A poncho for 84.90 euros. You might be wondering, isn't that a bit pricey? Conventional surf ponchos can be found for as little as 50 euros. That's true too - but these ponchos are anything but fair and sustainable.
We want to be transparent with wiemeer and show you how our price is put together and perhaps convince you, to rather support our small brand than a large corporation.
We want to give you an insight of our process and our work steps that are involved, in order to explain our selling price. In addition to a lot of passion and love, there is a lot more work and steps than you might think.
Fabrics & Textiles
We work exclusively with natural cotton fabrics with an oeko-tex® certificate according to standard 100. As with all other raw materials, the price of textile goods is constantly increasing. However, instead of cheaply produced goods, we prefer to use high-quality and non-toxic materials. Simply by the choice of textiles, our poncho can't be that "cheap".
Production
We manufacture all orders on demand, meaning each poncho is made specifically for you. This allows us to avoid mass and overproduction. With this on-demand production, we can not only manufacture fairly, but of course we also want to be paid fairly, which is unfortunately not the case in most large companies in developing countries. In addition, of course, there is rent and electricity for the studio.
We create "recycled surf ponchos" and "reusable cosmetic pads" from the fabric that is left in the process - this means that we have almost no waste and therefore pursue a zero-waste concept.
Packing & Shipping
We ship your order in second-hand boxes and avoid any use of plastic. In this way we can reduce unnecessary packaging material and take care of the environment.
We charge part of the shipping and also point out that in the case of returns / exchanges, the shipping costs are incurred by the buyer. We hope that this will lead to more conscious and targeted selections than indiscriminate "shopping".
Taxes
We started wiemeer as a small company. So we've been able to start with a slightly lower selling price, since we "only" had to factor in material and labor at the beginning. Thanks to you - our incredibly loyal and growing community - we passed the limit as a small business and were able/needed to expand our company a bit. We are therefore are obliged to pay 19% VAT of taxes, which is also included and stated in the sales price.
Marketing & Social Media
In addition we pay for things as our website & mailbox. Using Instagram is free, however the content does not appear by itself - so many hours of work are put into photos, content, text and image design. Not to mention the almost daily handling of emails and messages, website and product design.
For the marketing itself, we have always been very cautious & have hardly invested any money in cooperation or advertising. While some people may be shaking their heads now, we want to continue our idea of sustainability here as well and prefer to address a small majority of like-minded people and work with people who have the same convictions as we do. It's about a conscious handling of products and resources & we want to continue this idea in the marketing area as well.
Social projects
Everybody who have been following us on social media for a long time has probably already noticed, that we are also trying to create a platform to help other people. We want to share some of the profit and help and support others in need. If a topic catches our eye from everyday reporting, or if one of us has a heart project, we donate 10% of all our income. In the last years we supported for example an organization to help the damage caused by the fires in Australia. At the beginning of the global pandemic, we sewed reusable fabric masks, and donated all profits to an orphanage in Tanzania with the support of Worlds Education. Currently we have been donating 10% of our sales since February to help victims of the war in the Ukraine.
Thank you for your support and your love for the sea - wiemeer would not be possible without you!