This weekend has been a rough weekend which should never have been the case if we had reliable staff. This order should have been completed yesterday yet we found ourselves locking up tonight at 7.30 pm. The order is basically complete with roughly another 54 bags required tomorrow. This is a tight time line which we will make just, by an hour or two.
The problem these delays create is a knock on effect that simply wastes money eating into the profits. These all have to be delivered by the 27th and now means we have to rely on a courier company even for local deliveries. This part of the order we normally do ourselves and where some of the savings happen.
If I had to estimate I would guess over the last few days we have thrown away $2K. This is frustrating, but more importantly this is another lesson well learned making sure the staff you have are up to the task. This cannot happen again so the hope is the unemployed family members who turned up today will step up.
This week is a very busy week with Black Friday kicking off the festive season ad there is no let up till the New Year. We already know we are working next weekend as we will have drop shipping orders that need delivering from Black Friday. The online platforms will be pumping and we have to fulfil all of these orders within 48 hours.
Throw in the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) who certify your products happening on Thursday this week. They will be double checking everything so in a way getting rid of the unreliable staff is actually a blessing. If they could not cope now I guess they would have abandoned their work over the coming weeks.
For this period I have a thumb suck of requiring 100 punch bags of each size, but no one really knows as this is the first time we are doing this. We could be thrown to the wolves and why once this order is completed we need to just continue. I am not complaining as having this business was the aim from as far back as 5 years ago. Now we have this we need to make sure we keep it by fulfilling everyone's needs.
I already have the various orders for next month which is already more than what we have made this month and never could have imagined so many of these bags are sold each month. We have another brand also requiring supply this month so a crazy month for sure coming up. The 200 target which was penciled in for later next year may be achieved this year. Is the market that big as I honestly don't know and in the back of my mind I am expecting a quiet month at some point which I would actually welcome. I need to get ahead and at the moment this is becoming less likely and hate the stress and pressure of deadlines. This month we went down to the wire and this should be a fun period being so busy.
