Jackanapes: Our First Year Results
After our first year in business, we’ve certainly managed a lot. If you’ve been following our journey, it’s time for us to share Jackanapes’ first-year results!
Overview
Our expectations were hopefully to break even, which is exactly what happened. Becoming an overnight success is such a rarity, and managing the expectations of your first year in business is so important.
In the last 12 months on Amazon, the biggest seller, making up almost 50% of the sales, was the Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce. Compared with our in-person sales (keep reading to find out more), this indicates that shoppers are far more likely to buy the hottest sauce possible. In most cases, the hottest sauce you’ll find in a supermarket is likely to be the equivalent of our Sweet Scotch Bonnet.
Facts and Figures
Our conversion rate, based on page views for all Jackanapes products for the last 12 months, was 5.9%. The average conversion rate on Amazon is usually between 10-15%, so this is slightly lower. Like we say, being successful in your first year is a rarity, so we’re pleased with the results so far.
Despite the lower conversion rate, our Average Order Value (AOV) was relatively high. All our products currently sell for £9.99. The AOV we have achieved over the last 12 months is £11.95. This was achieved through the introduction of a gift set and cross-promoting through Premium A+ and Advertising. Based on this, we’re now in the process of creating more gift sets of our products.
Social media
Our social media results have seen a consistent, steady increase since launching the platforms last year – a fine result! We’ve noticed a particularly steep incline recently since we began boosting one post a month through the meta ads service. This involves visible results whilst aligning with our marketing budget. For example, our latest advert had 143 clicks which converted into 62 followers – a 43% conversion rate.
What is interesting is to compare the Instagram follows, profile visits and reach across the past year. The data is vastly different! We can see our follows spiked in January and February when we began our initial push on social media, before becoming generally lower.
On the other hand, our reach has remained low and steady until recently with a steady growth. All except an exciting spike in June/July, likely due to our attending of some summer food festivals – read on to find out more about those!
Our profile visits have been completely erratic! This could be due to certain posts we decided to do or adverts we created.
In comparison to other businesses in our category, we have similar results in terms of publishing and interactions. However, our follows are significantly higher. Currently, we’re keeping our posting strategy consistent whilst introducing a few adverts to elevate our brand awareness as we progress into our next year. For our first year in business, we are very pleased to be on a par with our competitors.
Awards
We were overjoyed to receive some great awards throughout our first year, great for boosting brand awareness. So far, we have achieved 2 x 1 Star Great Taste Awards, one for our Carolina Reaper Ketchup and one for the Banana Jam.
We were also awarded 3 x Gold Taste of the West Awards, one for Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce, one for Smokin Ghost and one for Carolina Reaper Mayonnaise.
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Amazon Results
We wanted to share our best month’s results with you. The following is an example of what we achieved on Amazon in December 2023, 5 months after launch.
Ultimately, December is one of the busiest months as it’s the Christmas season. Hot sauces make great gifts, and now we’re putting together more gift sets, we’re looking forward to seeing the results this year.
The Future
We’ve now started attending trade shows and food festivals as part of our marketing plan. We created extra marketing materials, such as a banner, flyers, t-shirts and product packaging, as well as creating an exclusive new chilli product specifically for sale at the food festivals. We attended three shows over the summer for further market research. Our first event was the Swindon Cheese & Chilli Festival which garnered moderate success. We believe this was due to various factors such as the larger amount of competition at a chilli-specific event, the positioning of our stand, and also the dreadful weather we had. Our next event was a more generic food festival which had similar success, though there was less direct competition and at least the sun was shining this time!
Whilst these events aren’t huge money-makers, they are very beneficial for brand awareness and market research. Our top-selling products, in order of most popular, were Tropical Chilli Jam, Reaper Ketchup and Smokin’ Ghost. This is completely different to what we achieve online. What this shows is that you shouldn’t discount retail sales from your business plan. After all, we sold nearly 250 bottles across three shows.
So, it’s been a busy first year in business. Where will Jackanapes head next? Watch this space – you may find our hot sauce on a shelf near you very soon.
To grab your own bottle of our chilli sauce or jams, head to our website.