A Little About Us...
It all began in 2016
In 2016, our team established GD Photo Booths, which quickly emerged as one of the leading photo booth suppliers in Scotland. In just two years, we set ourselves apart from our competitors by introducing the first inflatable LED cube photo booth to Scotland, a concept we brought over from the US and quickly established here in the UK.
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As our business expanded over the years, we started providing other event equipment, including DJs, giant light-up letters and numbers, candy carts, and flower walls, to name a few. However, we felt that the name "GD Photo Booths" no longer represented our brand as we had so much more to offer than just photo booths. That's when Happenli was born.
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We launched Happenli to broaden our target market and provide us with a platform to offer an even wider range of products to our customers. With Happenli, we can create a comprehensive shop for event supplies, enhance the number of event equipment we have for hire, and venture into new areas of event management. We're excited about the possibilities that lie ahead and can't wait to see where the future takes us!
Lilja, one of our brilliant Happenli staff members
Scotland's
1st Ever Inflatable
Photo Booth
Company
Where We Are Now
At Happenli, our mission is to deliver exceptional event rental services - including high-quality event rentals that create lasting memories. We strive for personalised and professional services that surpasses our customers' expectations.
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Our market is the events industry in Scotland, with a particular emphasis on weddings, corporate events and private parties. We chose to work in this industry to begin with due to our particular interest and passion in the events industry as well as the data that shows the events industry has a great potential for growth. According to a report by IBISWorld titled "Party & Event Planners in the UK", during the next five years through 2027-28, our industry revenue is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 2.2% to reach £2.2 billion, from the £1.9 billion where we stand as of writing this in 2023. (Griffin, 2022)
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Why did we decide to start our company in Scotland in the first place? Well besides being born and bred in Scotland ourselves, we did actually consider starting our company in England too. According to Bridebook's 2023 Wedding Report, only 10% of all weddings taking place in the UK are held in Scotland, whereas the very south of England hosts a whopping 30% of the UK's weddings, in a much smaller area. (The UK Wedding Report 2023, 2023)
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If Scotland only hosts 10% of the UK's weddings, then why did we decide to start our company here? One reason is because the events industry is far less saturated in Scotland, offering new companies the opportunity to blossom before expanding to the rest of the UK, according to Scottish Enterprise. Another thing in our favour is that Scotland has a higher spending power than England. According to UK Parliament, in 2021/22, public spending per person in the UK as a whole was £11,897. In England, it was £11,549 (3% below the UK average). This compares with Scotland which had £13,881 (17% above the UK average). (UK Parliament, 2022)
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With this information in hand, it was clear to us that it would be easier to build a successful brand in a market that has more room for new companies, inside of an economy with a stronger spending power.
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Source: Bridebook.co.uk
Our Competitor Analysis
Our key competitors are other companies that started with photo booths that then grew into popular brands within Scotland. Some of these companies include Blush Booth, Instapic Photo Booths and Bubble Booth. Each company has their own unique traits.
Blush Booth offers a variety of photo booth options that would likely be difficult to find elsewhere, although Blush Booth is one of the most expensive options, they have some unique booth styles. Instapic Photo Booths offers a list of services similar to our own and has expanded beyond just photo booths, they mainly focus on the east coast as their target audience. Bubble Booth provides inflatable photo booths with a similar design to our own and is a well recognised brand within the industry.
While these companies have strong competition on their hands, we believe our dedication to exceptional customer service and meticulous attention to detail will set us apart. Our prices are often lower than the competition, whilst providing a service of quality and expertise as one of the first movers in Scotland's photo booth market, even being the first company in Scotland to offer the now so popular inflatable photo booth. We have knowledge of nearly every wedding venue in Scotland, giving us an edge with speedy and smooth setups on the day of the event.
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Potential threats to our business include new competitors entering the market and changes in consumer behaviour such as a decrease in demand for our star product, photo booths, due to shifts in event planning trends. Nonetheless, we remain confident in our capacity to adapt and innovate in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Strengths
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Diverse product offering
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Strong customer relationships
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Well experienced team
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Established brand
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Competitive pricing
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Efficient logistics
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Customisation of products & services
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Great knowledge of the events industry
Opportunities
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New product offerings
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Geographic expansions
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Partnership opportunities
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Online presence
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Niche offerings & packages
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Expanding into other areas of events
Weaknesses
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Limited to Scotland only
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Can only supply to so many events in one day
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Seasonal business
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Limited returning customers due to weddings being a one time event
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Unsocial hours for staff
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High cost to expand
Threats
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Increasing competition
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Economic downturns
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Changes in consumer preferences
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Supply chain disruptions
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Regulation changes
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Seasonal fluctuations
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Change in social trends
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Labour shortages
Happenli's SWOT Analysis
Source: Bridebook.co.uk
Our Mission
Although we cater to all kinds of events, the most common type of event that we are booked for is a wedding, thus we decided to steer our business model towards targeting more brides and grooms looking for products and services for their big day.
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We have conducted extensive research on the market, industry, consumers and competition using sources such as IBISWorld, industry reports and online reviews. This data has enabled us to make informed decisions for the development of our brand and product/service offerings. One collection of data provided within Bridebook's UK wedding report shows us that the biggest challenges for engaged couples are keeping within their budget, deciding on suppliers, and not understanding what costs to expect. Therefore we make it our mission to deliver affordable quality products while keeping things simple and stress-free for our clients, every step is supposed to be quick, easy, and seamless. We opt in to share our data about competitors and show our customers what sort of value to expect when making important decisions about what to book for their day.
Source: Bridebook.co.uk
How We Target Our Customers
Due to most of our customers generally being people who are getting married, the people that we target with our marketing are men and women between the ages of 27 - 38. According to the Office for National Statistics, the average age of marriage has increased considerably over the years, back in the 1970s 91% of women were married by the age of 25, the average age of marriage for women is now 31.5, which is why we target ages around this number. (Stripe, 2019)
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We also try to incorporate the length of relationships when targeting our customers, according to theweddingguideuk.com, the average length of a relationship before popping the big question is 1.8 months (theweddngguideuk.com, n.d.)
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Another demographic that we target is mothers and fathers with children coming up to the ages of 13, 18, and 21, as well as people coming up to their 40th and 60th birthdays respectively. These years are often considered milestones which people throw parties for, meaning it's another avenue for potential bookings for us.
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The last demographic that we're going to go over is companies looking to throw corporate events, this can be a tricky one to capture data for as companies throw events for many different reasons throughout the year. The main type of corporate event that we target is Christmas parties, however, even this can be difficult to get right as companies tend to plan their Christmas parties at different times of the year depending on what they do. We have found the most success by targeting company Christmas events in the 4th quarter, between October and December.
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Returning to the question; "How do we target our customers?". The platform we have found the most success with when advertising to potential customers is Facebook. Facebook has many powerful advertising options and allows companies to define what demographics of people will see their ads, which works well for us. Facebook's advertising platform also synergises perfectly with the Office for National Statistic's data mentioned above, with the largest audience on Facebook being men aged between 25 - 34 (19% of users), followed closely by women aged between 24 - 35 (13% of users), according to thesocialshepherd.com (Shepherd, 2022). Besides Facebook, we also use Google ads, and attend local wedding fairs.
The Future Of Happenli
Our mission to provide a simple, seamless and affordable event rental solution will always be our main priority, our plan for Happenli is to gradually increase our roster of event hire services over time, incorporating new high-quality items for event planners to hire at competitive rates. Beyond this, we plan on building upon our store, intending to create a one-stop shop for event planners to order everything they need to create the perfect event.
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One of the short-term steps that we are planning on taking is to begin hiring out 360 photo booths. According to google trends, there has been a consistent rise in the number of searches for 360 photo booths over the past 12 months.
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We're also planning on hosting our own events in the future and creating digital services which our clients can use to help create the perfect event.
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Finally, we take ethics and security very seriously. We are dedicated to safeguarding our customers' data while upholding high ethical standards throughout all aspects of our business operations. To this end, we have implemented stringent security protocols which guarantee the privacy and security of all customer information. Our plan with this in the future is to provide customers with as much security as possible when it comes to their events, events cannot be reorganised last minute when let down by a supplier, so we hope to continue to increase the security and reliability of our brand, by looking into providing clients with event insurance in the near future.
Our 2023 SMART Objectives
• Increase the number of corporate clients by 10% by Q1 of 2024
• Optimise our social media marketing to gain 10% more engagements at the same cost by Q1 of 2024
• Have our online shop up and running by Q3 of 2023
• Generate an increase of 20% revenue during the current tax year over the previous
• Improve our customer conversion rate by 15% by Q1 of 2024
• Improve efficiency of our weekly equipment maintanence
• Expand our inventory of event rental items by 25% in total value by Q3 of 2024
• Increase staff wages to follow along with inflation
• Improve the simplicity of a customer's booking experience by Q1 of 2024
• Improve brand awarenesss by participating in at least 3 wedding fairs in 2023
• Improve upon our company's waste by moving to paperless by Q3 of 2023
• Develop strategic partnerships with at least 3 new venues in Scotland by Q1 of 2024
• Increase the number of monthly website visitors by 50% through the next 6 months
• Achieve a 100% on-time setup rate for rental services through 2023
• Increase bookings by 5% from last year by the end of Q4 2023
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
Thank you!
For getting to know us
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We appreciate it when our clients decide to take their time to get to know us better
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As a small token of appreciation, here is a code for 5% off your next event rental order with us:
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Code:
WOOHOO
Sources Used in This Section:
Bridebook (2023). UK Wedding Report 2023. [online] partners.bridebook.com. Available at: https://partners.bridebook.com/uk/uk-wedding-report-2023.
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Brien, P. (2019). Public spending by country and region. commonslibrary.parliament.uk. [online] Available at: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04033/.
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IBISWorld (n.d.). [online] services.ibisworld.com. Available at: https://my.ibisworld.com/uk/en/industry-specialized/sp0.261/about.
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Shepherd, J. (2022). 30 Essential Facebook Statistics You Need To Know In 2022. [online] The Social Shepherd. Available at: https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/facebook-statistics#:~:text=The%20largest%20Facebook%20audience%20in.
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Stripe, N. (2019). Married by 30? You’re now in the minority | National Statistical. [online] blog.ons.gov.uk. Available at: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2019/04/01/married-by-30-youre-now-in-the-minority/.
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theweddngguideuk.com (n.d.). How Long You Should Wait to Propose | The Wedding Guide UK. [online] theweddingguideuk.com. Available at: https://theweddingguideuk.com/how-long-you-should-wait-to-propose/
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Images: All images are copyrighted and owned by GD Photo Booths, it's owner, and its subsidiaries, Hickory Tweed LTD and Happenli Events Co. unless otherwise stated with clear text under the image. Landing page trees video is authorised for use from the wix media library.