If Sean does do this, then his best bet is to free himself up and focus on the business strategy and get someone else to build the kind of site he needs imho.
@Sean, I would listen to Phil here, he has a long history of this. There are services such as Cratejoy which is designed for subscription models such as this, you don't need to start with a full custom site, but get someone to customise it for you.
£10 for 8 is too much, unless they are all award winning and of a significantly higher level altogether than a good local butcher.
It is a lot when just comparing the prices for the high end stuff in a supermarket, but I would suggest he tries to add value. Find great, small scale, enthusiastic sausage producers, not butchers, unless they are very high end butchers. If he had 2 different producers' sausages each month that's only 24 producers he needs to find to last a year. Then tell the subscribers exactly why they are great, each and every month. As I subscriber I want to know the exact provenance of the pigs, of every ingredient, the background story to the producer, their suggested recipes etc. As a subscriber I would then be happy in paying a premium for knowing that someone is taking me on a tour of the best sausages in the country. Package them really nicely, make it a treat to look forward to each month, not just a couple of packs of bangers in a polybag.
He would then need to approach the small scale producers and ask how much for 50/100/500/1000 (depending upon how successful it is) packs of 4 sausages, if we are going to sell them, all at once, to sausage enthusiasts around the country, whilst telling their story? It will be seen as brilliant marketing by the producer, this isn't about negotiating a cheap rate because of volume, but because of exposure. Every small producer wants, and pays for, exposure. Get the numbers big enough and they'll practically give them to him.
There are a million food blogs he could reach out to, feature their favourite sausage recipe in one month?
Then there are sides. I've met Ben from
Proper Beans - £4 for a small pot of fresh beans! But they are fantastic, and are starting to sell. Or other "artisan" producers. One couple of women locally do the most amazing pop up barbecue restaurants, they are always over subscribed (check them out, Hang Fire Smokehouse), they do superb smoked hotdog sausages. The small scale food business is growing fast in this country.
@Sean - go back and
read this again, there are some parallels.
Anyway, enough ranting from me. Good luck Sean, if it works out I'll be happy try it out. If you want anyone to bounce ideas off I'd be happy to help, just PM me.
