What’s the story with Bad Rap?
I’ve been in the toy industry working for my Dad, Marky Sparky ( I call him “Mark,” at the office, “Dad” at home, and “oh god I can’t believe you just said that” in public sometimes) for a few years now, learning the ins and outs of how to make things and how to sell them. Honestly, my favorite part lies in the making, not the selling. I love what we do at Marky Sparky, but the constraints put on us by the marketplaces we were selling in were wearing on me.
In the toy industry, you have specialty toys (mom & pop toy stores), of which there are around 1000, then you have big box (Walmart, Target, etc.) then you have Amazon. Those are the 3 main sales channels, and they all have different considerations. Specialty needs toys to fit on a shelf or peg board, and it needs to be able to be gift wrapped. Big box wants… well, who actually knows what big box wants? We certainly don’t.
Amazon though, that’s the strictest of the three. If you want a product to sell on Amazon, you need to have Amazon in mind when you are designing the product. It has to fit within a specific box dimension, or you get charged out the whazoo for shipping. The product needs to present well in the square preview boxes, so largely your product needs to be squarish in shape. Your product can’t have a learning curve or you’ll get bad reviews, your product can’t sell too much or you’ll attract copycats like ants to a raisin under the fridge.
We’re all sick of making products to meet the needs of an increasingly eroded Amazon marketplace. The name Bad Rap comes from a desire to break away from the constraints of the dreaded 5 star reviews, the shipping constraints, the color limitations (we’ve been told yellow doesn’t sell… we’ll see). We know our products aren’t for everyone and we’re fine with that. We embrace our Bad Rap, so much so that we went ahead and gave ourselves the first “one star” review. We’re proud of it.
-Ethan Rappaport
I’ve been in the toy industry working for my Dad, Marky Sparky ( I call him “Mark,” at the office, “Dad” at home, and “oh god I can’t believe you just said that” in public sometimes) for a few years now, learning the ins and outs of how to make things and how to sell them. Honestly, my favorite part lies in the making, not the selling. I love what we do at Marky Sparky, but the constraints put on us by the marketplaces we were selling in were wearing on me.
In the toy industry, you have specialty toys (mom & pop toy stores), of which there are around 1000, then you have big box (Walmart, Target, etc.) then you have Amazon. Those are the 3 main sales channels, and they all have different considerations. Specialty needs toys to fit on a shelf or peg board, and it needs to be able to be gift wrapped. Big box wants… well, who actually knows what big box wants? We certainly don’t.
Amazon though, that’s the strictest of the three. If you want a product to sell on Amazon, you need to have Amazon in mind when you are designing the product. It has to fit within a specific box dimension, or you get charged out the whazoo for shipping. The product needs to present well in the square preview boxes, so largely your product needs to be squarish in shape. Your product can’t have a learning curve or you’ll get bad reviews, your product can’t sell too much or you’ll attract copycats like ants to a raisin under the fridge.
We’re all sick of making products to meet the needs of an increasingly eroded Amazon marketplace. The name Bad Rap comes from a desire to break away from the constraints of the dreaded 5 star reviews, the shipping constraints, the color limitations (we’ve been told yellow doesn’t sell… we’ll see). We know our products aren’t for everyone and we’re fine with that. We embrace our Bad Rap, so much so that we went ahead and gave ourselves the first “one star” review. We’re proud of it.
-Ethan Rappaport
