It’s March Madness in the office so we said “you know what?! let’s change up the format of our monthly recap VLOG and try out a BLOG this time around”. If you do get to the end of this article, please let us know whether you prefer this format, or the video format we have been doing on Youtube.
PHIL POPPED THE QUESTION!!
This is easily the highlight of our month: Phil is now engaged!
He took some time to set up a romantic dinner in the outskirts of the greater Montreal area at his family’s log cabin. In case you didn’t know, Phil is somewhat of a Casanova, he knows how to bring out the romance: rose petals, candles, music, and all the works.
Fun story about Phil: He spent months learning to play the piano for his first Valentine’s Day with his now fiancé! He also lit over 100 tea candles and brought the room temperature to sauna levels.
CATCHING UP WITH DRAGONS' DEN PRODUCERS
Some of the producers of CBC’s Dragons’ Den were in town for auditions for the upcoming season, and we had the chance to grab a drink together and catch up.
Season 17 was such a success that they are adding more episodes and pitches to the upcoming season - we don’t want to take all the credit but I think those tearaway pants left a lasting impression!!
We truly hope to be featured as an “update segment” in the next season so we can share our story since appearing on Dragons’ Den last September, fingers crossed!!
MARKETING SOFTWARE GLITCH
As Manmade operates 100% as an online brand, we are constantly looking for ways to optimize our digital advertising and reach.
So we signed up to a reputable digital marketing software service and we had a huge nightmare: we lost all the likes, comments and shares on our Facebook and Instagram posts.
An online brand like ours relies heavily on all the support that’s publicly shown on our posts as it shows credibility to potential customers thinking of trying us out.
Luckily, we were able to recover a decent portion of them but if you do ever come across a post of ours on Facebook or Instagram, please hit the like or comment button - it helps us SO much!
BANK FINANCING APPROVED
Getting financing at a major Canadian bank isn’t an easy task, especially as a young startup. We are extremely happy to announce that we have secured additional financing that’s backed by the EDC (Export Development Canada) so we can continue to invest in inventory and roll out USA growth.
LAUNCHING MANMADE GIFT CARDS
Following our last holiday season, there was quite a bit of demand for Manmade Gift Cards, and we can understand why. When it's gift-giving season and you want to gift a loved one with Manmade comfort, you may not know their sizes. That’s where a gift card may be a smart move, and they are now live on our website!
CANADA POST MYSTERY ON 150 ORDERS
We ship all our orders in Canada with Canada Post’s Expedited service, and we had a strange and weird situation happen at the beginning of the month.
It was a couple of weeks ago that some customers didn’t receive their order, and the tracking was indicating only that Canada Post picked up the orders from us. Now, to give you context in case you don’t know, we truly pride ourselves on delivering an exceptional customer experience and that’s why we do things like pack and ship orders within a day. Typically, customers will receive their order within 1-5 business days depending where they’re located so when we see a delay of over a week, we freak out!
We got on multiple calls with Canada Post and did a bunch of investigating and still figuring out the root cause, but in the meanwhile we decided to reship all the confirmed lost orders since we didn’t want customers waiting any longer. We did email everyone affected to let them know and we’re truly fortunate to have such an understanding and patient community.
Going forward, we’ve added a couple internal controls within our process to catch any similar situation in the future in a faster timeline.
MANUFACTURING PARTNER VISIT
We don’t just work with anyone overseas when it comes to manufacturing our products. We interviewed over 25 manufacturers from 12 different countries before choosing our manufacturing partner.
We needed someone who would tick a bunch of boxes on our evaluation (ethical standards, compliance with accreditations, good working conditions, trustworthiness, technology and machinery, quality of workmanship, and so on).
Considering that we are scaling up our production year over year, we had the pleasure to host a couple representatives of our manufacturing partner right here in Montreal. We reviewed our current and long-term plans, and ways to further optimize our manufacturing processes.
LAUNCHING T-SHIRT PACKS
As you may know, we don’t run discount/promo codes or flash sales, but rather we offer savings through our bundle options and packs. We hadn’t launched a T-shirt pack until recently only because we are having a hard time keeping all sizes in stock as it is already.
If you do love a premium quality T-shirt, you can check out the 3-pack option, now available.
That’s all for this month’s recap, please let us know what you think below!
Thank you!!
Berto and the Manmade Team :)