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The Woolworths versus Ubuntu Baba story is one of those rare cases where David seems to have triumphed over Goliath, and South Africans followed this one closely as it played out.

According to the last update we posted, Ubuntu Baba owner Shannon McLaughlin met with representatives from Woolies, and she was hopeful that the parties could reach a resolution going forward.

We’re not sure exactly where they stand on that front, but in response to a question posed to her by Matt Brownell, the Head of Brand Marketing at Yoco, Shannon took to her blog once more.

The question – what would actually have happened to her business if Woolies did continue to sell her ripped-off product?

Here’s some of what she had to say:

Let’s pretend I just sent Woolworths the initial email in December and they continued to ignore me. The 3rd of January deadline that I set came and went and they continued to sell their product. And I had no way of actually challenging them, because taking them to court was not an option for me.

1. There was definitely a loss of sales during the December month, because that is the month the news hit the babywearing groups on Facebook as well as the Mommy WhatsApp groups, that you could now purchase a Stage 1 carrier at Woolworths for just R450. (Ours sells for R1390).
2. There was much praise for Woolworths finally bringing a comfortable and affordable baby carrier to the market which meant Moms started recommending it over the Ubuntu Baba Stage 1 for affordability.
3. Then came the accusations that Ubuntu Baba were supplying Woolworths and why were we able to sell to them for so cheap to them and then sell on our website for 3 times the price, which equals reputation damage, because just like social media can work in your favour, it can also work against you.

So if I had allowed the above to continue, I do believe it would have had a snowball effect on our sales and our reputation in the babywearing market space, which is very niche so news travels fast…

Would our business have closed down? No. Would we have lost clients? Yes. What would that mean? Less sales = less turnover and we need to sustain a certain turnover to pay the bills.

The need to pay the bills would have left Shannon with three options – raise her prices, lower her expenses, or sell more products.

All of those would have proven very tricky, which is probably why Shannon opted for option four – harnessing the power of the people:

That is why we were able to stand up to “the big guys”. That is why the “strikingly similar” product is no longer on their shelves. Because the people we put first, our customers, stood up for us when we needed them too. Because they know we really care about them, so they really cared about us.

And that is how SME’s in South Africa will continue to grow and thrive in this economy. By staying ahead of the game and doing things the way only an SME can.

We don’t need to go to court to prove our point because we build tribes of human beings who care about what is right and what is wrong. We’re willing to make mistakes, admit it, learn from them, recover and move on.

Bigger isn’t always better. But caring about people is.

These last few weeks have been insanely insane, I think that’s the only way to describe it right now. And I’m still trying to process it properly and catch up with all the admin that it’s left in it’s trail, but mostly, this has been a very positive experience that I am very grateful for…

She adds that lessons have been learnt (with promises of a future post related to Intellectual Property and patenting), and ends off with a positive message for the year ahead:

If you’ve got this far you’re probably still wondering what the final outcome of the Woolworths / Ubuntu Baba situation is, and in a few days time I’ll be able to share that with you.

So for now, just a little encouragement that if you’re a worried entrepreneur, please don’t be. Keep doing what you’re doing for the original reason you started doing it and look after your customers because they’re the people who you need the most.

Keep on keeping on, good people.

Now we wait to see the impending update on the Woolworths situation.

[source:shannonmarymac]