Along with the Penny Lane kits we personally packaged, we just added the Breaking Free line! You can now buy the Breaking Free paper kits and coordinating accessories. This was a big project and we are so thrilled to have this finally completed, so please make us feel good and buy your MME paper from us!
We also got another shipment of Copic Markers. You know how hard they are to find, and we have plenty of all the Copic, Sketch and Ciao sets as well as the Baby sets. The only set Copic back ordered was the Glitter “B” set. This is good news, so don’t hesitate and get your Copic’s before this shipment is depleted!
One of our goals for this year is improved customer communication. That is why I hired Carrie to take over the phone and emails for me. Keeping up with our website, vendors and all our products was very hard for me to do and keep current on the emails and phone calls. Carrie has been working hard on emailing all of you who are waiting for the rev sale dies to arrive and keep you posted on the latest news from QuicKutz as to when they will be arriving. We are very sorry some of the dies are back ordered and out of stock. We have had some questions on why we ran a sale if we didn’t have the dies, so let me explain again how an online store works for those of you who don’t know or forgot, and why some of the dies are back ordered.
The benefit of an online store is we can offer lots and lots of choices on products, giving you a large variety, without having the inventory onsite. We do our best to carry several of each item as we don’t have the warehouse space to carry a lot of inventory on one item. The great part of being based in Utah is most of our vendors are within a 30 mile radius, (except for Spellbinders who is in Phoenix and Boss Kut who is in Missouri) so this means they can ship fast. Usually they can ship to us within 1-3 days of ordering so you don’t have to wait more than 5-10 days for your order. Still a pretty good turn around time for having such a great variety to shop from! We make projections on what we think we can sell based on what our customers like, and place our order accordingly. Projections are the hardest part of sales! Sometimes we order too much of one item and not enough of another. I am bald from pulling out my hair on this. It is a very difficult balance as excess inventory can put a small store like us out of business, especially with this economy!
So that is how an online store works. Now let me explain how an online store sale works!
As with 99% of our sales, our vendor tells us what we can put on sale and what we can price it at. Just like the QuicKutz sale we just had. My rep calls me up and tells me he has lots of inventory on such ‘n such and why don’t I do a sale. I jump all over it! But, we are not the only store running the sale. Don’t forget, we are not their only vendor! And just like us, Quickutz has their projections on what items they think they will sell and how much. REV dies are very popular with my customers, so I loaded up with my initial order. I placed orders almost every day trying to keep up with the demand of the dies I sold out of while the sale was going on. Unfortunately, even though I was constantly placing orders, QuicKutz was low on their projections and they did not have enough of the dies I needed and sold out of about 20 of the dies. Which means they could not fill my order so I could not fill your order. The domino effect! That is why I put on the product descriptions “While supplies last” because we don’t know what the supply is like and how long it will last. Inventory changes hourly. It is VERY difficult to predict and for those of you in sales, you know what I mean!
Anyway, I hope that explanation helps. We are very sorry some of the dies are sold out and some are back ordered and we appreciate the kindness you have shown us by being so understanding. I really have the best customers ever!
I am beat and ready to be off for the weekend! See ya Monday and don’t forget to check out our paper!
Thanks,
Marcie
Zimbio
