How We Shimmered in 2023
The year of 2023 was full of growth, new partnerships, mainstream recognition and the most Shimmer Seltzer distributed ever. All of these achievements were accomplished while keeping to our mission of providing you with a premium beverage using locally sourced ingredients from experts in their field. Join us as we recap 2023 and 2024 so far, as well as the exciting opportunity to invest in Shimmerwood.
Try Before You Buy
We learned that Shimmerwood operates in a relatively new and niche category, especially where we are based in New England. We could tell you all about Shimmer Seltzer, how it's made, why we make it and why our customers love it, but the 'aha' moment is when you try Shimmer for yourself. We doubled down on that by bringing Shimmerwood to as many events across as many industries as we could.
In 2022, we attended 39 farmers markets as well as 34 unique events where we sampled and sold Shimmer Seltzer. This year, we refined where to bring Shimmerwood by reviewing how all those events in 2022 performed, what was worth the cost, exposure and ROI.
This had us focus on the Kittery Community Market and York Gateway Farmers Market where we have built up a community of local Shimmerers who have been generous enough to recommend local stores and bars/restaurants they would love to see Shimmerwood in. Total farmers markets attended came to 24, yet we saw a larger return from the markets this year than in 2022.
For 2023 we wanted to take our unique events further and larger, while still taking care of our New England backyard. 30 unique events were attended and sponsored, getting Shimmerwood in front of a wide variety of audiences, all with incredible results! Where we attended the Spartan DEKA World Championship in New Jersey to an audience of ~6,000 attendees last year and sponsored elite athlete, Rylan Schadegg, this year we scaled up to the Spartan Stadion event at Fenway Park. This weekend long event got Shimmerwood in front of over 15,000 athletes and attendees!
We began dipping our toes into music festivals, to start our ultimate journey of getting Shimmerwood to where the idea all started, Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Our first festival, or in this case festivals, was the Newport Folk & Jazz Festivals in Newport, RI. Initially as a testing ground, Shimmer Seltzer was offered backstage to all the artists, staff and VIPs, ultimately leading to the festival coordinator informing us that cans were being cracked both weekends until they ran out! Safe to say we are working on bringing Shimmer Seltzer front of house for everyone to enjoy in 2024. In the Fall, we were invited to Black Bear Music Fest in Goshen, CT. Every camper was hooked up with a free can of Shimmer Seltzer and could find us mixing up shimmer mocktails all weekend long. We learned a lot on how to sponsor and vendor a music festival at Black Bear and can't wait to see which festivals we go to in 2024.
Shimmer by the Numbers
Call it our own version of Spotify Wrapped, we looked back at how much Shimmer Seltzer was consumed and which flavors you enjoyed the most. Our OG flavors, Ginger Orange and Razz Lime, held the top spots in 2023 with the difference in sales between the two almost exactly equal. Chai Cherry was originally introduced as a seasonal flavor and was reintroduced in the standard lineup earlier this year, bringing it into the third spot. Leaving us with Just Hemp, who we describe as the unsung hero of our flavors. Interestingly enough, Just Hemp is one of our most popular flavors that shimmerers subscribe to, which if you didn't already know, subscribing to Shimmer Seltzer saves you 10% on your orders AND gives you free shipping!
Shipping Shimmer Nationwide
When it came to shipping Shimmerwood across the country, New England showed up strong! The state where Shimmerwood is made showed up in droves, Maine customers sure love their local goods and it showed in 2023. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island saw huge growth last year both from direct online sales and even more through wholesale. In fact, Shimmerwood hit the shelves of over 20 new bars, restaurants, grocery stores and more in just Rhode Island alone!
What we found most fascinating in our list of top selling states were those outside of New England where we don't have as much presence. Huge shoutout to Florida and special mention to Washington state for representing Shimmerwood totally driven by organic reach. To our customers in these markets that have found and love Shimmerwood, we see you and are actively looking into building a larger presence in your areas. To think when we started shipping Shimmer Seltzer online we only shipped to the 6 New England states, and now we have shipped to 33 states nationwide!
2024 So Far
All of these achievements in 2023 has us all kinds of excited for 2024. In 2023 we were recognized by some of the largest publications, including Forbes Health rating Shimmerwood as the #1 CBD Beverages of 2023 when compared to 30+ other brands! That accolade is now 2 years running in 2024, as well as being awarded Best Lower Potency Option by Forbes Health. Receiving these unsolicited accolades only brought more attention to Shimmerwood from publications like MarketWatch and Artful Living. What you may not know is that Shimmerwood is now being seen by much larger brands, industries and potential partners that will help normalize and make CBD social, a goal our company always strives for.
We are in serious talks with players in both the live entertainment industry, The Bowery Presents, and pro sports industry, Orlando Magic, that have caught wind of Shimmerwood and are looking to make their venues and arenas shimmer. We want to mention the massive potential for Shimmerwood to expand nationwide through these first of their kind partnerships. There are exciting times for Shimmerwood ahead and we are even more excited to give you, our loyal shimmerers the opportunity to be part of our growth.
Invest in Shimmerwood Beverages
Shimmerwood only exists through the expertise, passion and camaraderie of those who have partnered with us. We are forever grateful to all our family and friends that believed in Shimmerwood from day 1 and showed their support by providing the capital we needed to get off the ground. Now we have reached a point where we need to put the jet fuel in this shimmer rocket to take us to the next level, we have opened up investing opportunities to all interested parties that want to help see Shimmerwood become the gold standard in CBD beverages nationwide.
Investing in Shimmerwood Beverages lets you get in on all the exciting growth we have been building on a mostly self-funded company. The opportunities being presented to us have the potential to bring Shimmer Seltzer into the mainstream market not seen by any other CBD beverage. These opportunities are only possible through proper capital raises and strategic partnerships that we have been carefully weaving for the past year. To learn more about investment opportunities and get more details what Shimmerwood has accomplished by the numbers and projections of where our future is going, head to our investor page via WeFunder here.
From our WeFunder page you can learn more about the industry Shimmerwood has positioned itself in, what we have accomplished so far, and the major opportunities being presented to us. Your investment will allow us to grow our business from the New England region to a larger national presence. Strategic partnerships and sponsorships are in place in both the live music entertainment industry and pro sports industry.
For any additional questions on how you can become an investor in Shimmerwood, please contact us as info@shimmerwood.com.
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