Because I’ve been in the office on a beautiful Saturday afternoon since 1.30 PM with Jennifer counting inventory, updating Quickbooks, and updating both sites.  I hate inventory.  My back hurts and I am grumpy.  Someone, please come buy all of our in stock stuff so I never have to count it again.  Thank you. 

I took some pictures before the girls went to school to see Santa - thankfully I did because later in the day Arden got a fever and ended up coming home. Who knows what the pictures the school took will look like, so I used these to make a Christmas card.  I’m late, but at least I’m doing it. 

If you can’t see the Flickr badge, you can click here to go directly to the photos:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/34511368@N00/sets/72157603442060049/

I’m also posting some photos of the Bizarre Bazaar show in Richmond.  Click here if you can’t see the badge:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/34511368@N00/sets/72157603437910408/

I’ve been down a lot lately about all of the struggles and sacrifices we’ve had to make since starting our online businesses just over 1 year ago.  However, today I’m going to relish the joy of owning something that is your very own, something you have 100% dictatorial control over.  It can totally rock at times.

Like today for example.

We are so lucky to work with some amazing women, most of them working moms like us.  Our manufacturers are about 95% super-terrific people - they are, like us, committed wholly to their customers, the quality of their products, and are ethical and moral people.  Yes, we are all in business to make money, but for most of them, the money is only the partial reason they do what they do.  Many of them are artists who wanted an outlet to share their creativity after the birth of their children.  Some were accomplished sewers and decided to turn their home projects into commercial ventures.

However, occasionally we run into a bad seed in our mostly fabulous bunch.  We sold a very expensive couture baby line (and still do until we finish selling the stock we have on hand).  The person who owns the company seemed friendly and nice enough. She had some very strict guidelines about carrying her line, which we followed to the letter.  Unfortunately we had some issues with our inventory and didn’t have stock on a particular snapsuit a customer wanted.  Once we realized the problem, Jennifer contacted the manufacturer and asked if she would, this one time only, send the customer her item directly.  We were still on the fence about restocking her line - it was slow to move and as I said, quite expensive.  The manufacturer agreed to “drop ship” the item to our customer for us.  We sent her all the paperwork.  And moved on to other things.

About 2 weeks after this, our customer contacted us saying she hadn’t received her order and she needed it within a few days for a baby shower.  Jennifer and I were in a hotel in Greensboro, a bit freaked out that it hadn’t shipped yet.  Jennifer emailed the manufacturer and explained the situation, and asked for a status.  What she got back was pretty darn rude.  Basically the manufacturer said she was sorry she had ever agreed to ship it for us, and that no, she hadn’t sent it, and we should tell the customer to make other arrangements for her baby shower.  (Side note - what person who wants to stay in business would tell a customer THAT???)  She also flatly said that she could not ship the item overnight.  Jennifer sent another email telling her how disappointed we were, but to please ship it ASAP for our customer. We never heard back. Jennifer sent 1-2 more emails, and left some voice mails for the manufacturer.  None were returned.

Thankfully, our customer was awesome - and we were honest with her about the situation.  We told her we hadn’t heard back and sent her another item of her choice.  And here’s the great thing.  Jennifer got to send this email today to the manufacturer:

Dear (Name Redacted to Protect the Not-So-Innocent),

Best of luck to you,
Jennifer

Jennifer Yeager
http://www.SassyOnesies.com
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Store: (804) 523-9342 or
Office: (804) 253-8320
Fax:  (804) 253-8321————————————————-

Does my business partner rock or WHAT????  My email would have been so irate, it would have been ignored. Jennifer has the finesse to basically say “You Suck” while making it seem polite. 

And this is where I love self-employment.  If one of our manufacturers doesn’t provide the kind of quality service and communication we pride ourselves on, we let them go. We have, and will, let go of manufacturers based on communication - even if we make a lot of money off their products.  We like to think we’re in partnership with them. If it’s one-sided, or they put us in situations with our customers that are ugly, we can choose to fire them and go on our merry way.  In my corporate life, I was forced so many times to work with vendors who gave shoddy service.  Not anymore!  And that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile. 

P.S.  The picture of Anja and Mike’s baby Mia has nothing to do with the story other than she’s cute and wearing an item from our store.  Editor’s liberty.

Oh, and by the way, North Carolina?  It’s not “Keeeeeeeeee-YUTE”.  It’s “cute”.  It’s not “PRAY-shus” either.  It’s just “precious”. And if it’s so darn cute and precious, it’s probably worth more than $2.50.

We’re back from Greensboro.  We’re dead tired.  We think we might have made a little bit of money.  We also figured out that the Greensboro market is not OUR market.  Or, the show that we did in Greensboro is not our market.  The people who came through were, uh, not our demographic.  They were looking for deals.  Most of the shows that we are successful in are the ones where people are looking for unique or high-end gifts, not how many onesies you can buy for $2.50.  I’m not bitter. 

I’m actually not.  It was a great learning experience and mixed in with the general flea market population were a few great customers who will probably be customers for life.  Our booth looked amazing, and I had a great time getting to know Bud and Jennifer’s family in Greensboro (especially baby Jack!) and seeing Phil and Kathie.  Kathie worked the booth with us a bunch.  Even though we didn’t have the sales we would have liked, we had TONS of traffic and we were very busy.  Uncle Richard helped us with set up and mom and dad brought Lily down to Asheboro to see Cristin and my aunt and uncle. They visited the show Sunday morning after we all had breakfast. 

Speaking of “onesies”, did you know that Gerber owns the word “onesie”?  Neither did we.  We do now!  So we’re in the process of dealing with that.

The girls missed me. I can actually tell that. Even the dog missed me.  Mike might have missed me too but he’s not ‘fessing up to that.  I do know he enjoyed not listening to my snoring.  Jennifer shares his feelings on that one as well. She’ll probably sleep great tonight. 

I’m really glad to be home. I’m not thrilled with the amout of catch up work that is waiting for us, but it felt great to hug my girls and my husband.