[knes]

Hey,

I just launched 3 days ago a subscription based business called Foodsterbox ( http://www.foodsterbox.com In french for the Belgium test market ).

My "Box" contains 5 to 7 high end culinary products ( each between 15€-20€ retail price ) that are selected around a monthly theme. The customer also receive 5 recipes from well known chefs and an educational guide related to the theme of month.

The hardest thing for us was definitely the price negotiation. Margin in food are very low most of the time and thus it is very hard for producers to lower their price / give us free stuff. Also, most of the small producers doesn't really understand the value of marketing through the box an stuff like that so it make it even harder to negotiate.

Finally, in Belgium the subscription based business is really not well known so there's a lot of "education" about the concept to do too where if we would like to launch in UK, France, USA consumers already know about the "in the box" business and it make that much easier to sell it to them.