Caz counts it down

cazmanian_minx

Wouldn't you know it, my delivery arrived today!!

115,000 19mm dragonfly charms take up a lot more space than you'd imagine... I've wheelbarrowed all the boxes into the annexe (it arrived on a pallet and the pallet-mover-thingy doesn't like the gravel on the drive), opened them all up, checked the contents against my invoices and have started to list some of it - 10% of the silver plated charm bracelets have already been sold!!

Still to do:
- list the rest of the stuff I've had in before
- nickel test the metal stuff
- work out prices for the new stuff (I should really get into the habit of writing them down when I check them when I'm ordering....)
- photograph the new stuff that doesn't need sorting
- list the new stuff that doesn't need sorting
- sit down with 185,000 mixed alphabet beads and sort into letter groups
- photograph and list alphabet beads

I predict I'm going to get through a lot of trashy telly next week

Mara_uk7

I want a couple of dragonflies ! <stamps foot> will they be on ebay soon ? Would love dragonflies in my ears ! Lol
:T:T

cazmanian_minx

Mara_uk7 wrote: »

I want a couple of dragonflies ! <stamps foot> will they be on ebay soon ? Would love dragonflies in my ears ! Lol
:T:T

If you only want a pair for earrings, PM me your address and I'll send you a couple They're going to be 50 for £1.20, so you'd be stuck with 48 you didn't need! They're acrylic, not metal though.

All the stock I've had before is now listed. I need to have a counting up session before I can work out the prices - some of the new stuff is sold by the kilo, so I need to count the number of beads per kilo to find the cost price.

One thing I forgot to mention in my update last night is that I got a call yesterday afternoon from Make Jewellery magazine. They ring me up a couple of times a year to see if I want to advertise with them and I'd told them last time that I'd probably take an ad in the run-up to Christmas this year. They rang yesterday to say that they'd got a quarter page space in the August edition that they needed to fill and as I'd not advertised with them before I could have it for £128+VAT instead of the ratecard price of £320+VAT. I had a bit of a rush of blood to the head and accepted - my first ever advert! Their design team will be in touch on Monday or Tuesday to help me put something together. I've had a bit of a play about with Photoshop today and know what I want, so I'll send them the mock-up I've done and the source files so they can do it properly for me.

£83 in Tesco today plus £25 at the tack shop. After a bit of grappling with Finn's bridle (I hate stud fastenings on reins) I managed to swap the French link snaffle for the pelham I've been given and went to try it on him. He had a bit of an experimental chomp and then stuck his head back down and continued grazing, so no objections so far. Hopefully he'll find it a little more comfortable. It's 10 years since I last rode with double reins though, soI've got it hanging on the living room door handle and am practicing with them in front of the telly :rotfl:

cazmanian_minx

I've sold a load of charm bracelets this weekend - 400+ out of the 3000 I got in. I've been working most of the day. All the previously stocked stuff is up for sale, 8 of the new items have been photographed and listed and of the remaining 14, everything that needed weights converting to numbers has been done, so it's just a case of working out prices, photographing and whacking them online. Oh, and sorting those alphabet beads.... Mr Minx did the nickel testing for me and everything passed

I've also spread another 8 barrowloads of manure on the fields, bringing my total for the week to 30. Next week I'm aiming for five a day, as once the grass gets too long I won't be able to spread any more and with the weather as it is, it's growing madly.

cazmanian_minx

I ended up shipping out £750-worth of orders yesterday and another £215 today :j:j:j:j

Not much else to report really, the library van has visited and I'm having an evening in front of Sky+ with a bag of alphabet beads

hillside777

Great news on the sales.

You certainly know how to live - I'm having an evening in front of Sky+ with a bag of alphabet beads. :rotfl:

JustAboutThere

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

I think that may actually be a record since I started this diary! My only defence is that the business account took a hit of £3515.63 this week thanks to the freight bill, VAT balancing figure and paying myself, so it could have been a lot worse.

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

I ended up shipping out £750-worth of orders yesterday and another £215 today

Yes, you were worrying a few days ago about the rather large numbers appearing on your spreadsheets, but look at the amount of purchases you've had since its arrived. Definitely money well spent on stock, I'd say.

Well done you!

cazmanian_minx

I've barely stopped today! It's gone something like this:

6am - alarm clock
7.15am - Mr Minx leaves for work, I stay on the sofa with more Sky+ and alphabet beads!
8.15am - get dressed, take dog out, spread 5 barrow loads of manure on lower fields, collect 1 barrow load of fresh stuff from the top fields, have a quick catch up with the neighbours, feed dog
10.20am - call supplier to find out what's happening with an item a customer is after, let customer know that it didn't turn up in their delivery and will be another 8 weeks or more, pack up the last 24 hours' worth of orders, do the posting documentation.
12pm - quick lunch, order more jiffy bags, order horse supplements, put together an order for one of my UK suppliers (the third this month, but I had three customers contact me and ask me to order them stuff in specifically - about £400-worth of orders in total), shut dog into the house and head into town with the picture of a small black dog pressed up against the living room window with DON'T LEAVE ME, MUM!!!! written all over her face stuck in my head!
2pm - horrendous rain on the way into town has reminded me that one of my windscreen wipers is falling to pieces, so the first stop is Autoparts where a nice bloke finds me the right ones and fits them for me for the grand total of £14. Then on to the petrol station (diesel back up to 141.9p here), CLB for a birthday card for Mr Minx and Tesco for soda water, a pizza for supper (Mr Minx emailed from work to say he didn't fancy the casserole he'd got out of the freezer this morning!), a bottle of wine and some chocolates for the neighbours we're going to dinner with tomorrow night and a birthday present for Mr Minx - just a small one, because he had his main present when it was released, but I wanted to get him something to unwrap on the day. At that point I had a buggrit moment and threw in a CD and a bag of bakery cookies to eat on the way home. Feeling a bit bad about the CD, but I think I've bought less than 10 MP3 tracks in the last year and no CDs and the low cloud was knackering the car radio, so I needed some tunes (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! )
3.30pm - home to be greeted by an ecstatic dog, back to work listing more beads until Mr Minx gets home at 5pm.

Aaaaaaaaaand collapse. Normally a day like this wouldn't be a problem, but I was up until past midnight reading Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl in one big greedy gulp (very good, I recommend it).

What else? My accountant rang yesterday to say she was doing my accounts and had I missed out an entry to my accounting software for insurance last year? No, I just hadn't taken any out, it had gone up far too much! I'm glad that they're doing them now though, I think it means that they're going to submit my tax return before July 31st and since I made less profit 12/13 than 11/12 it should reduce the amount I owe to HMRC on that date.

I've also been evaluating whether I should stay on Amazon or not. The FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) fees are going up at the end of August; the per order fee is being dropped but the per item fee is going from 60p to 80p and that's a LOT when you're selling beads at £3.99 a string. The shipping costs are going up a little as well. After a bit of number crunching, I think I do need to stay on there, but I need to change the products I put on there - only stuff with really, really good margins and stuff that I don't put on other platforms so I don't have to keep price parity. So, for example, I could do a nice plastic bead storage box with a complete set of alphabet beads in(!) for Amazon and then put a label on the inside of the lid pointing people at my website for top-ups Amazon customers tend to buy stuff that works as gifts and it's usually 1 item per order, whereas eBay and website buyers will buy lots of smaller items, so I think it'll work. I'm also starting to look at Etsy as a way of expanding more into the USA market - a few items I sell would do very well on there by the looks of things.

Exciting times ahead for the business, anyway. Fingers crossed it all pays off - if I could put my monthly drawings back up to £2000 a month, I'd be able to throw £700 a month at my personal debts, which would be amazing.

Ayeshalush

Wow!! Busy day there! Your business sems to keep you on your toes lol!

I'm delurking (I'm rubbish at posting on any diaries but I do regularly read as you'll see from your thanks - love hearing about your horses, but don't envy the wheelbarrowing of manure lol!) just to ask for some help sourcing charms/beads. I've spent hours searching the net and can't find what I'm looking for and wondered if you can point me in the right direction or if it is something that you sell. Hope you don't mind me asking.

I'm looking for some sterling silver heart charms to make earrings with. I don't mind if they're filigree or solid hearts but preferably no larger than 10mm across. I'm looking for maybe 30 max.

Ali
xx

Mara_uk7

Yeahhhh to Buggrit and bakery cookies !! The jelly bean ones are the best ! Thank you for the package, they are adorable , and I have planned what to do with them, Hoping for a rainy day so I can justify staying inside and playing with fixings on Saturday x