ASR Blog

overseeing overseas

i have learned more than a girl should in one small decision. going overseas can be painless, yes, i have heard that, but this has been the most detrimental and painful experience punkster has dealt with.

our shirts are supposed to be sent out today from india. actually, 10 tuesdays ago. . .but who's counting. besides our 80 stores waiting for their orders.

things i learned from this experience.
1-have a lawyer handy at all times, preferably one that deals in trade

2-have all contracts, demands and deadlines put in writing before you begin.

3-have a cancel date on that contract. if they do not get the goods out, you have a right to cancel and get any money you have put in to it.

4-they charge for samples. and boy oh boy do they charge. our guy said it cost $11,000 for sampling! onesies! one color! one print! unbelievable. literally, i dont believe it. and we are responsible for paying. something he did not tell us previous to a missed deadline date and half the money gone

5-never send money over until you see the product you are going to get. we sent half our money, our deposit over months ago and that has just been lost money, unusable while we wait for these shirts.

6-work with a logistics manager, our guy fred magner,who we really didnt use for this and should have, has really come in and helped us get out of a fiasco.

kind of out. today is the day those shirts need to leave the ports of india. now will they? and how much can i do it they dont? we told the stores this shipment would be out sept 10th. we gave ourselves 5 days for emergencies. but this is getting scarier and scarier.

wish us luck!

tips on saving money when you have no money while trying to make big money.

get a new style. wats your style? modern? pottery barn? marble
countertops? get over that. immediately. start embracing shabby chic.
its time to be trendy, thrift shop trendy! old clothes are cool. flea
market furniture is hip. go with it.

need new clothes? too bad. wear your old ones. need a change, go to
your parents attic and see whatat you were storng. now wear it. throw
on a belt! it will be good as new! i have bought one new thing to wear
in three years. a pair of used flip flops for three bucks on the
street in brooklyn. ok, so 'new' to me.

invest in one pan. and one pot. now invest in a dozen egg. and a can
of beans. starting a business is a great time to start the diet plan,
financially speaking.

move into your parents basement. and start crying when they ask you to
pay for your own mattress. actually, just sleep in that twin bed that
seemed so huge in 8th grade.

get environmental. ie- get a bike.

recycle- save all your bottles and cans dont just put them out on
recycle night. drve them to the recycle center. deposit can. make five
cents. try college campuses to collect cans for a little bonus money.

tell your friends who are gettng married that your wedding present to
them is that they dont have to buy you a wedding present. this works
especially well if your already married.

move to a farm. stop having friends, social atmospheres usually cost
money. lose the friends. tell them you'll call back in 3 to 4 years.

if your in the dating world, start dating yourself. buy yourself
dinner (if its eggs) take yourself to a a nice cup of tea. but only
get hot water. bring your own tea bag. take yourself to the
dollar movie theater. or stay in and just watch a little tv. treat
yourself to some gourmet pasta. . .. .ramen noodles. . .try extra
pepper for flavor.

live in your tradeshow booth. its the most expensive rent you will ever have! $4000 for three days? thats got to be a nice 5 by 5 booth!

try to enter every free contest you can. im currently trying to win
50,000 dollars of free gas with my sunoco sticker on the back of my
car. feelin good about it!

volunteer at the soup kitchen. free dinner!

when its holiday time and the relatives ask what you want. tell them
you want a dollar for every year you've been alive. older
entreprenuers will benefit better from this. thats my business side
doing the math.

whats your favorite store? prada? chloe? try the dollar store. great
variety of lunch meat and underwear.

sell personal items and antiques. great grandma wont mind.

allot one day a week to street begging. but keep your blackberry handy
for any business emergencies.

just some ideas. . . .

im sorrrrrrrryyyyyyy, so sorrrryyyyyy

what do you do when you are helpless? while we get a new production sample line created, and while we crawl back to american made products until this comes in, i believe and apology is in order.

To our patient Punkster customers,

As you have probably noticed, we are having severe delays in production for Punkster on this shipment.

In March we decided to try to produce our shirts organically to do at least some small part for the environmental initiative that is becoming so evidently important. We made a conscious decision that if we were putting so many products out into the universe we would try to make it as environmentally sound as we possibly could.

This is the same reason we decided to keep the bottles as a separate entity, to prevent unwanted waste going out of our warehouse (and by the way those bottles are FDA approved for actual bottle use!)

We began discussions with India six months ago and began taking steps to create samples. The final production was deadlined to be in our warehouse July 1st to give us time to ship out for our 7/15 ship date. Well, as of today, mid August, they are still not close to being sent over. We have had a disastrous time trying to go organic and trying to grow our brand. You are witnessing some serious growing pains!

So we want to formally apologize to you, our customers, and hope that you stick around for the grand and overdo arrival of these Punkster shirts. We want you to know that we are doing our best and that we will do everything we need to keep you as customers. Also, to assure you, once these shirts arrive we will have a large inventory, and will be prepared for immediate orders as well as reorders. At that time we will also be pushing Punkster sales and press to assure those shirts flow in and out of your stores quickly.

As an apology to you for our delay and hopefully an initiative to keep us around when we finally are able to ship, we are offering 20% off your existing order if you chose to keep it. We will call you the day the shirts arrive and verify that you would still like them, and see if you would like to increase or decrease your order in relation to what your customers are purchasing. You will also have the option to change the sleeve length depending on the season.

At this time we are not taking on new clients or stores and will be taking care of our current customers first.

Thank you again for your patience, and we sincerely apologize for the delays.

Sincerely,

Leanne Ford and Ashleigh Wells

customer service upgrade!

to be perfectly honest, punkster has had a huge probelm with customer service. its not because we don't care, on the contrary, its because we are two people and we are tyring to field dozens of orders, calls, complaints, everyday. we are trying to put out new merchandise, new lines, work on production, inventory, press, you name it. and two people doing this, its a bit harder than you would expect. but customer service should not be ignored.

that is the face of our brand, what people see and what they remember, and when you mess it up, that's all they remember. one person saying something bad is quite honestly more memorable than 10 people saying our praises.

and so i have made a decision this week to get punkster and our customer service back on track. i hired our first in house sales rep, elisabeth! i has to figure out how to work this properly, seeing as we can not pay out right just yet to hire employees. but, we are more than happy to share the wealth. and since customer service will be increasing sales in the long wrong anyway, i feel good about both her and punkster benefitting from this decision.

we are going to call stores back when they call! hooray! we are going to call stores and check on them out of the blue! hooray! we are going to see if they want a reorder! yeah! we are going to send information to stores that ask for information! yep! we are going to cold call new stores! let stores know when their orders go out! its going to be great!

finally, for once in weeks, i feel good about something punkster is doing to move forward. it takes time to set up all systems, i know this, but this is one step closer, so i feel good today!

i give up.

names have been changed as to not get anyone in trouble here. thats not the point.

but want to see a day in the life of a small business that is trying to produce overseas? or in our case, trying to go under?

i entitle this piece:
and you wonder why i can't sleep.
by leanne ford

--------------------------

hi k,
please update us on samples and production as well as what has shipped.
thank you!~
leanne

-------------------

Leanne:

We are still waiting for your quantity requirement which you had promised to
send us by email.

My present supplier does not think he would be able to satisfy our
requirement as many changes are still not confirmed. We do need approximately fifteen
days or so to produce required quantity in a approved factory.

The approved samples are being send to us by Courier today since all
factories were closed for three days.

Also, once we know exact quantity from you and once we have garment ready
for the shipment, we will need a transfer of funds before we can ship the
product to you by air from India. None of the transfer has come in time in the
past that has caused problems for us since we have spent over $5,000 for the
samples alone.
-k

---------------------

k,
at this time please go forward with the original order. you know how
important deadlines are and we are missing ours and losing customers each
day that is delayed. you had promised us a july delivery and i understand
that there were certain problems, and we paid slowly, but this is getting
dangerous for our business.
l.

------------------

Leanne:

In reference to your email, it is not true for the July delivery. It was
based on approval of shades, prints, fabrics, specs and receipt of 50% deposit
as clearly explained in my meetings with you and Ashleigh.

So far none of the above items are on track as you are well aware of.

In order for us to go forward and avoid misunderstanding if any, please
confirm following items:
* Approved shades
* Approved prints
* Approved specs
* Quantity reconfirmation of each style, colors, prints and sizes
* payment assurance once goods are ready to ship from India
* Payment assurance for air freight charges once goods are ready to
leave from India
* Payment for the samples
We will need about two weeks as explained in earlier email once we receive
above confirmation.

Thanks and Regards.

K

------------------------------

kumar,
anything i confirmed with you either over the phone or in person or signed
is confirmed. everything i did not confirm is not confirmed. do you still
have record of this? this includes shade, prints, and we have yet to see
specs.

the quantity is the same, please keep it the same and do not let that slow
down the process.

payment is ready when you are.

and payment for samples????? you said yourself when a customer goes
forward with the samples into a large order and production then that is
part of your cost in getting the client! it would be unprofessional of
you, and frankly, not like you, to go back on your word about that and
change your mind.

anything we have confirmed and signed to you needs to be producced and
sent over immediately.

please give us the same respect as you do for the bigger clients. i
understand we are small right now but we were hoping to grow with you and
grow bigger. however, if it is ok for you and not a problem that these
shirts are coming in over a month late then how are we supposed to feel
confident ordering in the future with this timeline?

i really do not understand what is going on here. please produce all
approved samples and ship over asap. and send the non approved specs to us
so we can approve those.
thank you.
leanne

---------------------------------

Leanne:

I am not appreciative of your email. Matter of fact I am extremely upset
about your language.

I have produced all samples in four different fabric for you in good faith
and samples needs to be paid first.

It is a common practice for all our customers regardless of big or small. It
is not even a matter of discussion.


Next time, please do not write such language when we have committed heart
and soul for you and Ashleigh.

We would like you to confirm all the items as outlined in my email and we
need an assurance of funds first.

With Regards.

K

----------------------------------------------

kumar,
i did not use any bad language with you. i am sorry you are upset.

i am extremely upset about this production at this point. and truly feel
it could ruin our company if we are not careful. that is a bad place to be
when we have all our personal money, time and soul into it.

ashleigh will confirm the financials with you.

leanne

---------------------------------

ashleighs response -

ohmygosh..what the HECK is going on with him??? i agree on the 5,000 bucks
for samples, i thought it was all included...i dont get this sampling
stuff? basically they get paid more for everytime they mess up and have to
make a new sample?????? are we looking at a september ship now for these
july orders????? we are screwed....should i re-send another email telling
the stores it is further delayed????????

my response -

i'd like to turn in my resignation please.

post trade show notes

the show went well. great actually i would say! the world embraced the acoustic line we presented and even put orders in right there, which is rare for a new line no one has seen. they usually look at it and "think about it" maybe to fax an order in, but usually never to be seen again.

we had this great booth! went to salvation army in manhattan about 6 oclock at night to find a couch. and we found a perfect old, dingy yellow couch. seriously, it was perfect! it was a hit! we made the booth look like grandma's house! doilies on the arms of the couch, old pictures over the sofa, rotary phone on table.

and the best part was, some great great press publications came to say hi and check in on us and potentially write an article. wgsn, cookie, today show. . .

and we got some great new accounts. including . . .an amazing high end "department" store. which i will tell you about more officially when the order is faxed in.

but then again, on the last day i had a minor breakdown. we were talking with a similiar line of baby clothing, poshbaby out of portland. the ladies have a similiar business situation as us. or they use to. one of the woman was a financial advisor and so kind to tell us her advice on where to take the business, how to save money, how to prep to pay ourselves.

all week we all talked with visitors about getting sales reps, distribution, production, size ranges, adding sizes, adding styles, getting orders out on time, not being able to be reached. the trade show is one big conference and a great way to talk to people in your boat, or who have upgraded to the "bigger boat"

our friends at post have been where we are and her biggest advice was pay off credit cards, because they are probably costing us thousands of dollars that we dont need to be paying.

we kind of made a six month plan, we kind of figured out what to do to get into good shape, we discussed all ways of business and how to improve, where to cut corners. we told her how much we were selling, how we were doing and she said we were way ahead of the curve and doing great. she said in six months we won't even remember what it was like to be at the bottom of the ditches. thats when i lost it.

little tears flowing out, not in sadness really, not in fear, not in defeat, but more in totally overwhelming frustration. small business is overwhelming, exhausting, daunting. thinking about the numbers, the debt, the inventory we had to keep selling, the how and when and what of it all. if you think of the big picture of everything you are doing and trying to do you will explode. so i exploded. a bit.

and then i remembered this is what i signed up for, this is what i love, this is the puzzle i like to figure out and this is the potential reward that i am working for. these woes are temporary and they are all in preparation for great rewards and payoffs in the future. i have to remember that. and remember what a great trade show we had this season.