Many times, ventures have to mutate and adapt to be able to continue on his way. That’s what happened to the wooden eyewear brand, which in its first incarnation was an optical lens factory.
Two generations after that first business, the son and two grandchildren of the founder continue the entrepreneurial path with Numag, a brand of wooden sunglasses. In this interview, Fernando Gonzalo (one of the brothers who make up this venture) tells us how the project came about, what challenges they had to face and how they are doing with their online store.
How did the idea for Numag come about?
My family started many years ago in the field of optics; My grandfather started when he came from Spain, when he was very young, and he started with the optical glasses part. He spent his whole life in the field of optical lenses, later my father continued it and for about eight or ten years my brother and I have also been there.
The optical lens business needed a change, because we were making a product that was about to stop selling. At one point we saw some bamboo glasses online, we asked for some samples and we were very interested. We wanted to make a change in the activity, not leave the field, but do something that we like more; the other product was very industrial, it was not a brand, and we knew that having a brand was going to be something very different, that it was going to involve many areas, and we were going to like it more.
The bamboo eyeglass sample seemed a bit plastic, it didn’t have a good finish, and after a short time, we traveled to an exhibition in Italy and saw that there were already some brands of glasses made of wood, not bamboo. We loved them, we started looking all over the world, there really were many brands of wooden glasses, and we started to get involved little by little, parallel to what we were doing. We spent two years developing Numag because we didn’t have much idea how to make glasses. and in July of last year we started with the wholesale sale.
What was the biggest challenge when you stopped making lenses to start producing glasses?
Y, the biggest challenge was learning how to make an eyeglass; We weren’t manufacturers of glasses and that’s why we spent two years with that. The other areas, although at first one does not have much of an idea, one learns little by little.
Over there what cost us the most were the ads, Facebook and Google, it was a very new world. And if you say: “I want to learn it in a week”, you have to spend a lot of time and you get a little dizzy, then that we learned it little by little, over the months. We still have a long way to go but it is key.
What things were useful from the previous experience manufacturing optical lenses?
More than anything, things related to production: knowing when to buy raw materials, how much to invest, what a serial process is, anticipating problems that may occur. Dealing with customers and suppliers also served.
How is the production process of the glasses?
How is the Numag team made up?
Those of us who are there day by day are my brother, my dad and I, who are the three founders of Numag, and then we have an employee dedicated to production.
Externally we work with a graphic designer, who charges us a fee monthly and does a certain number of jobs per month.
In addition, we are now making the new website with the people of .
What are the particularities of having a family business?
I think that by working with relatives one makes sure that the venture will continue, because if you look for a partner, perhaps you don’t know him very well and problems can arise. The family bond ensures the continuity of the project and there is also trust: one can say everything he thinks about the other and there is a greater closeness.
What media do they use to promote the brand?
As soon as we launched Numag, we only used Facebook because Google Ads seemed a bit complicated to us. What happened to us with Facebook is that at the beginning we were a bit obsessed with getting “likes”, what we wanted was to add the number of followers. Later, talking to other people, we realized that this was not going to make us sell more, so people will trust you more when they see more followers than if you have ten followers, but when you reach an acceptable amount, it is recommended it is to do another type of advertising, aimed at getting them to the web and clicking on a product to make the sale, which is what one needs.
How has the growth of the online store been?
Although we have had the store for a little over a year, we began to take it more seriously in July or August of last year, which was when we began to invest heavily in advertising. From October to February it went quite well, especially in the months of October and November, with Mother’s Day, Cyber Monday and Black Friday. We did pretty well at Christmas too. And then came the strong season of sunglasses, which is summer, and it went quite well for us. We hope that with the new website sales will continue.
How do you manage the stock?
At the beginning, the factory was busy with what were the slow optics and the two years of development of Numag were in the factory garage, there we had to put things where we could. Today, since we stopped doing the other thing, Numag took over the entire factory and we don’t need a place.
How do you ship products to buyers?
Do you think free shipping is a good marketing strategy?
Yes, when we look for new customers we don’t talk about free shipping entry because we don’t want it to seem like we’re overselling the product, in principle we talk more about the brand. Later, with the remarketing actions, we did talk about free shipping throughout the country and the twelve interest-free installments. I think it helps a lot free shipping is being implemented worldwide and must be taken as an additional cost.
What payment platform do you use in the online store?
We use MercadoPago for sales in Argentina and PayPal for international sales, although many foreign sales have not yet been made.
MercadoPago works very wellthe only complaint is that they launched a promotion of installments without interest that we put in the store and they charge you a fairly high percentage, it is proving quite expensive for us and we are seeing if we go back to the original promotion, which charges you a little less.
What online tools do you use for your daily work?
: to share files.
: to make promotions on special dates.
: to sell our products.
The for the online store.
: to organize our tasks.
Can you give any advice for people who are thinking of starting a business?
The first year or the first years are quite dense, more so if you do not have an initial capital or a physical place, which is key. I would like to recommend, more than anything for those who are in design or fashion projects, to find out at the Metropolitan Design Center, which has offices for the first year of a project, that can be quite beneficial.
What happened to me is that we already had another project and I was studying engineering, I said: “Oh, now we are going to be doing two things at the same time, I am going to take longer with my degree”. But it was something very nice, I felt what many feel: that it is a train that passes only once in a lifetime and if we had not done this, I would have ended up doing something that I do not like or that does not fill me so much.
Let them be encouraged, let them know that they are going to need to talk a lot with people To guide yourself, it is key to be in contact with other entrepreneurs who are in it and give each other advice. And let them know that they are going to need patience and a strength of steel because if you don’t have investors or that kind of thing it’s difficult. But if you do things right, good times come and you have to keep working hard and never fall down.
If you have a business and are looking for an easy-to-use and secure platform for your customers, try . You can do a free trial of the service for 15 days.
Facebook Comments
Disqus