Flaparaps: Packages and Pricing and (living by my) Principles

Today I’m opening The Born Ready Shop – an online store shipping Flaparaps Worldwide!

I love Amazon – and if they delivered outside the EU from their UK warehouse I’d use them for everything. But they don’t. And stocking their international warehouses is complicated for small sales volumes. So let’s see how The Shop turns out

As part of the Shop setup, I wanted to introduce myself to potential customers. People who might not know me from the born ready website, my facebook pages or my facebook group. As well as saying “Hello!” I decided to explain the principles behind Flaparaps packaging and pricing – to give folks an idea of where I’m coming from.

I cover most of these on the Flaparap Specs page, but here they’re presented from a slightly different perspective.

Born Ready: Guiding Principles

1) Keep it British. Keep it small.

Starting out and not knowing where I was going or how much demand there would be, it seemed sensible to keep things small and local wherever possible. But at the same time, I wanted multiple colours and different fabrics. The kind of choice that only comes with made-to-order or sold-by-the-thousands. So I had to seek out alternative ways of doing things. For example, I spent a full year looking for a laser cutter to cut my fabric… And I found one! He can cheerfully cut 1m of fabric or 500m. The price difference is minimal and every cut piece is identical. He’s wonderful and I would never have got started without him.

2) Sell something useful.

Flaparaps will give you freedom, but only if you let them make a proper job of it.

That means detail has been thought through. From the top quality PUL, to the silent fastenings, to the grippy belt and Patent Pending tail ridge. And the pads of course. The right pads make all the difference in the world.

Flaparaps are super slim, which means that massive stash of prefolds you have will not fit inside them. And those night boosters you bought for your first child will also be too big (and no where near absorbent enough).

Flaparap pad fabric is the most absorbent I could find. I tested every colour of fabric from my manufacturer. Identical fabrics, dyed different colours, have very different absorbencies. Some are even water resistant! There’s a lot more to fabric absorbency than I first realised…

If I sell you a something that you have high hopes for, I want to come through for you! But if I leave you to guess at the best pads to use, you’ll end up disappointed. Then all of my development and expertise have gone to waste when they should have had a big impact on your daily life.

So, for now at least, “sell something useful” means selling Flaparaps and pads in a ratio that most people will be able to run with right out of the box.

There’s more info on how Flaparaps are useful on the Tech Spec page.

3) Price to survive.

Every year, small scale nappy manufacturers go out of business.

I suspect most of them have worked extremely hard for two or three years before using up all their funds (and more) and seeing no way out of the hole.

I know Flaparaps can have an incredible impact on people’s lives. I desperately want to free babies from 3 years of nappies by making baby pottying / blpt / ec a practical solution for everyone.

But I need to price them to survive.

They’re not beyond anyone’s budget. According to MoneySavingExpert, branded disposables cost £970 for 24 months with an extra £200 needed for baby wipes and nappy sacks. If a family are using disposables, statistics say they’ll be using them for a lot longer than two years. Probably three. Or closer to four… With most poos on the potty and no barrier cream to scrape off with wipes, that Never-Look-Back-Pack looks like a bargain now, doesn’t it?

So, if you think Flaparaps are a great product, but you haven’t quite clicked ‘buy’ yet, I strongly encourage you to do so!

By the time I had my fourth child, I’d whittled down my baby essentials to the bare minimum. I carried her in a stretchy wrap. She had 6 vests, three pairs of legwarmers, a drawerful of hand-me-down socks (which she’s still wearing two years later!) and a pile of Flaparaps.

To me, Flaparaps were an essential.

No pushchair, no cot, no sleep suits, no baby bath, no changing mat, no changing bag, no jumpers, no coats (no need – snug as a bug inside her wrap inside my jumper and coat), no wipes, no creams, no cleansers, no nuffin’.

But Flaparaps? Oh yes! Every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.

Take the leap!

By the way, my production costs are around three times the retail price of popular branded cloth nappies. And I can’t even get fabric cut for the price of an ebay ‘China Cheapie’, never mind buy that fabric in the first place, or get it stitched together, or post it between members of my supply chain… A supply chain of multiple Brits who are all paid in line with their considerable skills. (Except for me, of course… But who knows, if you buy enough, one of these days I might get paid too 😉 )

4) Innovate!

This is the fun part!

Behind the scenes there is always innovation.

If you’ve given Flaparaps a real go of it and either have any suggestions or have noticed any niggles, please do get in touch. Now that my kids are all well beyond nappies it’s customer feedback like yours that will help improve the design for the next iteration.

I hope Flaparaps make as much of a difference to your life and they did for mine.

Happy Pottying!

Jenn.