Clutch-Me.Com

Etsy shop update

I wanted to update all of you on what’s happening with the shop, the inventory, and the overall shop transition.

The shop and transition:

As all of you have known, Y has been training with me to take over the packaging and shipping of your orders.  She was here in New Jersey for 3 weeks learning and working. She has been back to her home in Florida for the past 3 weeks getting her office space set up to ship your orders.  Here’s a pic of her studio!

Yes, even our cubbies are green and brown!

With the shop transition happening, I’ve been drawing down on the inventory and shipping orders as per usual from my home in New Jersey while Y has been setting up her office.  This helps in 2 ways:

1.  ZERO disruption to shipping your orders.  There is no OFF day when we do not ship.  We maintain the same Monday – Saturday noon schedule to ship out your orders.  🙂

2.  It minimizes the shipping cost of transferring my inventory to Florida.  Shipping heavy frames is extremely costly!

In addition, many of you took advantage of the great “make good” sale when I ran out of antique brass frames so that helped to draw down some inventory as well.  (It was the one with free nickel-free chains with the same order of frames with loops.)  I am sorry that I cannot extend that offer past the 2 weeks it was on sale.  I hope you all take advantage of sales when they happen.  You are always the first to know here on my blog.

Which leads me to fill you in about the antique brass frames.

First, thank you for your patience.  Those of you who have come to love my antique brass frames and depend on the quality, I hate to say that I have been unable to have a manufacturer who can provide a good finish that I need and prefer.

Y worked with 3 companies in Florida in the past several weeks, and unfortunately, they were charging more than what I can (or want) to sell them for.  They were charging 4 times what my guy in the Mid West was charging!

My antique brass coating is a very labor-intensive process.  It is not just one coat but contains 2 different coats whose application takes longer to perfect.  The second coat gives it some “antiquing” in spots.  And if it’s not done right … it can look really bad.

So I am having samples made by 2 more manufacturers right now and hopefully their batches will be what I’m looking for.  They will be made with the same Perfect Fit 6(TM) u-channel that I designed and the kisslock balls will be solid like before.

Antique br*ss has become a pain in the *ss ... 🙂 haha

So thank you, wholeheartedly, for those who sent convos letting me know that you’ll “wait for (my) frames”.  I urge you to do what is best for your customers, though I truly appreciate your loyalty.  This unfortunate set of circumstances has been beyond my control and both Y and I have been working really hard (and logging miles) to find the right manufacturing partner.

Another update:  Gutermann glue is in!!  My importing costs on this doubled so I will need to raise the prices.  That’s why they have not been re-listed.

I do want to let you know that the price of it will also increase in May — by the manufacturer. So the price of it worldwide will increase.  But I feel they can command the price since it’s such an integral part of making clutches.  It’s d*mn good glue!

However, I’ve been asked to test a new glue made my another manufacturer and submit my feedback.  This glue costs less than Gutermann glue but I’ve not worked with it.  The only reason I would switch is if this new adhesive has better adhesion properties.  That’s the utmost importance!

I’ll keep you guys in the loop as I experiment with it next week.

BUT if you buy glue with my fine frames the price of the glue will be cheaper than buying the glue alone.  I will offer a bundled listing of glue and frames.  These new listings will go up by this weekend so look for it.

1 tube of glue will come bundled with 5 frames.

Well, it’s almost midnight.  I hope you all had a wonderful President’s Day!

February 22, 2011 - Posted by Thy K | WhileBabyNaps General Updates | antique brass, Gutermann glue