It feels like I have been talking about TugTrio for ages, I got BuggyTug to market within about four months of coming up with the idea but TugTrio has taken so much longer. Here are just a few of the reasons why it has taken so long:
1. Safety testing for ToddleTug – any straps that connect to a child need to pass a test whereby they can withstand the weight of a 3 stone child swinging off it. The Tug family’s stretchy neoprene certainly won’t let you down in your hour of need but it just couldn’t take that weight so I had to change the design to go back to the original design which is a mini BuggyTug for toddlers to hold on to. Ironically it was because parents were buying a BuggyTug as a handle for their children that I looked in ToddleTug in the first place so this seems like a logical product. All safety tests have been passed now!
2. Name change – it was only when I went to my first international trade fair that I realised that TotTug when translated in to German could be loosely interpreted as “death tug”. Not a winning name for a baby product I’m sure you’ll agree! At least I hadn’t gone in to production so it made sense to change the name so I can use ToddleTug worldwide.
3. Packaging – BuggyTugs as you know are blister packed and they are expensive to post, I needed TugTrio to be easier for my independent stockists to post as a large letter rather than Package. This took alot of time with the designers getting it right!
Anyway it’s all perfectly normal to have hiccups when bringing a product to market. Let’s hope they all make it to me safely. When I worked in glossy magazines I used to buy the freebies that came with the magazine. One day I got a call saying the boob tubes which were due to be covermounted on the biggest selling issue of the year had been impounded as some illegal immegrants had been found in the lorry. Reports that they were wearing the boob tubes were unconfirmed. With newsagents expecting the magazine and boob tube things were quite hairy for a while.
As I’ve said on an earlier post TugTrios are available right now although I don’t have much stock so hurry if you’d like an early one! My Paypal button has been playing up but feel free to send £12 to di@buggytug.com through your Paypal account and I’ll send one straight out!