Mooloo's little tapestry of life, 2016

Savvy_sewing

My Nephew is 38. Lives about 20 miles away. Is a computer nerd and works in IT at Carlesberg. If we see him once a year we would be lucky. But I agree it would be good if someone else helped me.
My brother is coming back over from France next week for 10 days so he will do DIY if necessary.
Re the patterns the few we sell have been vintage style ( the walk away dress) and children's ones. Currently I have to buy all the catalogues, then I rent the filing cabinets full of patterns and have to buy replacement patterns when they sell.
This week we had new ones delivered ( they charge me for them!) and we have had to remove about 100 patterns and do a stock take- then return the covers and destroy the patterns themselves. Oh and pay the postage on the returns.
( Erm a few cover less patterns may have found themselves here at home for me to use!)
I am not allowed to sell them I have to destroy them.

The dressmaking to fit people is time consuming and costly so I have lost money really as I find it difficult to calculate the time in advance as my time is interrupted constantly.

dktreesea

So the patterns are a bit like magazines in a newsagents? You hire the stands, the supplier comes out and restocks them and takes away (or you send back) your returns?


If this is making you £50 a week in profits it's probably worthwhile going on with. But if you sell only a couple of patterns a week, maybe you could offer a different service, i.e. have the pattern catalogues lying about for customers then just ordering in the specific patterns they want? As in getting them to pay for them up front then you order them in on your wholesale account with the distributor.


I had kind of envisaged something more along the lines of someone coming in and wanting something made, going through the pattern books and choosing something, then you order in the pattern for them and make it for them.


Talking of which, I have been looking (for two season, lol) for a long wool winter coat, lined with a hood. I haven't been able to find anything in my size. In desperation I turned to a tailor in Edinburgh. Talk about ex-pen-sive (to me at least, though it appears to be the going rate) £395. I'll have to rethink my idea or save this dream for a more well oiled future, lol.

Savvy_sewing

Yes I "hire" the patterns and replace any sold. Loosing hand over fist as only sell the odd one or two each week at the moment.
I can't compete with the price on Amazon. When Butterick charge me £4 a pattern plus VAT, on top of all those hidden charges spread out over the year. The pattern books come out 4 times a year, at £22.50 plus postage and vat each book each time.
I used to have vogue and mcall books for people to order as well, but nobody wanted to order, when they come in looking for a pattern they want to buy it now.
I sell more when the company does their 1/2 price offers of course, but then I get even less for the pattern myself.
Learning the website and how to get the online shop working for me is imperative but also time consuming and I don't have much time.
There is no point currently asking Staff to do it, as both are going to be retiring again in the next 18 months or so. One will be 71 by then and the other, my seamstress is starting to get cataracts so how much longer she will be with me will definitely depend on the speed of her loss, and her ability to keep sewing.
I have thought about asking a technical person to do it, but I need to know about everything in the business myself so that I can impart the knowledge as staff come and go. I tried getting Biggest involved and even DS's GF at one stage but neither were really interested and the later let me down badly in the early days so would not trust family anymore.
I shall find a solution to my dilemma- be it a time machine!!!
Seriously I may have to stop patterns all together if I am going to be out of pocket much longer.
A campaign to promote them on My Facebook page may help but that needs to reach more people then the 281 likes it currently has!

Today I am going to be grappling with that terrible Indian dress that was in reality just cheap and nasty fabrics with embroidered panel. I have had to take it back to scratch to cut some shape into it, and now I need to make the sleeves, insert a zip and somehow make two stand collars out of the remnants. Oh and the lady was due for a fitting today at 11am.
I did send a text last night asking if we can change the fitting to Monday but I didn't get a reply and not sure she even understands much English which does not help.
On the plus side, I can be in work by 9.15 so can have an hour to get on before I get interrupted by customers. Well that is the theory.
I spoke with staff yesterday about the facts and figures and my aims for this next financial year. Her job will be to push a few add ins when selling in the shop! She does the window display and the shop layout and was the one who had to do the stock take of the patterns.
I suppose we should also be doing a stock take of other things now as well. I have put a daily target of £20 on the habadashery too start with.
But eventually I would like it to cover the cost of her time and 1/3 of the shops rent. Being as it is on 1/3 of the shop space.

GlasweJen

That's awful that you need to destroy patterns just because a company tells you to. could you switch supplier or are they all much the same?

Oh and try a Facebook competition, I seen loads where there's a photo of the prize and to win people have to like the photo, like your page and share the competition photos.

greenbee

Maybe when you look for replacement staff, someone with online marketing skills would be a good idea?

In the meantime, how about looking into whether you can try buying and stocking vintage patterns instead of current ones? There's a lady on the hoarding thread who does this in Dorset so maybe you could link up with her and see whether she could supply you at a trade rate or on consignment? It's unlikely that your customers would be the same as hers.

It's hard running the business as well as being the business - essentially you're still mostly selling your time, but instead of just you it has to support the overheads and the staff. You should be very proud of what you have achieved so far. I'm sure you'll find that as you have footfall, people will buy other things and start to remember that you are there and they can get stuff from you.

Savvy_sewing

I never even knew there was a hoarding thread!
Off to take a peek

Savvy_sewing

Didn't manage to read the thread I found as some 178 pages or something!
I have spent 3 hours hand sewing beads and bling on to a duvet set, to go with the cushions I did last week and the nets a few weeks ago.
I have massively under estimated the time and theoretically have made a huge loss if I was to have charged the hourly rate of £15 so far I would have had to charge her £92!! And she actually wanted lots of little beads added on them all, and based on the ones I have done so far I probably would need about another 6-8 hours!!
So I now know that all those people in far off countries who sew on beads day in and day out for peanuts have my respect and awe!
And I will have to tell the woman that I won't be able too sew anymore beads as she is only paying£30, unless she wants to pay me for my time, the difference! So the things are all evenly sewn and will match but be less bling then she wanted.

Savvy_sewing

I have a stinking headache at the moment. Well it started in my neck and has gravitated up the back of my head and now it's also in the centre of my forehead!
The last hour after teaching was not very productive at all.
We made headbands today!
The sales of the habadashery have doubled in the last week. We took £90 this week on bits and bobs.
All good.
Alterations are sticking at around £600 a week at the moment so is just a little slower then normal but not much.
All good then. It is just a case of keeping my expenses down where I can and keeping an eye on the cash flow.

Slinky

Glad to see things are picking up on haberdashery Mooloo. Did you implement the money up front for alterations?

Savvy_sewing

Slinky wrote: »

Glad to see things are picking up on haberdashery Mooloo. Did you implement the money up front for alterations?

Sort of.
We are taking more up front then we were. But some regular customers etc are still paying on collection.
We are taking a more relaxed approach and asking "would you like to pay now, cash or card?" And we also say "that will be xyz£ please" and some people just offer it.
It helps a little. Although we have not implemented the strict pay first policy I planned at the beginning of the month.
Some jobs we have only quoted £15 an hour and a guide on the times, ( where I made a huge under estimate of the gypsies work:(, but never mind I am learning all the time.).