Fan page, our Raspberry Patch newsletter, through twitter as well as right here on our blog.
Like several Canadian athletes we sure feel like we struck gold this year. While we are still growing and need to continue to grow to thrive and survive in the competitive business of retail, we had lots of amazing things to celebrate and reflect upon from this past year.
Let’s start with some of our very cool finds! As a result of a customer request, we brought in some Vapur water bottles and after testing them, we decided to go ahead and boy are we glad we did. Not only have we used these in our family since they arrived but countless customers and their families have too. Vapur is now available in “fun packs” that come in .4L sizes and we recently were selected as one of a handful of Canadian retailers who got to sell the Red Vapurs (or Raspberry as we like to call them) in addition to the existing offering of .5L Vapurs which are available in 6 other colors; green, blue, smoke, orange, purple & pink. We have saved so much money and the environment by not having to buy or dispose of bottled water.
We were the first retailer of Lunchskins in Canada and we currently carry their entire collection including 3 styles that are exclusive to Raspberry Kids in Canada. In addition, we are the fundraising champions for Lunchskins in Canada. We are so pleased to work with the 3 Green Moms and to have helped schools & families to green their lunches with these reusable snack, sandwich and lunch bags!
Hopscotch Kids & Scotch Naturals are eco-friendly nail polishes for kids and big kids to use without all the nasty smells and chemicals that you find in traditional polishes. We’ve worked very closely with Ginny Cardenas, the owner and founder of these brands and it has been an absolute ball. The kids colors are vibrant and so much fun including their upbeat names such as Bubble Gum Pink, Ice Cream Soda Pop and Heads up Seven Up to name a few. The adult version is absolutely gorgeous and the tagline “Not all Scotch is an acquired taste” is very appropriate. The adult hues are gorgeous, hip, funky and come with their own creative names like Kiltlifter and Tartan Swizzle. Having used other non toxic kids polishes without much success we were absolutely blown away by the quality of these amazing products.
Other notable mentions with respect to product additions include Sevi Toys. Sevi Toys are an Italian Toy line that has been in existence for close to 200 years. Raspberry Kids proudly carries one of the largest (if not the largest) online selections of Sevi Toys in Canada. We’ve also expanded our offerings from Skip Hop, Dwellstudio and Educo and have picked up some great new designs from Beatrix NY, Sprig Toys and added creative new products from Clementine Arts, Seedling and more.
We didn’t just add great products this year but we also added to the Raspberry Kids team. In April, Sally came on board as the “Jill of all Trades” and in August, Jenna joined the squad as our “Right Hand Gal”. Both Sally and Jenna’s contributions have been invaluable and it is so refreshing that they just “get it” when it comes to our culture and to our approach to customer service. In addition to working at Raspberry Kids, Sally & Jenna are both full time students. They both excel at managing their schedules & responsibilities and their ability to prioritize and complete their tasks and jobs efficiently and with such high quality is a testament to them and some of the best I’ve seen in over 20 years throughout my business career. It’s been a lot of fun and a real pleasure working together with you both. I don’t say it often enough, thank you!
We had some phenomenal press coverage in 2010 and continue to thoroughly enjoy working with so many incredible media outlets. Highlights included being interviewed by CBC, being on Breakfast TV and seeing our products featured in 24 Hour Magazine via Yoyomama, having two of our toys picked by Today’s Parent Top Toys for 2010, several features in one of our fave online magazines, LMNOP, being a part of a Radio interview about small businesses and social media, several blog features, writing a guest post for the Yummy Mummy Club (and dining with Erica Ehm when she was in town promoting her new book), several product features from Savvymom, VancouverMom, Sweet Spot, Spilt Milk Moms, Urban Baby & Toddler and so many more.
We also held what we believe was the first “Virtual Party” on facebook called Must Haves for New Moms and had the pleasure of co-hosting other facebook parties throughout the year with SavvyMom and Bopomo Pictures. We were thrilled to be involved with the VancouverMom Top 30 Blogger recognition evening and we continue to seek out and work with other amazing local and national small businesses. We thoroughly enjoy supporting and collaborating with innovative and like minded businesses and believe in giving back to the community that does so much for us.
Later in the year, we moved in to a new warehouse for the second time in two years. It was a short move to our own suite within the Arthur Erickson Waterfall Building. We love our new space and it has given us the ability to continue with “shop by appointment” for our customers as well as host Private Shopping Events. We had an absolute ball meeting and working with the hostesses and their guests over the course of the last few months. We hope to host many more of these events in the months to come. We also hosted a book signing event for the lovely Erica Wells and her book, the Survival Guide for Rookie Moms.
We continued to be members of Enterprising Moms Network Vancouver Chapter, momcafe and also attended several other luncheons including the Forum for Women Entreprenuers and the Women in Leadership Speaker Series, meetups, tweetups, coffee get togethers and informal chit-chats with several other mompreneurs, business owners and prospective business owners. We love brainstorming and the energy we get from others that are so jazzed about their businesses. It is also helpful to speak with others who are also parents and understand the world of juggling multiple balls simultaneously and who offer words of encouragement when said balls sometimes get dropped.
In early December we gave away two prize packs valued at over $1000. The first went to Crabtree Corner and was allocated to several families in need and the second went to one of our valued newsletter subscribers, Jennifer who was the recipient of the other prize package. She used her $100 gift card to buy a P’kolino Little Reader Chair for her little fellow and we hope she gets good use out of all the other items.
In summary, it has been an eventful, rewarding and growth oriented year for Raspberry Kids and we are pleased to let you know that there are some more exciting things on the horizon for 2011. Like any high performance athlete, we know we need to continue to train (work) hard, learn from our errors, continue to innovate, lead, push ourselves and execute on our goals for 2011. We cannot tell you how pumped we are about the year ahead.
Happy New Year and we are wishing each of you an extraordinary year.
Sue
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