SellerForce® presents an eCommerce company specializing in books, courses, and training material to help students maximize their GCSE grades in minimal time.
The UK’s market for supplementary learning resources for school subjects, particularly mathematics, has experienced significant growth over the years. These resources, including books, provide additional support to students to enhance their understanding and performance in the subject.
Mathematics has long been a subject that many students find challenging. As a result, there has been a demand for learning resources to bridge the gap and provide alternative approaches to learning. Books like those that this company offers provide comprehensive explanations, examples, and practice exercises to reinforce key concepts and skills.
Factors such as a lack of individualized attention, limited school resources, and varying teaching methodologies contribute to a concerning failure rate. Additionally, recent events, such as the global pandemic, have further impacted the demand for support outside the classroom. With the pandemic forcing schools to close and the subsequent shift to online learning, students have faced additional challenges in understanding and engaging with certain subjects.
The demand for books and other resources increased as students sought alternative ways to attain good grades. Furthermore, teacher strikes have also disrupted regular classroom instruction, leading to a reliance on supplementary learning materials to ensure continuity in education. Students often turn to books and other resources for self-study during these periods.
The company’s success is due to various factors aside from the quality material it provides. An initial case study of a 10-year-old child who passed his GCSE Maths in 4 weeks has continuously been an excellent marketing source, combined with never-ending positive feedback and customer results.
These include children, parents, teachers, and celebrities in the UK. Testimonials are given in text, image, and video format, and the business showcases these results in front-end social media marketing campaigns to drive new sales each year. Teacher testimonials have the most impact in terms of generating sales but are challenging to attain, giving these products a significant edge over other educational suppliers.
Furthermore, a memory product the owner created is unique, not taught in the regular school curriculum, and has no competition from other companies or publishers.
The business utilizes a 100% stock inventory model. Approximately 2,000 books are maintained and ordered every two months. Inventory management is straightforward and requires placing an\ order on the supplier’s website when necessary. Products are then sent directly to a 3PL that fulfills all orders from Amazon and the website. On average, 35 books are dispatched daily and up to 70 during peak months.
The digital marketing strategy primarily focuses on retargeting through Google ads and paid social media campaigns. Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter ads generate buyers on the front end. Once a purchase has been made, a segmented email structure has been designed to offer the next product or service in the sales funnel.
The business achieves a minimum of 250% return on ad spend, which runs closer to 300% or more during peak months.
The typical customer, making up 80% of sales, is a mother between 35 and 54. Fathers of the same age account for most of the remainder. They are ordinarily busy parents who lack the time or education to support their children through school studies and turn to these products as a solution. Purchases are generally made impulsively when they find their children are underperforming at school from a recent report or test result.
Although the demand is strong throughout the year, and the business does not rely on seasonality, sales are dictated by the school year. They peak in September and October as students return to school and again in January and February. However, various factors are expected to boost sales over the coming months.
Firstly, the UK is going through a recession, so parents will reserve their budget for products and services they need, such as educational resources for their children. Additionally, there is an ongoing dispute between the government and schoolteachers regarding pay.
No agreement has been reached, and teachers are taking strike action. This will likely continue for the rest of 2023 and into the new year, causing more disruption to children’s learning on top of the pandemic, further increasing the need for third-party learning resources.
The owner runs this streamlined business with no employees besides a customer service representative. It requires few special skills and minimal operational time but can be scaled dramatically.
Expanding market share in the UK is occurring organically and can be enhanced with more aggressive marketing campaigns, school and government partnerships, and wholesale opportunities.
Furthermore, an enormous prospect exists to upsell tutoring services to existing customers, introducing a substantial and recurring new revenue stream. Not only that, but the company currently has a subscription product (priced at £7-£10 a month) consisting of a weekly email newsletter.
This product can be automated and thus, scaled to new heights. Additionally, international expansion is an enticing prospect.
The owner has recently worked with a fulfillment service in the US and sold several thousand books, providing proof of concept in the region.
Listing ID: SF253
