As you all know, most of my vendors like to use faxing as a primary means of communication, and after working in this industry for a year-and-a-half it’s apparent that not much has changed– this industry is lagging at least 10 years. In fact, I received an exhuberant email today from my leather sales rep who wrote me, “Sorry I missed your e-mail yesterday. We all have direct e-mail now, it’s great!” For over a year I had been emailing her at an address she had shared with all of the other sales reps. Can you believe that?! It’s 2010 and she’s worked at this company for a gajillion years and she was sharing an email address with other people!
This week I had the fortune of being contacted by another laptop bag designer based in NYC. He had come across my blog and offered to give me some advice about starting a laptop bag business. We had a lengthy discussion and I really got a lot out of the conversation. I am really thankful that there are nice people in this industry that are willing to give me a few pointers. He gave me a lot to think about.
I just received word this afternoon that my photographer will be ready to share the photos from the shoot tomorrow. I can’t wait to see how they turned out. From the photos I saw on his computer screen, I think I’ll be pleased with the photo selects. I’m pretty darn excited!
It’s supper time and I’m starving. Gotta go! See you later, alligator.
Production update: my manufacturer has been cutting the pieces of my bags this week. He said the next shipment of bags will go out the 19th. This means that I might actually be able to launch by the end of the month! In the meantime I am still waiting on the photoshoot pictures, my guess is I won’t get those till end of the week. I can wait to see how those photos look in the context of the website.
I have to say, I really dislike UPS now. After they held the misrouted package at the downtown location for a week, I had to call the general number multiple times to ask them to contact the local office to get the package back on a truck for a final delivery to me. And what’s ironic is that the mill decided to recut the fabric swatches and send a new shipment to me, and that new package got to me one day faster than the misrouted one. Damn you UPS–are you in cahoots with my lazy manufacturer?!
Time to run. See you manana!
The photoshoot wrapped up on Friday, and the shots turned out great. I’m now waiting for the photographer to sift through the hundreds of shots and send me his top picks. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the photoshoot:
It's like the Oscars red carpet!
Sorry the picture is teeny tiny– that was partially intentional. I didn’t want the grand reveal of my bags to be a crappy amateur photo taken from an iPhone! At least there is still some degree of mystery about what the bags look like. You may be wondering how the tote bag handles are floating in space. We used fishing wire! Hollywood magic!
My web programmer has recommended that I use Paypal’s Website Payment Pro. At first I was against using Paypal because I didn’t like that the credit card payments took you off the shopping site, but it looks like Paypal now has an option where the backend payment system is seamless and doesn’t take you to a separate payment page. It’s not free, but the cost is only $30/month. I’ll try this for a few months, and if it sucks I will be sure to blog about it. If anyone has had any experience using Website Payment Pro, good or bad, let me know!
I’ve had some luck talking to some manufacturers, so I am feeling much better about my production situation. I have a conference call tomorrow morning with my manufacturer, and I am hoping that he doesn’t have any more excuses and can get these bags delivered to me within 2 weeks.
Some other good news: I’ve finally ordered the missing parts for the purse organizers! These materials should arrive by next Monday. It looks like I may get that production started soon, which is a relief.
It’s quittin’ time, and I am hungry. I am pretty sure the baby’s kicking means she wants some Thin Mint cookies and Samoas. Thanks for stopping by!
