Wholesale...What I learned

Well, I finished my wholesale order this week and sent if off. It was my first wholesale experience and I learned a few lessons that I thought I'd share with other newbies.

Lesson #1: Give yourself a lot of time. They'll wait if they value quality handmade items.
I gave an anticipated finish date to the buyer and then my grandmother died and I had a job interview to prepare for. Granted those are unusual circumstances but I also didn't want to be knitting 24/7 and wanted to have a weekend but I couldn't because I had given a date and I hate it when people change dates on me so I didn't want to push it back too much. I did end up having to push the date back a little and it all worked out but I was a bit stressed and it took more time than I thought it would.

Lesson #2: Limitations keep you sane!
This order was for 50 cozies and I've now decided I can't do any more than 40 per order.

Lesson #3: Don't estimate shipping until you have the box packed.
I unfortunately underestimated the size of the package I would need and really under charged for the shipping. I charged $15 based on the box I thought it would fit into and the box was way too small. Silly me it ended up costing $75! I don't know what I was thinking but I definitely wasn't expecting it to cost so much. I also hadn't thought about tracking and insurance because I don't usually ship with either of those but thought I should for this because it was going so far (Australia) and it was such a big order I'd hate to have it lost.

I did work out a good pricing system for the order that I am happy with and will use again. I will definitely do another wholesale order if the opportunity arises but I have learned what not to do again and I'm happy for that experience.

Knit, knit, purl, knit, purl...

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy, relatively speaking. I was in Ontario for 5 days and then I had to prepare for an interview. I also have a deadline looming for my wholesale order.

I'm delighted to be knitting 50 argyle coffee cozies to send to the Black Star Coffee Roastery. This is my first wholesale order and I wasn't sure if it would be worthwhile at first but I'm really happy to have someone interested in my cozies and I think it's pretty awesome that my cozies will be selling on the other side of the world. I have 22 partially done (as seen in the photos) and I'm loving all the colour combinations. Once I send out the wholesale order I hope to add some of these great cozies to my shop.