Monday 11 August 2014

Keeping stock


In my revamp I have another problem, I have so much inventory from when I began making my jewelry as a hobby, half of the problem is that I don't know what some of the beads or stones are called and the other half is I don't know what I paid for it.

To find out what the things are I used an online bead shop called "Fusion Beads", but this is taking time as I have to page through their enormous inventory!
These glass beads, I have listed as trinket beads because the name I know them as is a registered name and can't be used.
A lot of these bead strings also have no prices on them, there are two main shops where I buy my beads, one has a higher quality of product and most of their strings have prices on, but even their pendants don't always have a price on, the other shop has no prices on anything, for example my colored skull beads, there was a little sticker on the wall above the peg with the price but that's it. There is just a hand written sign that says unmarked packets are R 10 ($0.95 or £0.55) and since I have been so lax in keeping an inventory and I have opened and discarded the packets, I have no idea which where from R 10 and which were more expensive. Some R 10 packets had 2 pieces in and some had 4 or even 8. I an going to have to leave my purse and cards at home and spend about a day wandering up and down the isles of both shops with a note book, pen and camera!
Then how do I work out the cost of a seed bead as I buy them in a 500 gm packet!
At least I remember the price of the watch faces I use, but I have some pendant watches that I haven't used yet and I can't remember those!

I have started my inventory list with completed jewelry, and what I have done is put a picture of the item in the first column and then a description, and because want to sell in South Africa as well as on Etsy and Misi I have 3 price columns one for rands, one for dollars and one for pounds and the last column is the shipping fee. This is time consuming, but I think in the end it will be worth it.

To work out my shipping fee I got a book from the South African Postal Services (SAPS) and I use a kitchen scale to work out the weight of the item I want to mail, this includes the box it will be mailed in and the padded envelope, I have found that so far using the SAPS I have not encountered any problems, it takes 10 working days to reach it's destination, (as long as they are not on strike!) If someone wants their order as a speed delivery I have to take the parcel in get a price email the client and then go back to mail the item, this sometimes means that the postage is double and can then be more expensive than the item itself! All my items are mailed with a tracking number. I looked at courier companies and nearly passed out in shock, and item that I can overnight from SAPS for R 300 ($30 or £16.70) costs over R 1000 ($94 or £55) normal postage rates is on average R 100 - R 120 ($100 or £5.60), this makes a big difference when I have to set a price.
 One of the items lacking in my inventory is the boxes and the envelopes to  mail the items in, I usually have to go and buy when I get an order, not the most efficient method as I can't always get the box I want, also because the boxes are not made for Adiesdesigns specifically I often have to get them in whatever color is available. Once I have gotten properly set up it is an item that I would like to have custom made with my shop name printed on.
This my order waiting to be mailed to the customer in England.


Hindsight is always 20/20. How I wish I could wave a magic wand and my inventory would be all complete!




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