Follow-on Order
It looks like I lucked out with the printer I choose to produce the t-shirts for the store in Florida. Got an email today from the owner saying that the shirts arrived and he was quite satisfied. In fact, he's place an order for another 7 dozen shirts. Now if I could keep up selling 6-7 dozen shirts a day, I'd have a new day job. But that's not going to happen. In fact, sales of my Texas themed merchandise have dropped. Not sure why though. Maybe it's seasonal, or maybe I need to add some more designs. I could also stand to make the site look a little more fun, and maybe a little more Texas. I'm also getting a lot of people on the hurricane site to sign up to be notified when new designs become available, so I think I'm going to have to come up with a couple more this weekend. Time's running out on this theme. All this should mean that I'll be ready to hit the ground running next year. In my next post I'll write about what did and did not happen today when I actually worked from our offices here in Seattle today, rather than working from home as I'd been doing for the last month and a half.
- posted by Drew @ 5:53 PM  

 
Too Chicken?
Yesterday I was writing an email to my VP letting him know that if I didn't find a project by Friday, that I should resign. So I spent some time crafting the wording of the email, and then just before hitting send I decided to make one more call to the team here in Seattle. Well, about a month ago I got word that they thought I would be a perfect fit for the team here, and then over the past few weeks contact stopped. One of the key people quit our company to move to Houston and start his own company (ironic), and no one will respond to my voicemails or emails. But this call made right before essentially emailing my resignation, someone answered. Long story short, I'm meeting with them on Friday to discuss. I'm hoping to learn two things tomorrow. One, I'm hoping to find out what they would have me do. Two, I'm hoping to find out how long the commute will be. Longer than 30 minutes each way and I'm quitting. Nonetheless, this further stretching of my employment will at least mean a few more days of pay.
- posted by Drew @ 6:23 PM  

 
Easy Go Easy Come
Well when I last left you the guy looking to make a bulk order for his store in Florida had cancelled out. Well, yesterday he called to say that power had been restored in his store and he wanted to place an order for 6 dozen shirts. That's not a ton, but I still wanted to get them to him. The only problem is that hurricane related shirts have a limited time that they can be sold and production of the shirts can take a minimum of 5 business days. But, I found a solution. I located a printing business about 8 miles away from the guy, and they could do thermal transfers and have them ready by Monday, or possibly even this Friday. This Friday would be great for the guy looking to buy them since the weekend is a prime time to sell them. The other good thing was that I'm getting the shirts at the same price as the printing place in California, and delivery can be on the same day they're produced. My only concern is that heat transfers won't look as good. But I've been assured that they'll be good, and I've made it clear to the buyer. So now I'm trying to locate additional buyers in Florida. Not sure this will be possible since it might be too late, but at least this experience might be able to be put to use with getting retailers onboard for my Texas themed merchandise.
- posted by Drew @ 6:14 PM  

 
Easy Come Easy Go
I got an email yesterday evening from a guy in Florida looking to buy some of my Hurricane t-shirts in bulk for his t-shirt store. Bulk orders from CafePress take a week and a half or longer to be produced, and the price isn't that great either. So after some research I found a printer in California that could get the order out in 5 days, and at a reasonable price. So this was beginning to look good. An order of 144 shirts is nice, but it's not going to make me a fortune. What was more encouraging was that if the guy liked the product, he was interested in getting them sold in other stores around Florida. Now that could really mean something. So after getting everything lined up with the printer, and arranging a way for the guy to pay online via credit card (through PayPal), I sent him an email (as he requested) with the final details of the order. And then I waited. Of course, there's not much time to wait, since the order needed to be placed today so be delivered by mid next week. So I called after a few hours and he told me that the power went out at his store, and wasn't expected to be back up for 2 more weeks. He asked the price and said it sounded good, and that he would call to order if the power came back up any sooner. So I could leave it at that, but I won't. I think I've got a good product at a reasonable price. Tomorrow I'll be calling t-shirt stores across Florida to see if anyone is interested. We'll see what happens...
- posted by Drew @ 3:15 PM