For Sale Sock Subscription Online Business With 1000+ Active Subscribers

For sale is a British sock subscription company with over 1000 active subscribers.

Started 18 months ago, this business has grown consistently since it began, with dramatic seasonal spikes (Christmas, Fathers Day, Valentines Day, etc).

Our biggest point of different is that we match sock designs to people’s personalities. This increases the conversion rate of our website (as customers are looking for a unique and more personalised product) and keeps our customers more engaged than an average retailer (as they are getting a product more tailored to them). You can read more about our sock personality matching below.

HIGH LEVEL FACTS ABOUT THE BUSINESS:

>> 4.6 star rating on Reviews.co.uk with nearly 200 reviews (reviews show up in Google searches)

>> Website conversion rate of 5% (12 month average Aug. ’17 – Aug. ’18) – during peak seasons it has been 15-18%!

>> On track to hit annual revenue of £120k GBP (FY 2018)

>> 5,600 active subscribers to the Sock Geeks email newsletter

>> Active listing of Sock Geeks socks and subscriptions on Amazon

>> First page for Google UK search for ‘Sock Subscription’

Over the past year we have optimised the site to improve the conversion rate of the store, designed & manufactured our own socks, optimised packaging to reduce production and shipping costs, built strong relationships with our sock manufacturers in China, created over 300 professional photographs (owned by Sock Geeks), developed technology to automate subscription management on multiple sales channels (such as Amazon, and offline retail) and much much more.

Our subscription model has been set-up so that new orders get fulfilled within 1-3 days of purchase, so that new customers get their first pair of socks quickly and don’t need to wait around for the subscription to start. After that, they will then receive one pair of socks every month, and these are sent out to all active subscribers on the same day of the month each month. This means that we keep our customers happy whilst also making our business as operationally efficient as possible. The amount of time spent on the business is therefore no more than one hour a day (to fulfil new orders, respond to customer enquiries & carry out day to day marketing activities), plus a few hours once a month to fulfil all the active subscribers’ monthly pair of socks.

WHAT ARE YOU PURCHASING:

The whole business is for sale. This means you would inherit:

>> The website and all creative assets

>> All active subscribers (over 1000)

>> Details of all previous subscribers (over 4000) who are currently lapsed (ability to reactivate or cross-sell)

>> Nearly 6000 pairs of branded socks (stock at hand as of August 2018 – retail value of £30k+)

>> UK Trademark

>> Amazon account with optimised listing for selling individual socks as well as subscriptions (currently being Fulfilled by Amazon with Amazon Prime option)

>> Google Adwords account with huge amount of data & well optimised

>> Reviews.co.uk account with almost 200 reviews at 4* and 5* (links to Google search results)

>> Facebook & Instagram accounts

We will also provide you with any initial training and support required to ensure a smooth transition to the new owner.

N.B. The website is set up for multi-currency, and is also mobile-optimised.

MARKETING & CUSTOMER ACQUISITION

Acquisition of customers has been predominantly through Google (both organic and Adwords). We also have a very engaged customer base and newsletter list, who make repeat purchases and are very responsive to emails.

>> We are currently on the first page of Google UK organic search for ‘Sock Subscription’

>> Our Google Adwords cost-per-acquisition is currently less than £3 and falling

>> Reviews appear in our Google organic and paid listings

>> We have a very high repeat-customer rate (YTD returning customer rate is 28%), and a very high conversion rate from our email lists.

We have barely scratched the surface on other marketing channels, and therefore the opportunity for a new owner to grow the business is huge, through social media, PR, affiliates, influencers, offline, etc, as well as the ability to add more products to cross-sell and up-sell to customers. Our website has an average annual conversion rate of 5% (which is double the industry average) so the more people you can send to the website, the more orders you will get!

As mentioned above, one of our biggest points of difference is that we match socks to people’s personalities. This is one of the reasons for our extremely high website conversion rate. To work out our customer’s sock-personality type, we developed a fun and quick personality quiz. Customer’s take the quiz, and then are assigned to one of our 3 different sock-personalty types. We design socks suitable for these 3 different sock-personality types. You can try out the quiz for yourself on our website.

The sock personality quiz is not for sale with the business, however should the new owner wish to keep it, we will happily license the use of the personality quiz to the purchaser for 5 years for free.

WHY ARE WE SELLING:

The reason we are selling this business (reluctantly) is because we want to spend more time focusing on our main business, which is this personality quiz. Sock Geeks was initially set up as a case study to prove the effectiveness of the personality quiz for an eCommerce business, and in doing so, we have built a fantastic sock subscription business with a huge amount of more potential.