Jackanapes: the logistics of business
There’s a lot that goes into the logistics of business – alas, it’s not just about sticking a product on Amazon and watching the sales roll in! As business owners ourselves, we want to be an open book and show others that they can do it too. It may seem daunting, but by following a simple step-by-step process, your business can be off the ground in just a few months. Here’s exactly how we began our Jackanapes journey.
The Products
Having decided to proceed with our supplier, we gathered pricing information and product details before making our final decisions. We conducted profitability analysis as well as studying key information such as:
-
Minimum Order Quantities and volume pricing
We needed to consider the future of Jackanapes and the potential increase in profitability when the business was up and running. Year one is about growing, so we expect to receive no monetary reward for our efforts. This will come from laying foundations that can be scaled.
-
Delivery information and production time
As we wanted to set up our Amazon business as FBA, we were able to secure an agreement that the supplier would send our products directly to the Amazon warehouse. We looked at the delivery costs and exactly who pays those, plus the production and delivery times so we could factor them into future restocks.
-
Shelf life
As a food business using Fulfillment by Amazon, we had to ensure our products met the minimum shelf life requirements. For hot sauces, it’s 100 days as it falls within condiments. Here’s a handy list of the current fulfilment centre product expiry expectations in grocery.
| Product Type | Minimum arrival time at the fulfilment centre before product expiry |
|---|---|
| Baby & Infant | 90 days |
| Baking Supplies | 90 days |
| Drinks | 90 days |
| Boxed meals | 90 days |
| Canned Goods | 250 days |
| Cereals | 150 days |
| Cooking | 100 days |
| Foreign Foods | 120 days |
| Gift Baskets & Hampers | 70 days |
| Pasta & Grains | 130 days |
| Cooking Sauces | 100 days |
| Snacks & Desserts | 70 days |
| Chocolate | 90 days |
| Boxed Chocolates | 90 days |
| Sweets | 90 days |
| Desserts | 90 days |
| Condiments | 100 days |
| Spreads | 180 days |
| Oil, Vinegar | 100 days |
| White Bread & Similar | 90 days |
| Naan, Breads, Chapatis & Poppadoms | 60 days |
| UHT Milk & Similar | 60 days |
| Juices | 90 days |
| Water | 250 days |
| Soft Drinks | 120 days |
| Tea | 300 days |
| Coffee | 150 days |
-
Profitability check
To ensure the products were actually profitable, we needed to calculate exact margins. Following receiving the unit costs from the supplier, we measured the weight and dimensions of the samples and created a Google sheet with the selling price minus all fees and shipping allowances. We did this for both Amazon and Shopify as we also planned to create a Jackanapes website using Shopify. On Shopify, you’re able to link the website to your Amazon business account, feeding well into the Amazon algorithms and saving us additional storage, packaging, and delivery fees. This may not be a long-term strategy, however, it services start-up needs very well.
After our thorough research, including our taste testing evening, we cross referenced our preferred products with the category analysis and settled on 7 products – click through below to find out more about them:
- Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce
- Smokin’ Ghost Hot Sauce
- Mexican Hot Sauce
- Sweet Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce
- Banana Jam
- Tropical Jam
- Jalapeno Jam
Once we’d settled on our products, we completed the commercial elements, including payment terms, signing of NDAs and our supplier agreement.
Trademark
To protect the Jackanapes brand name and prevent others from using the name without permission, the brand was registered via the UKIPO. This costs around £170 and is valid for 10 years. By doing this, you start the journey of adding value to your brand. It also opens up brand tools on Amazon that are not available to brand owners unless they are trademark-registered.
GS1 Barcodes
Amazon now sits on the board of GS1, and as such, requires that all brands on its site use GS1 as the source of their product barcodes. This is non-negotiable. Amazon can and have asked for the registration certificate to prove your barcode origin. This is an annual membership and costs around £100-£150 depending on how many barcodes are required.
Food registration
All food businesses are subject to inspection by the local council and are required to register with their local councils even if, as in our case, you do not manufacture or directly handle any of the food. Registration is free and it’s not an application process so can’t be refused. Businesses are required to register at least 28 days before trading. That’s why it’s so important to put in the proper planning. You don’t want to miss out crucial steps and risk unnecessary delays. You will also be required to have food safety certification in place to demonstrate your knowledge of allergens and cleanliness. An example of the certifications you can take online can be found here.
HACCP registration
HACCP is a food safety management system based on the biological, chemical and physical hazards from the process of manufacturing food for consumption. It can cover the raw material procurement, manufacturing, cooking and the bottling process.
For Jackanapes, this isn’t necessary. Our HACCP covers the hazards from when the products are received from the supplier through to being received by the consumer. These include glass breakages, inaccurate best-before dates, mislabelled products, unsealed lids, shelf life rotation and storage temperatures. Of these, only one has been determined to be a CCP (critical control point), which leads us to take action, possibly including product recall.
It’s important to be aware of all the potential outcomes when starting a business and more importantly, not hiding from them. Not only did we thoroughly research the HACCP, we also had to check the current UK government guidance. There are high restrictions on the type of advertising that can be done on products that are high in fat, salt and sugar, known as HFSS. We checked to ensure our products were in one of the categories not subject to this so we knew exactly what type of marketing we could do.
Organisation
There were several other processes we completed next:
- As we work remotely, we opened a Dropbox account to centralise all our content amongst staff.
- Opening a company bank account.
- Registering our company with Companies House to confirm we legally exist. It costs £12 and is usually registered within 24 hours.
- Opening our Amazon business account – now that we know how to do!
- Opening a Veeqo account, an Amazon-owned, free multi-channel shipping software. Find out more about this handy tool here.
- Creating our online accounting software with a Quickbooks account.
- Opening our Shopify account so we could begin our website creation.
- Creating our social channels so we could share our journey. We chose Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube as our platforms – more on those in a later blog!
- Business insurance that is specific to food businesses.
We also noted there was no VAT registration required. There is no VAT on most foods, so no need to register, something we factored into margin calculation.
And all this before we started selling a single product.
So what’s next for Jackanapes? I bet you can’t wait to see our label design!
