In week 6 of term 4, the year 7 cohort sold their markets products on the common. My group (Holly, Austin, Arnav and I) sold pinecone Christmas trees and our business was called “Pine Perfect”. I learnt a large variety of skills and gained lots of economic knowledge from this experience. Below is a photo of us and our stall on the day of the market.
Our group made 11 sales and a total profit of $25. Once we had returned the investment and float money, this total was brought down to $8. Although this wasn’t the outcome that I had been hoping for, I do understand why this occurred. There were many areas for improvement in our process, creation and sales of the products. But, there were also some things that we did well.
One thing I think we demonstrated well was demonstrate the ASC capability of creativity. This product idea was an unique one. Although the execution behind the idea may have been lacking, we definitely used our creativity and imagination throughout the production process. Below is the ASC capabilities wheel I’ve been referring to.
If I could do this project again, I would have tried to improve the quality of our products. That was definitely one of the factors that affected our sales number, prices and amount of stock. If we had focused more and but a bit more time into the products out of school, we would have been able to achieve this. Improving the quality also connects the ASC capability of being organised. If we had better organised ourselves and our work then we could have improved this.
There were many steps in the process of preparing for the market. First we had to agree on our product and then pitch the idea to Miss L. Once the product was approved, we looked online for the materials we needed at a reasonable price. Once we had collected and bought all of the materials (and kept all of our receipts), we attempted to make a prototype. Our first prototype wasn’t so great, but after we made a couple more we got the hang of it. But another thing we had to do was come up with a business name (Pine Power), logo and slogan (it’s not perfect unless it’s Pine Perfect!). Our business name used alliteration to make it sound catchy. This took a while to agree on, but we got there. We also had to organise/calculate our cost per unit ($0.99), general finances and budget money to determine how much money we owed and spent. We ended up spending $17 from the $30 dollar budget. Because we used a natural resource (pine-cones) which was free, it brought down our production costs a lot. And as the market neared closer, we started to prepare our advertisement. Each of us made one for our english assessment and then we put up whatever one turned out best (we decided on Holly’s ad). Then on the day of the market when we made sales, we took note of what products people bought and the money we had received. Afterwards, we returned our float and investment money to discover that we had made a profit of $8.
Overall, I think I learnt a lot about economics and business from this experience. Now I know all of the economical terminology, and I can understand the processes of running a business. I would say that I gained a lot from this market and I look forward learning more in my next InnovatED project.
Here are some photos from the big day!
