It sounds like a nightmare: telling customers that orders placed in early December are unlikely to arrive by Christmas Day.
But it’s something of a dream scenario for The Little Potion Co, which has temporarily paused the processing of new orders as it works through a pre-Black Friday backlog.
The Little Potion Co, which creates sparkling, bubbly ‘magic’ kits for children, informed customers that all online sales from Monday, December 2 will count as pre-orders.
Fans of the handmade DIY kits can still buy those products, but there is no guarantee those colourful ‘potions’ will be produced and shipped in time for Christmas Day.
The Little Potion Co kits are still available for immediate purchase in authorised stockists.
Speaking to SmartCompany, Jacinta Evans, co-founder of the Little Potion Co, says the business was receiving an average of 150 orders per day — but only had the capacity to pack and ship 125.
The business has already welcomed five new staff in the past three months, but the unique, handmade nature of the product means the business has little time to train even more workers through the current rush.
Ultimately, Evans said forgoing extra Christmas sales was preferable to taking new orders and disappointing customers when their potions inevitably arrived after Christmas Day.
“We pretty much worked out, if we did zero orders from today, we will get our whole backlog out by the 17th of December,” Evans said.
“That was the decision we had to make, because we don’t want to let anyone down, thinking that they are going to get their orders for Christmas, where pretty much we can’t guarantee it.”
The decision comes after an enchanted few months for the business.
While The Little Potion Co has experienced year-on-year growth since Evans and Alicia Gordon founded it in 2019, a savvy Black Friday email campaign turbocharged its 2024 sales.
Instead of using a ‘traditional’ Black Friday marketing campaign, the business deployed a targeted VIP sales promotion earlier in the month.
Not only did the growing business avoid competing for digital ad space and consumer attention against some of the biggest brands on Earth, but it also generated sales from loyal return customers.
“Over 48 hours, I think we sent out four emails, and those emails brought us over $90,000” in sales, Evans said.
And in truly magical timing, The Little Potion Co’s appearance on Shark Tank Australia, broadcast last week, exposed the Melbourne business to an entirely new audience.
The Little Potion Co secured a handshake deal with investor Maxine Horne, who agreed to invest $400,000 for 20% equity; both parties are working on the final arrangement.
The business “had a backlog before Shark Tank even came along, but Shark Tank probably added another 30% [in sales] on top of what we were already getting,” Evans added.
Such is the interest in the business that The Little Potion Co. has temporarily reduced its Facebook ad spending.
“It’s definitely a good problem to have,” Evans said.
With Black Friday sales becoming an unavoidable part of the small business calendar, Evans is aware of other SMEs launching marketing campaigns in early November, instead of competing against wall-to-wall ad coverage from the likes of Nike or Adidas later in the month.
“A lot of the smaller businesses are probably pulling it forward and doing it a little bit earlier, a couple of weeks before Black Friday,” she said.
“To do any social media marketing to be able to be seen amongst the huge wave of posts that you see, I think you really have to do it earlier.”
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Senior Business Journalist
Focused on the small business sector, David’s work covers the political, regulatory, and economic issues facing Australian entrepreneurs. Prior to joining SmartCompany, he was a reporter for Business Insider Australia. You can follow him on LinkedIn.
