How Much Cardboard Does It Take to Start a Wreath Business?

Where did we leave off? That’s right, cardboard. 

An Insane amount of cardboard.

Boxes have been ordered and our UPS rates are dialed in.

We did it; we ordered 5000 boxes. Seems easy, right? Go to Amazon, set the toggle to 5000, and click 2-day delivery.

I'm learning the hard way—keyword is learning, though—that boxes come in all shapes and sizes. Thickness matters, and so does rigidity. Remember the last time you ordered a package and the contents were already in a box? Both of those features help protect the order.

We can't really do that. More on that wrinkle later.

So, we need a pretty thick box and we need to know where to put  a ton of them. Thankfully, we've solved those problems. You can check back to the ops issue if you want to brush up on the box saga.

Back to the boxes and how they impact our product. Thanks to some help from GPT, I’ve picked up a few things about taxation. When a box is considered part of your product, you don’t have to pay taxes on it upfront. This means it's integrated into the product's overall cost, and we handle the tax payments later when we sell the product to customers. All we need to do is send the box vendor some paperwork that says, "No need to tax this twice; we’ve got it covered on the back end."

But, from my understanding, if we bought a box, put the wreath in that box, and then put that box in another box, we would pay sales tax on the first. We are getting oh so very close to my limits of understanding here.

So, we have a few options: we submit a Multijurisdiction Tax Exempt form based on where the business is located, or we could pay cash because we need them ASAP and take a heavy double taxation penalty.

Another thing to understand is how the product travels from manufacturer to customer. The situation changes if the item is made to order vs. pre-produced and then selected to ship later. Again, this is my rudimentary understanding of the problem.

While we continue to identify the exact nuances of this relationship, we are delayed in giving the box maker the forms to get started on production. Remember, this box is 26x26x6 and not a standard size or shape. It needs to be custom-made and that takes time: 2-3 weeks to be exact.

But we might have a solution to speed things up. What if our wreath maker acquired the boxes as part of their operation, and we could incorporate the cost into our product—something we were already planning on doing. Then we could order right away and bring holiday cheer to all of us a little earlier.

An important note here: all business comes with challenges; this is the fun of it! But things like this seem to be first-year or early startup problems that become simpler over time. For example, next year we place an order in July and have it shipped in November. All in time to head back to our 4th of July BBQs.

But that’s not what we did this year, and so we need to learn at light speed.

But ready to check the to do list box (pun heavily intended):

✅ Boxes have been ordered.

And we have site photos too!

Check this out! 

We got our samples and sent them over to get photographed. Pretty stunning. I want one, but I gave mine to the artist, and my door is still basic and brown. But not for long! Here are some sample photos that will make their way to the site.

The site is live?!

wreath.co is live!

Something we've been promising for weeks. I’m really excited about all the early adopters feedback from the pack, and I’m looking forward to more feedback via text, email, and LinkedIn chat. San Diego is about to get festive!

Oh and as a reminder: boxes are a couple of weeks out and we won't be shipping until mid November.

Gift messages????

There’s one last thing. Wreaths make awesome gifts, and we’re working on a few solutions for gifting that are really fun. If we kicked things off in June, we could have gotten really clever but kick things off on Halloween, the game changes a little. Still fun, just less cycles to play.

But perhaps a question first: when you receive gifts from friends and family members, how do you prefer to receive the message?

• Shipping label

• Packing slip

• Email

• Something else

I’d love your feedback! This will help design the ideal experiences. 

It’s November 1, and there are 54 days until Christmas.

-Jonah “the Howl Guy”

P.S. Next week we’re going to the Farm! Expect a photo or two from lovely Washington.

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