05.14.06

my nemesis…

Posted in Main, business-a-go-go at 12:24 am by carrie

Special orders.

They find me during the day and catch me off guard.. surprise!

If you own a business and/or you make things… you’ve had to deal with the elusive special order. Sometimes it can be tranquil and go off without a hitch… but for some reason… if you are me… there’s usually a snag… or two… or more. I am writing about this in the hopes that I will, once and for all, put a rest to the special order, or the complications of.

1. The special order of a product from another company

I’ll give you three examples of how this doesn’t work.
Customer comes in and orders a set of teacups, it’s the end of March. I call the teacup company and, as I expected, I had to order a minimum of 3 sets of teacups. Okay, I think… they’ll sell, I’ll do it. Besides, I already told the nice lady I could get them. Oh, 3 sets of teacups doesn’t meet their minimum total order requirement. Okay… I’ll get the creamer/sugar set and teapot to match, three of each of course. Cut to 2 weeks later. I get the creamer/sugar sets, the teapots, but no teacups in sight. I call them… “they are backordered until the beginning of May”. Great. Call customer… she’s okay with it. It’s now May 13 and this customer has been in 2 times looking for her teacups. I finally called them yesterday… well, they came in but they have not received my payment for the creamer/sugar sets and teapots so they held my order. *yay* I should get them by the end of NEXT week.

Example two…

Customer wants 40-something of a candle holder for her daughter’s wedding. I order them. They don’t come in. What’s going on. I call the company and that particular candle holder has been discontinued, nobody bothered to tell me, even DURING the ordering process. Customer is angry with me. They send the alternate candle holders, I give customer a hefty discount because she doesn’t like them but doesn’t have time to get an alternate.

Example three…

Customer wants to buy 10 crystal knobs for her kitchen. We have 4 in her particular color. I order the knob company’s minimum of 20 knobs so we can get her 4. I don’t ask her for a deposit, I don’t know why, that’s totally my fault. I called when they came in, her 4 knobs are sitting on a shelf and the other 16 have not sold yet. That was over a month ago.

2. The special order of a product that someone else makes

My good friend Cathi makes awesome beads. They are handmade and it took her years to perfect her art. Customer wants 3 bracelets made, all similar, with a certain heart bead and crystals. I put the order together and make the bracelets using Cathi’s glorious beads. Customer comes in to pick up 3 bracelet and is horrified that one of the hearts is about 1/8″ smaller and not as thick as the other two. Because one is different from the others, she thinks I overcharged her. This took several weeks to make right because every single heart was wrong somehow. I had to keep the wrong hearts.

3. The special order of a product that I make

I make bath products, used to make candles, jewelry, assorted art products including hanging signs and I’ve done personalized signs for babys’ rooms etc and so on. I’ve filled lots of special orders, about 10% of them have some problem or another. Here are those examples…

I get a call from a customer who purchased a candle from me at a street fair in Ventura (I’m about 75 or so minutes from there). I can’t remember exactly what it looked like (I would do different color “chunks” inside the candles, but I was rarely consistent) so she described the colors over the phone. She orders two to be mailed to her home. So, I make them. All different color chunks in a white base, spring rain scented. Mail them to her.. she calls me in a panic… “these are too bright!!! I wanted smaller chunks! your old one was soft and subdued, this one looks like mardi gras, and I need them for a gift tomorrow!” I shouldn’t have… but I actually stayed up late that night and DROVE them to her the next evening after work. I got a simple thank you and my old candles back. I think I made $30 on that before expenses.

The citrine necklace incident is one I remember well in my “special orders-scary stories” folder. The customer bought a necklace from me at a street fair and wanted another citrine that was a “darker yellow” as the main dangling stone. I bought one on ebay, it was too dark. Drove to a gem show for take two of citrine briolette… that was a strike out as well. Drove to Tarzana to a bead shop to find another citrine briolette… sent the finished necklace back to the customer for the third time. Strike three. Somehow, some way, after about 8 weeks we came to a compromise. The customer sent me a very lovely thank-you note. I’m still not sure if she was 100% satisfied with the necklace. I have a complex about citrine now. I buy it and keep it… just in case. I’m not that fond of the stone but when I see it, it’s like bigfoot or something… you better get it because you never know if you will ever see it again!

Okay, so I’m ranting a bit… but I just can’t seem to get this special order thing right! We made order forms with an area for me to draw the specs of the product in, and the customer would initial the “I am aware that this is a one-of-a-kind item and may have unique characteristics… etc”. Didn’t work. I scanned the components of the item I was going to make, printed that sheet out and made notes on it, and to my utter confusion, the final piece would be wrong again somehow. Wrong size, shape, color. I’m completely frustrated.

I think I’ve learned that you cannot trust the “big boys” of the wholesale world. I will not depend on them and trust they can get a product to me when they say it will be there. I will not make any promises. Repeat that :)

My solution lately? I make at least 3 of one thing, display them, and then it’s over. I can’t make that item again, in theory. I can make a variation of it, but it is available for purchase after it is made. Admittedly, I have taken a concept for an idea or place and blown it out of proportion, added fairy wings and glitter that wasn’t there before. I have received an item that was handmade from a friend and thought to myself, “I thought the fabric would be thicker, the item bigger or smaller, the outlines more hidden… ” blah blah blah. But that is their take on their art and I appreciate that. If I know someone put their heart into that little item x, y or z that I have in my hands, I will absolutely adore it. There are acceptions. The dryer duct pumpkins for example. I just can’t hang with those. (This pumpkin is actually nice, the ones I encountered… wow.)

Then there are the glorious special orders that boost your confidence and make you happy to be an artist. I can name quite a few, the roses I painted for Samantha, the furniture I painted for Cindy which turned into a sketch of her house. Countless birthday plates, jewelry items, ebay items, garden signs, gift baskets. So, really… it’s less than 10%. I’m still perplexed… how do I keep the 90% and lose the 10%? I’m going to keep investigating… until then, remember the work that is enjoyed and appreciated!

top: picture of house – Bottom: my raw sketch of the house

This was turned into a christmas/we have moved card! 2004

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