TORRINGTON – Local businesses are a crucial element for every town. They help economic growth, support local residents and add unique qualities to the town. Torrington residents Rylie and Trucker Scarbrough have announced the opening of their new locally-owned, family business called Frosty Box Subscriptions.
Frosty is a monthly subscription for jewelry. Each month the subscriber receives a jewelry box set with a neckless and earrings. Each set is 14 karats of heavily gold-plated jewelry.
Trucker, currently employed at the prison, has a drive for entrepreneurship. Over the years he has explored a few business options while learning about owning and running a business, marketing and customer relationships.
“We want to stay in Torrington,” Rylie told the Telegram. “That’s how we came up with the idea for Frosty. We were trying to find something that we can market online but still sell to the people around us.”
The couple explained that while they could potentially move to an area with a larger demographic for their business, they really don’t want to do that. As parents of two, going on three, young children, they really appreciate everything Torrington has to offer, from its smaller size to its education opportunities.
“Families don’t like big cities but big cities like businesses,” Trucker said. “It’s a problem but that’s what e-commerce is solving for people.”
E-commerce helps people choose their location based more on their family needs rather than their business needs since they can market to other areas online.
“[When I was thinking about the business, I knew] I needed to look at something that I could start with my own funds and have it be something that I could run here but still market everywhere else,” Trucker explained. “E-commerce was really the only viable option.”
He said the problem is the market is extremely over-saturated with drop shippers right now. Drop shippers are people who select certain products from a manufacturer, sell the products online and then the product goes straight from the manufacturer to the customer. A major issue with this type of sale is that the drop shipper never sees the product, so they can’t check it for quality. As a result, many people have learned not to trust these types of stores and have even become wary of e-commerce altogether.
Frosty is not a drop shipping business.
“We run exactly like a real business,” Rylie said. “We package and ship everything out of our home. All of our packaging is custom to our brand. We make sure that our product and its packaging are being sent out in the same quality that we would want for ourselves.”
“Quality control is very important to us,” Trucker added.
Trucker said when they were exploring options for the business, he really liked the idea of a subscription box. They are fun, random and something different to look forward to each month. When he did his research, he noticed that there weren’t many subscription boxes for jewelry. The ones that were out there were fairly expensive, one was $200 a month.
“We really wanted an option for most middle-class families,” Trucker explained.
“We want to be able to sell to people who are like us,” Rylie added. “If we couldn’t afford it on our normal middle-class income, then we wouldn’t want to try and push that on other families. Especially, since we started with the people closest to us; we can’t expect our family and friends to support something that we wouldn’t support.”
A Frosty box subscription cost $25 a month. Each month subscribers receive a different jewelry set. In order to prevent duplicates, the couple keeps track each month of which subscriber receives which set.
Frosty’s jewelry sets cover a wide array of general interests, including, but not limited to, butterflies, elephants, trees, colored stones and hearts. As a typical rule, they avoid specific sets that only certain groups of people favor, like religious symbols.
While the set is completely random, if a subscriber really dislikes the set they received, they can email the business and request an exchange.
“If someone doesn’t like their set, we actually prefer that they send it back, that way we have a better idea of what our customer base likes or is not liking,” Trucker said.
If they have several people not liking a style/subject, they can avoid ordering those types of sets in the future.
“The whole randomized thing is because we just wanted to make it fun,” Rylie said. “We’ll send you a surprise every month.”
“We had to have something to set us apart,” Trucker added.
“If you wanted to go and pick out what you’re going to wear, you’d go onto Amazon or into a jewelry store,” Rylie continued.
At this time, they have 11 different sets that they rotate through each month. In the future, they hope to grow to at least 36 different designs a year.
This is a nice surprise each month for yourself or someone you love. Not to mention, this can be a perfect way for a husband to get something nice for his wife each month. For those who are bad at picking our jewelry, this can help with that as well.
“We have more men subscribed for the women of their lives than we do women for themselves right now,” Rylie said. “Women love that. Once a month your man comes up to you and hands you a present.”
Trucker said the gold-plated jewelry sets at Target run about $50. In comparison, Frosty can sell its products at a more affordable amount because they don’t have all of the extra expenses, like a physical location and employees.
All of the jewelry is ordered from a manufacturer overseas. In the future, they hope to utilize the manufacturer’s special business brand option. This will allow them to make specific designs or have the manufacturer create specific designs just for Frosty exclusively.
As summertime takes off, the couple plans on attending several local craft fairs and farmer’s markets to advertise their jewelry sets and hand out business cards. At the event, customers will be able to sign up for their subscription and take home their first box.
Since Frosty is a new business, right now they are focusing hard on building trust with their customers and making personal connections.
“[We want to show our customers that] we are actually real people who come from the same area as you,” Rylie told the Telegram. “These are our products. We’re showing them to you. We’re not just a website without any [authentication].”
In the near future, Frosty Box Subscriptions will be available on Amazon. Trucker is currently going through the final steps of the process to sell the subscriptions on Amazon.
“Statistically speaking, people are over 90% more likely to make a purchase on Amazon over any other e-commerce websites,” Trucker explained. “Amazon’s customer service is pretty good, especially the asset protection side of things.”
Currently, if someone orders a subscription, it will be mailed within 24 hours of the order being placed. While they hope to stay like this for as long as possible if they grow too large, they may have to change their policy to if subscribed by the 10th of the month it will go out with the following month’s shipment.
The couple said they want to be able to ship orders out as fast as possible, but they also need to be realistic about how much work two people can do in a short amount of time.
Those interested can learn more or sign up for Frosty at www.frostyboxsub.com. You can also follow Frosty Box Subscription on Facebook and Instagram.
