LAND OF
ODDS - The South's Most Unusual
Shop
Beads, Jewelry, Gifts,
Collectibles, Music, Posters, Books, Gourmet
From time to time, we have decided to relate and share some of our e-commerce experiences with our customers and friends. Doing business on the Internet is a new thing, a wonderful thing and something not quite the same as running a regular store, and not quite the same as operating a mail-order print catalog business. The Internet is very democratic, and we feel our on-line store should mirror some of the aspects of Internet culture. The Internet is very "information-centered" as well, and our store should also be. We want to chronicle our successes, trials and tribulations.
Some of our goals have changed, since we became a primarily-on-line enterprise, and closed our main store.
Our goals for our catalog include:
The past year has been an interesting one. The catalog reached a certain volume whereby "cash flow" problems no longer are a major concern and day-to-day worry. The catalog now supports 2 1/2 full time employees besides James and Warren. The orders run about 20 per day, with about 15-20 items per order on average. It is not unusual to get orders with over 100, and even over 200 items ordered. In the year 2000, the catalog sales increased an outstanding 15-16% each month. In January of 2001, that rate of growth came to a sudden halt. So far, for the year 2001, the catalog has only been growing at an annual rate of about 13%.
Because most of our suppliers have been terrible in filling our orders, we've had to substantially increase the inventory we keep on hand. For example, when we order from a supplier and have stuff shipped 2-Day, it may be 7 days from the time we place the order to the time we receive it. That's way too slow for our operation. That would put our own order turnaround at 10 or more days.
Because we have more inventory on hand, we're able to turnaround our own orders much more quickly than last year. We're getting back into that more comfortable 3-5 day turnaround goal for most orders placed.
Our shopping cart system is totally inadequate for the volume of sales we're experiencing. This is a problem that has to be solved, but no one has the energy or money to truly solve it. In fact, in spite of all the person-hours and developmental costs that have already occurred, it's become obvious that to keep the catalog fresh, current and relevant to our markets, it would take an amount of funds and energy equal to what has gone on before. We don't have it, and this will probably never happen.
During the past year, we have managed to raise a lot of our prices, and we're working on upgrading all the items in the catalog. While sales of some of these items, where the price has been raised, have dropped, this couldn't be helped. UPS added a 7% fuel surcharge; our credit card transaction costs has risen from 2.9% a ticket to 4.5% a ticket; the costs to us from our suppliers for shipping goods have risen dramatically -- glass is heavy! For example, a typical shipment of east indian glass might cost of $13.00 in shipping costs a year ago; today it's more like $23.00. We have to pass these higher shipping costs to our customers. And then there's energy costs. Our utility bills have tripled since last winter.
We've also dropped many items from our catalog, and will continue to do so. We're concentrating more on those items that sell regularly. We've also been reducing our minimum package size for many items. We're dropping many items sold in bulk. For example, we used to have rat tail available in 144-yd spools and 12-yd packages. The 144-yd spools are no longer available. It's been difficult to maintain sufficient inventory to meet the needs of higher volume buyers and the wholesale market in general.
Some other events:
1) We began sending email notifications about orders getting sent, when sent through UPS. We started notifying customers who had large accumulations of Land of Odds Advantage Points that they had discounts due them. We got our customer profile records up-to-date.
2) We get about 200 emails a day now. Impossible to answer. We rely on prewritten responses for most inquiries. On Mondays, there may be 600 emails waiting for us. Our regular mail server -- Bell South -- couldn't handle all the emails. We now how two regular mail servers, and we still have some problems of emails getting kicked back to the sender with messages like "Unknown Recipient". If the mail box is full, the servers kick back the incoming email messages.
3) Martha Stewart continues to bless us with her Cranberry Wreathe project. We hope for more this Christmas. We're more ready than ever. Last Christmas, we ran out of beads at the end of November.
4) Glass beads are still in, though the styles and fashions keep changing.
5) We continue having to re-organize our warehousing strategies, as we sell more merchandise, and carry a larger inventory. Always challenging.
6) When we add new items, we are concentrating on different kinds of glass beads, and on different jewelry findings, especially clasps.
7) There are now over 5,000 unique visitors to our site every day.
8) We began a click-through advertising program on About.com. It's difficult to tell if it's worthwhileor not.
9) The rate of returns is about 2-3%. The rate of declined credit cards, stolen credit cards or credit cards with bad account numbers seems to have risen considerably. It may be 4-5% of submitted orders. This is frustrating to deal with.
10) Last year, the use of fraudulent credit cards cost us several thousand dollars! So far in 2001, it's only been below $1,000 total. Many stolen card orders were for austrian crystal rhinestones, so we took them all off our catalog on-line.
11) Since most stolen cards come in international orders, we've cut back on these. There are some countries, like Indonesia, to where we will no longer ship orders. Our international orders have decreased a bit as a proportion of all orders -- perhaps as low as 3%.
12) We began shipping small orders through the US Postal Service First Class at $2.00 per order. If the items are not breakable, the order is below $10.00, and the items will fit in a 4x6" jiffy bag, then we use this method. Since these shipments are not tracked or insured, we are taking a risk.
Because the rate of growth has slowed considerably, and because we now have many more employees working on orders, we've gotten a bit of control back over the operations. We still work hard -- especially on Mondays. We still have to constantly improve things -- warehousing, how orders are processed, where things are stored and transfered, responding to emails -- but we feel more in control of things. Our level of customer service -- while still far from anything I'd call "ideal" -- has improved a lot. The technical underpinnings of the catalog remain very weak and inadequate.
Thanks for being there for us and with us,
Warren and James