We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amy Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Amy , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
Profitability can look so different, not just across industries, but for each company, based on how you are structured and what you sell.
Once you get your idea off the ground, you have to begin to build a customer base and make sales before you see money rolling in – and if you secured a loan to start your business, you’ll need to pay that off before you begin seeing a bigger profit, and that can take years.
For Nuts & Bolts Paper Co, company decisions like offering customized products and to only source and produce within the US also cuts into profit. Supplies and vendors cost more when I’m not sourcing overseas, and customization takes time and manpower (and every time I pay a worker, I cut into my own paycheck and the company’s profits). But when deciding what kind of business and product I wanted to offer in the marketplace, these things were important to me; so the decision was a worthwhile one, in my opinion.
When you decide to put quality at the top of your list of priorities and operate as a “handmade” business, it also makes growth difficult. Because of the higher costs, wholesaling to bigger box stores is nearly impossible unless I want to change my entire business model. For example, as a small operation, I can’t produce thousands of orders in-house; I would need a fulfillment company or my own warehouse and more employees. Do I want to take the leap and change everything in hopes of securing large wholesale contracts? Even if I do, wholesalers purchase your product at generally 50% retail, so your profit is much lower than selling directly to consumers and I have to take that into account as well. Will the time and energy spent producing all those units be worth the money made?
The same goes for selling on large platforms like Amazon.com. While the customer base is great, commission and fees for working with Amazon fulfillment are high, so deciding to join this marketplace comes with a lower profit margin and the potential for necessary company growth if sales go well.
So I think the hardest thing for a small handmade business like my own is figuring out how and when to make those jumps while still being able to turn a profit. It’s not always a simple Cinderella story, and it takes strategy, time and often, sacrifice.
Amy , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am a mom of 3, sole creator and owner of Nuts & Bolts Paper Co, a graphic designer and a former women’s fashion designer.
I have a rather typical career story – I went to school for one thing and wound up doing something completely different once I discovered my true passion.
As mentioned, I began my career in the fashion industry, which lead to working as a women’s magazine editor where I honed my skills as a writer and graphic designer. Eventually, I began designing stationery products as a side-hustle and opened an Etsy shop.
From there, things just progressed slowly. It went from selling digital party invites, to selling baby books (which I decided to make when I found out I was pregnant with my third and couldn’t find a book I liked). When the baby books started selling well, I began expanding on the idea of memory keeping for the infant-childhood years.
I fell in love with the idea of simple memory keeping; founded on the reality of a young mom of 3 (me) with little time and energy to devote to much beyond keeping her kids alive and dinner on the table.
This became the heart of Nuts & Bolts Paper Co. A memory-keeping company for all moms who want (and need) easy documenting for the years they never want to forget – the hard years, the weird years, the fun years, and the years that were formative in their family’s history.
Our customizable memory books help parents of all types (single moms, two-parent families, same-sex families, adoptive families) document pregnancy – elementary years and beyond with simple prompts, not too many pages, and a focus on photos and basic journaling. We want to help them create keepsakes that they and their kids will treasure for years to come, with memories in their own words and their own handwriting.
Despite living in an increasingly digital world, Nuts & Bolts Paper Co still strongly believes in the beauty of a blurry photograph taken through laughter, and the messy handwriting of a sleep-deprived mom.
And I know this because I live it as a mom every day. I have few opportunities or energy to document, but when I do, I treasure it – no matter how bad the photo!
You can find all our memory books, notebooks and accessories on nutsboltspaper.com.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
The best moments I have as a seller are when I get reviews on my products that are completely in line with my goals when designing. For instance, when someone says, “I love how easy this is to fill out! There aren’t too many pages to that overwhelm me,” or “The quality is amazing!” I smile and think, “Yes! Yes! They get it!”
When my efforts and goals translate to my customers, I know I am doing something right, and I think it’s helped foster trust and brand loyalty. I have many repeat customers because they know what they can expect from me – both in quality and content.
I have worked hard to push that message from a marketing standpoint, and I think it’s paid off. It’s plastered on our website, on our packing inserts, on our social media, in our emails, etc. And you can see it in our product photography and in our listing descriptions – simplicity, short prompts, fewer pages. Even the size of our book is smaller than our competitors, and it’s on purpose!
I also follow that up with excellent, personal customer service. Having a baby is a very sweet, sometimes scary and extremely emotional time; so when I talk with customers, I remain sensitive and try to be extra helpful. Our customization options often lead to lots of questions, and I am here to help them get the memory book they want and is perfect for their unique family.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For artists in particular, we get to take an image that lives only in our heads, translate it to something tangible, and then introduce that into the lives of our customers.
I get overwhelmed when I think that something I created with my own two hands lives in the homes of my customers (and will for many, many years to come). It’s such an honor to be a part of their lives and their family history!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nutsboltspaper.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/nutsboltspaper
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nutsboltspaper
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/82858611
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nutsboltspaper
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/nutsboltspaper/
Image Credits
credit: Amy Taylor / nutsboltspaper.com