The shoes finally arrive
Thanks for visiting the site. It was down temporarily because I had my automatic renewal set to manual instead of automatic. It’s been a while since I posted information here about the release of the 2013 Spring line. The shoes finally arrived last week and in the same fashion as previous shipments, the shoes were packed like sardines into the boxes. This is obviously to offset shipping costs for both the factory and myself, but it creates a very bad situation. The shoes that are lighter colored arrive with a lot of dirt and when customs opens the boxes it shifts the packaging which makes the shoes harder to close and it makes them even dirtier. (When you’re small everything becomes a chore)
The tee shirts and shoe boxes all arrived in great time. It is June and my order for these shoes began in February. I was in the middle of one of my better runs as a shoe company and the turnaround on 150 pair of shoes should have been 1 month. Instead due to the small amount of shoes I made, I was bumped down the list and what’s even worse they did not QA the shoes. I’ve been writing on Facebook so it is easier to share the pictures and posts from there with you to update you on the progress.
May 21 from Facebook: Finally paid the manufacturer today and the Spring 2013 CG097II is officially on it’s way to the US!!! Yippeeee. Now is the time to send me money because my pockets are bleeding, lol.
Feeling accomplished. Shoes shipped, Promo Tees ordered, Shoeboxes ordered, and next I have to finish the labels and adjust the UPC codes for the shoes for distribution on Amazon. Once that is done then I can work on a pre-order and promotion on Amazon. The shoes will still have to be QA checked for damage, but everything should be set in motion for a June release.
Stay Motivated!!!
May 26 from Facebook: Putting in work this Sunday morning. Pulling down the Tees from the online store on Amazon since all tees in the next shipment will be white and I don’t want to pay for new upc’s. More important, Amazon will not allow duplicates of upc. Which means the shoes won’t post to the store. That’s not a good thing.
I will pull those, go into the GSN data driver and instead of buying new upcs, the GS1 is getting the big edit. The three new colorways will be edited to now show the three new footwear colors. This is small business and saving dough, lol.
New colors:
CG097II Star Grey/Dallas Blue-White
CG097II Storm Grey/Power Pink-White-Black
CG097II Storm Grey/Rust-Forest Green-Black-White
Once the UPCs have been assigned, then I will have to copy and paste all upc codes onto labels and I am using Vistaprint to make the box labels. I am also using a stamp for the boxes to place the logo. I went with a recycled corrugated box instead of the traditional gloss ARCH boxes. Each box will have to be individually stamped. I’m not big enough for automation yet. All in all it’s another day in the world of entrepreneurial pursuits.
Stay Motivated Fam.
May 27th from Facebook: Ordered my self inking stamp to put the logo on my shoe boxes. I went away from the high gloss Black boxes and went with a recycled corrugated box without print. Reducing the overhead per pair. I’m hoping the shoes make it in this week. I will keep you posted.
June 2nd from Facebook: I don’t have a big update on this Sunday. I’m in the process of stamping boxes for the upcoming sneaker release. My running shoes are caught in customs which means I don’t know when I will be getting the shoes in to complete the launch. These are the small things you have to think about when starting a small shoe company, or any company.
The shoes should have been here since last week. I’m really going to push a relationship that I’ve been considering gaining for a while now. I’m glad I have other ventures. I hate the fact that the Chinese get their money up front, free and clear and I’m down 5K+ with no return on that money until the shoes arrive. What’s even worse is I still have to sell the things. Man that trade off is rough to deal with.
Stay Motivated
Chris B.
June 3rd from Facebook (posted under a picture of an opened shoebox): This is why QA will take so long. When the shoes are compressed they have to be stuffed with paper to retain their shape. What’s worse is each pair will have to be unfolded, shoestrings pulled tight and stuffed. This is about a 8-15 minute process on each pair. That’s about 1800 minutes, or …. 30 man hours. So officially to get the shoes in the box will take around 38 hours. That’s unpaid time for me…
June 5th from Facebook: The difficult aspect of being a small business is the trust you place in people and when that trust is failed. Just finished the count of the Pitt Yellow/Black Steel CG097II. I made 36 pair. Only 36 pair! Out of that, 10 pair has damage and may be able to get salvaged and the majority of the shoes have dirt that can’t be cleaned as good as I am at cleaning shoes… I may be able to sell 20 pair total at retail of the 36. The manufacturer even messed up the labels and all 36 pair have to be checked to make sure they are actually the sizes listed in the shoe. The beauty of it all… they have their money. I’m losing, again. I’m attempting to remain positive as we move into shaping and cleaning the new colorways. The rest of the shoes will have to offset the losses that will no doubt be posted on this first release. Stay Motivated fam.
June 6th from Facebook: More adventures of small business. Just finished QAing the Black and Yellow and 25 of the 36 pair are currently able to sell. What’s worse… every pair except the size 13s are labeled incorrectly and the UK size is the actual US size!!!!!! So frustrating! I will have to list all shoes as samples/limited release because they all have to have the US size marked off with the sharpie. Staying positive and motivated, although it’s hard.
If you note the tone of these posts are not very inspiring and I fault myself for getting irritable about my current release. Instead of looking at the positive which is the great looking footwear that I can sell, I’ve been focused on the negative. What ARCH is accomplishing is amazing. What we are doing is happening with any smoke and mirrors, or big promises… it is good old fashioned hard work. What I hope is that I can regain my February momentum and regain traction. As always I will definitely keep you posted.
Chris B.
Stay Motivated
