2024 Volume 4

Hi Friends,

I’m getting this one in under the February wire! Here’s an inside look at where I’m at professionally at the moment, in real time as a business owner. :)

What I’m Up Against

One of the age old challenges of owning a retail business is inventory management. It’s so hard to know how much of a product to order at a time. On one hand, you never want to be sitting on too much inventory because if too much capital is sitting on the shelf, it’s hard to keep the business moving forward. On the other hand, if you don’t have enough of a product you could be losing out on sales, also making it hard to move the business forward. Striking the right balance is constantly a work in progress.

I’m feeling that tension in a big way right now. We have new crocodile embossed leather coming out in March in our Sling Bag, Big Sling, and Tote Bag. The million dollar question is - how many do we make? And since those will be taking priority in production, how long do we let other colors stay out of stock?

So far my solution to this challenge has been to create a waitlist. When someone signs up

for the waitlist, it doesn’t commit them to purchasing, but just shows interest. Then I take that waitlist and estimate how many we will sell through in a first batch. Experience has shown that about 20-25% of the waitlist will end up purchasing. If the sell through rate is quicker than expected or if there is a ton more interest, we can always do a second batch. This system has helped me operate on little to no waste/overstock and a happy byproduct is that customers know they need to act fast when new products come out.

The truth is, it’s hard to predict customer behavior, even with this system. So I’m hoping to have struck the right balance with our quantities when the pre-order opens next week!

What I’m Celebrating

I just got back from visiting my Abby Alley partners in Kenya, which is always worth celebrating in and of itself, but I have a couple special reasons to celebrate this trip.

First, I invited two women to come with me: Natalie Borton and Conni Jespersen. And they said yes! Both women have been longtime supporters of Abby Alley and with collaborations in mind, I thought it was a great opportunity for us all to travel together. I was 90% so excited for this opportunity to share my love for Kenya with Natalie and Conni, but if I’m honest, I was 10% nervous. Would they love it? What will they think of the workshops? What if things don’t go as planned? Will we travel well together?