Like…Wow! That, my friends, was a whirlwind of a sale. We’re still catching our collective breaths and packing up the last of the boxes that will ship out today. As of this morning we’ve processed and shipped around 400 orders.
Here is what we’ve learned.
First and foremost. Shit happens. You can go plot and plan to your hearts content. You can go over every aspect and all the details and still? Shit happens. Like for instance, you can set all your inventory levels at what you have on hand to sell, then there can be either a human or technical glitch and KAboom, instead of selling the 60 bags of mini-skiens you have you have sold (are you ready cause really it will take your breath away) you have sold 283. Yeah. It gives you a cramp doesn’t it. It sure gave all of us here one. Some of us might even have shed a tear or a thousand.
Around noon on Monday, after we’d launched all of this at 8:30, and as I was happily packing bags of colour happiness, my spidey sense started tingling. I asked Paula to have our techie Jess check the inventory levels and she came back with a big fat Uh Oh Houston I think we have a problem and we did.
After I recovered from my initial shock and slight (hehe) emotional reaction, it’s off to problem solve. It’s in the problem solving that I feel you learn a lot about people. As I said earlier and we all know, things happen, life has a way of throwing us curve balls and I think the wonder in these moments is what you do. I’m lucky enough to have a team that rallies and works together to create the best fix for that circumstance and moment in time.
In my perfect world, we have a mini-skein winder (so working on this) and just cranked more out so we didn’t disappoint any knitters, but try as I might to make that work it wouldn’t. These mini-skeins we had were left over from a few projects and this whole sale was about stash reduction right? That is what the barn sales are stash inventory reduction. So after much brain storming we finally made the decision we knew all along was the only one we could do, refund all the orders we could not fill for the mini-skeins. Sad. Especially so,because we were trying so hard to make our online customers feel part of something they aren’t able to attend in person. Sigh.
To all of you, our wonderful customers who we had to refund and disappoint, we’re very sorry for this error and that you did not get you mini-skeins. Next time we will do a triple double-check on the inventory system. Still what we know is… shit happens.
Secondly, we learned, you really want mini-skeins. Holy Moly. I almost passed out when I saw that. So…being the yarn enabler that I am, I’m looking into making that happen. If you can respond here in the comments with what exactly you are looking for it will helps us get as close to what everyone needs as possible. Our mini-skeins are cranked out by hand (Thank you Lissa) so really not cost effective to produce. Also I think if we went to her with this idea she would just laugh at us. I know, I would, which is why I don’t wind them. So what I want to know is how long a section. 5 yards? 10 yards? How may colours in a bag? Do they need to be in skeins? Could they be bundled together?
That kind of thing.
Last and most certainly not least, this worked! We can do an online barn sale! Yippy. So do expect more. We’ve yet to see how you like the colour selections and that always makes me a little crampy. I don’t mind telling you it was a bit hard. It’s one thing to plan colour combinations and then dye them to order. It’s quite another to put them together with only what you have on hand. it was quite the challenge even for a colour possessed person like myself. What was the best kind of fun was seeing all them bundled up together. We had tubs of Mystery bags sitting everywhere we could find space to put them. In your face bright bundles, soft muted tints, all hues of gradations, warm fall tones, cool winter shades, hit summer colour…the list goes on and on. My Sophie came out to the barn one evening to help put the labels on. She stood for a bit perusing the scene in front of her and then a look of horror passed over her face. She turned to me and said, “ oh my gawd mom tell me you are not going to name all of these, please”.
I lost it. Laughed until I cried. I told her no, I wasn’t that crazy
We loved the Mystery Bags and we really hope you do to.
As I said in the mailing we sent out and in the last blog post, this month is a blue moon month. We are going to do something we feel is special and magical on August 31st (the second full moon) so please do look for it.
On a personal note, tomorrow I am leaving with my girls, for a week long vacation. I’m so excited I feel like a little kid. Although I have yet to pack. I better get on that.
Below is my favorite picture and person really from our dye day.
Meet the completely delightful and charming as hell Tyler and his lovely grandmother Linda.
PS: Dear team of mine, You’re the best! Truly. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
