Wednesday 17 February 2010

Wednesday in the studio…


We have had a number of new trade stockist orders this month, many of which are follow-ups from the Scottish Trade Fair; one order arrived on Sunday was paid for Tuesday and asked if we could dispatch that day (holidays/Cumbria &c)! We weren’t able to as we had other commitments but it has been dispatched today, how’s that for service? Quick turn-around of orders is one of the key aspects of our keeping the customer satisfied policy.

The Sumptuosity fairies are flying with the embroidery, we’re very much up-to-date with our trade orders at the moment, apart from Ruth with her Kelmscott & (huge) Shakespeare orders; Sophie and Alanna will soon be embroidering to fill the stock boxes rather than for orders. It feels strange since last month was so very busy with trade order emails pinging on the computer two & 3 times a day, the emails are a little slower this month (especially after Valentines day); it all evens out over time, though it’s very easy to start to get a little concerned when you go a day without a stockist trade order (which we have today) until this very second when the email pings with an order from our stockist on the Wirral; now the world’s a good and happy place.

Sophie has an order on the go at the moment with forty Alice in Wonderland mirrors and 50 Alice in Wonderland rectangular brooches, phew! Another stockist emailed today wanting ‘hi-res’ images of our Alice in Wonderland mirrors for a national newspaper article! Anyone would think there was an Alice in Wonderland film due out or something!

Customers have been in & out of the studio on a regular basis today, it’s the Viking Festival here in York it’s quite surreal to be looking out of the window and see a group of Vikings walking by (what is the collective noun for Vikings – comments please) and if we get any of them in the studio shop I promise I’ll take a photograph and publish it on the site!

Today’s postal mail included a notice from HMRC about the 2010 Employer Annual Returns today; every time we receive mail from HMRC we automatically perceive it’s going to be a problem… Even before we open the envelope, we really have to get out of that frame of mind as I keep hearing “Tax doesn’t have to be taxing!”

Any one who has a business telephone number will agree with me on this – we don’t half get a mass of time wasting telephone calls each day: Titan Telecom, Commercial Power (currently the biggest culprits) and RTA (asking if we’d like to sell our business)! Does any helpful soul have any suggestions how we can stop some of these calls? We must get in excess of ten per day; does anyone else suffer this problem!

All-in-all a busy and fruitful day; do read Ruth’s blog about her invite to the opening of the NTU lace archive, we had a great time yesterday evening and I’m so very proud of her and her achievements.

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