Summary

During my time in this project, I felt as though I learnt quite a lot of things that I never knew or considered before this project began. Firstly whatever kind of business you decide to go into, its really important that research is done and the market is investigated, so you know what you are going up against in terms of competition as well as whether financially its worth the risk investing in your business. Secondly I think its crucial to go out there and start networking with people in the business you would like to get into. This will give you an insight into what’s required for your business to be competitive as well as how to run a business. Thirdly being organized and scheduling everything your going to plan to do is very valuable and beneficial because it will keep you on track with your deadlines and make you work that much more efficiently so you know that you are not wasting valuable time. Lastly believing in your business and persevering is crucial because during this tough economic time, I think its essential to have confidence and faith within your own company because if you don’t have that then I think the whole foundation of what your company has been built around will fall.

Evaluation with Linnea Dimitriou

We had an evaluation and summative assessment for our project Urbanize It. Me and my fellow team mate Leonard Onikoyi were present with two potential tutors that were going to assess us. The time for our summative assessment appointment was at 10.45am. Things ran a little late but eventually we began our assessment with the teacher Linnea.

Me and Leonard Onikoyi came prepared to the assessment, we had our t-shirt in hand and we also had a flyer as well as a powerpoint presentation slide for our pitch.

Linnea told us that our clothing brand 'Urbanize It' was really good and that there was lots of potential. We told her that we had difficulty in selling as much t-shirts as we could. We set out to sell intitally 12 t-shirts but in the end we sold 5 t-shirts. The majority of which was bought by family and friends and the starting price was around £15 which then changed to £12.

She said that we should over value our t-shirt so that it would give the perception that the t-shirt is something truly unique and that the consumer would have to buy. She said that if its expensive then the customer would assume that it must really good quality and popular. She said thats how we should approach our t-shirt and that kind of mind set. She told us that we should continue with this project after university because there was potential and that if we promote and market it as well as get the pricing right then this could go somewhere. She also offered to help us and continue to give us feedback after university finishes.

Selling online and Outside

In selling our t-shirts, i manage to gain valuable promotion through my dad's local corner shop. He allowed me to put up flyers as well as sell the t-shirts next to his shop. Although i didn't manage to sell that many t-shirts, just around 2 actually it was something and better than nothing. But promotion was valuable since i know a lot of my local people.

This is my dad signing the official Urbanize It consent form, there by giving us permission to sell and promote our t-shirt within his shop, all completely legitimately.

Marketing and Promotion

I was able to get some good feedback from a independent clothes retailer called Duvel's in stratford shopping centre. I asked the shop retailer if i could promote the t-shirts in his shop and he didn't say no but he didnt say yes either. He said that if we improve our t-shirts a little better in terms of design then he would be willing to promote and maybe even sell our t-shirts.

Promoting Urbanize It through social networking sites such as facebook and twitter.

This is the official website below and we promoted our t-shirt through this website. Plus it contains a link to another website which is gumtree. They would be able to purchase the t-shirt through that website.

Urbanize It being promoted through my twitter page in the pic below.

Final Printed 'Urbanize It' design T-shirt!

The final t-shirt design was printed and as you can see from the images below which includes a photo of me wearing it, the results of the t-shirt in a physical tangible form is quite satisfactory.

Purchasing tools and visiting print shops

We searched the net to find possible printing shops that we could print our t-shirts and we did come across a few but felt as though the prices were too high. Especially considering the other costs we had to cover.

These are the websites that we did check out.

http://www.clubrowcreations.co.uk/clothing/tshirtsblack.html

http://www.negs.co.uk/tshirt-printing1.html

We did print out one t-shirt through Negs as a test to see what the quality would be like.

Creating a consent form

Leonard and i decided to create a consent form. The consent form would be a sort of contract which would allow us to gain genuine permission from the individual or company that allows us to sell or promote our t-shirt within their sales environment. We felt this would make us look more professional and be taken more seriously.