015: 3 Ways to Help Reduce Product Issues

Have you ever been stressed out about your subscription box product arriving on time? Honestly, it's been one of the biggest stressors of my business. Let's talk about how to handle it and how to prevent it on today's episode. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams. Hey there, I want to talk about product today and specifically getting shipments of product in for your subscription box business. Now, product is one of our main concerns. It's one of the huge main components of our subscription boxes. It comes in, we pack, we ship out, we're on tight deadlines. And what happens when that product doesn't arrive? What do we do? And I know that people listening right now have had that happen, and unfortunately it's been happening more often over the last year. I've rarely had that problem before. The worldwide pandemic has shown us how fragile our product pipeline is. So it started happening, I guess I would say around March or April last year, stuff started shutting down. It really wasn't It wasn't as intense then as it started to build over the summer and the fall, because product that we were getting in March and April had been produced way before the pandemic started to shut stuff down. So now we're on the latter end of some of that stuff, and it's, it's not getting any better. I had hoped it would be getting better right now, but it's still not. And unfortunately, it's a problem that all product-based businesses are facing right now. Just this week, I— our dishwasher went out and I was looking for a new dishwasher. So anytime I buy an appliance or something like that, I always look at reviews. So I'm looking at one of the top-rated dishwashers right now. I haven't bought a dishwasher in I don't know how long, and I find 2 or 3 that I'm finding really great reviews on everywhere. And so now I'm looking for those, and what I'm finding is they're unavailable, they're sold out. They're not in stock in the big box retailers that I would normally buy an appliance from. And so I thought, huh, that's weird. I can't find one of these dishwashers anywhere. So then the next morning I call a local, a local store that has appliances and I say, hey, do you have any of this particular dishwasher? And they said, no, we don't carry that brand. And I said, okay, well, can you tell me what brands you have in, you know, what you have in stock? And she said, well, honestly, Honestly, we have zero dishwashers in stock and we don't expect to get any before the middle of June. And I was like, what? You don't have any dishwashers in stock? How is that possible? And so then I started to look at other dishwashers to see if I just needed something. If I wasn't going to get one that was highly rated, I, I couldn't wait till June to get another dishwasher. I needed something. And so that little adventure started and I went to the big box stores and there is hardly anything. And I'm seeing it across the board. I'm seeing it in retail stores. They're still looking empty. There are still a lot of shelves bare. They're still pushing everything forward to the ends of the aisles. But if you look at the back of the aisles, they're still empty. I've been noticing it at car lots. As I drive by car lots, they're like 50% full. They're maybe a third full where those lots used to be completely full of cars. So we're seeing these issues all over, all across the board in every industry. I know in the last year I have struggled to get t-shirts. I mean, struggled. It feels like I'm just throwing a dart at a dartboard on what color shirt I'm going to get for the month for my subscription. And that's really caused me to pivot and adjust and rethink and replan and redesign a lot of the boxes over the past year. When I started thinking about ways that I have, one, dealt with this, I also started to think about ways to prevent it. And so I put together some of my top 3 ways to help you reduce the stress of getting product. And the first one is using multiple vendors. So there was a time when I wanted to use only one vendor. I thought it was easier, everything would be in one place. I wouldn't have to think about who and where stuff was coming from. It just was going to be awesome. But what happened was all my eggs were then in their basket and I was having late shipments. I was getting missing items and it was becoming unreliable. And I was grateful and lucky that I had built relationships with other vendors. These were people that I had bought stuff for, you know, for my store or for different things, not necessarily for my subscription box. But these were people that I had built relationships before that I could pick up the phone and call when I had some issues of the late shipments, of missing items. And so if I had only worked with one vendor for my boxes, I would have been in a really tough position. So one of the main things that I want you to think about is, can you use multiple multiple vendors for your boxes. Can you build those relationships so that you're not relying on one company, one brand, one business to be the supplier of all your things? Because you're going to put yourself in a, in a really rough position if you rely on only one person to supply your boxes, because when their product pipeline is on lockdown, that means you're on lockdown. You know what I mean? And so we've gotta We've got to put our assets in different places so that we combined can make things work. And what I'm, what I'm talking about is problem solving. So when I have a late shipment, when I have items that are missing, when there is a problem that comes up and you know what, the last 4 months I've had a problem every single month and it's frustrating. It's frustrating because I have planned these boxes. 6 to 8 months out. I have talked to these vendors 6 to 8 months out, and yet still here I am having issues getting my products. And so the thing for me, and my advice for you on this, is don't let it keep you paralyzed. When your vendor calls and says, you know what, Sarah, the items you are planning to have for next month they're not going to make it, they're, they're going to be late. You, you have to immediately go into problem-solving mode. And what I mean by that is, okay, what is the item? How do I replace it? How do I adjust my timelines? What are my options? And you really need to go through a list of options, like, can I push back my shipment? Will that affect my subscribers? Will it affect anything else? Will affect my workload? So can you push your timeline back? Can you replace this item with another item and still keep your theme and everything else intact? And so then you start to maybe do a brainstorming list of, okay, what vendor can I call? What vendor would fit in this box that maybe I didn't have? What item could this be? How could I make this happen? And so I quickly brainstorm a few things of, okay, this is who I need to call. And then it's just Making those contacts, figuring out what the best solution is. When someone tells me something may be late, I plan on it being late because the last thing that you want to do is wait for that day to come and it's still not there. And then it's even, it's even more late than you expected and you didn't have a backup plan. And so when something's going to be late, I instantly just try to shift it around. I try to make different arrangements because now I can't count on it. My timeline is going to be so quick, it's going to be so tight from when that product gets here to when I need to get it out that it's going to stress me out every minute of every day. And so I'm better off if I make a different game plan and I use that product for a different box. So what happens when you have to problem solve like this is that sometimes the solution is better than the original box Anyway, I saw this for myself back in September. I was having this custom kimono made to go with something in my box. And when I got the phone call that my shipment went missing over the ocean, in reality what happened was they never made the items. So that was their excuse that my shipment went missing. But what happened was I had to quickly pivot to a different item. So I knew what kind of space I had in my box. I knew that this item needed to be another clothing item, and I tried to brainstorm on what could I get quickly and efficiently and not blow my budget. And so we ended up switching to this gorgeous hoodie. It worked with most of the products in the box, and I got it in the same color, so all the theme and everything that I had planned for this box really stayed intact. And what happened was my subscribers loved this hoodie more than anything that I had given them. I ended up selling over 1,000 more hoodies in different styles after this box went out because they loved it so much. And the funny thing is, is I don't think they would have loved that kimono the way they love this hoodie. Worked out in my favor. It typically does. So I don't want you to get caught up on, oh, my whole box is blown because I don't have this one product. How can you make it the same? How can you make the box better by pivoting the product that you're putting in the box? My second way to help you reduce product stress is working on multiple boxes at a time. If you can get ahead of things and be proactive, that's what we want to do. I just told you that I work 6 to 8 months out. So if I'm working 6 to 8 months out at a time, I will typically have some of the product in for different boxes, even though I don't need it until the month before. But I will have product in, so if something happens, I'm able to switch boxes. An example for this is I was working on my spring stuff, so I'm working through my boxes. I've ordered the stuff 6 months ahead of time. Something from my April box— this was January— had already come in. Great, it's already here. I don't have to worry about it. I love when stuff comes early because it just relieves stress on my part. The rest of the April box was not here yet, but it didn't matter because this was January. I had plenty of time to get it. Now it's the week before February and my February stuff is still not here, and I get a message from my vendor that says, hey, your February stuff is still overseas, it hasn't even left yet. And I'm like, what, what do you mean? I ordered this back in July. How has it not left yet at the end of January? That's a whole nother conversation, but I quickly had to go into problem-solving mode, and the major issue was I only had 1 week until I would need the product. And so I worked with— it was one of those things— I worked with other vendors. So I got on the phone and I called some of my other vendors. We tried to put some stuff together, but for me, I need so much product because I have so many subscribers that it's, it's hard to find that much product in stock that matches all in a week before that I I need it. And so I'm grateful for these people that work with me. I'm grateful that they helped me. But ultimately what I ended up doing is taking that one item that I already had here from my April box, shifting it to February. I got some new accessories to go with it, and then I moved the February box to April because it was delayed considerably. And so if you're working on multiple boxes at a time, you have the ability to shift. I wasn't having to shift something from fall to spring. I wasn't having to shift something out of season. But because I was working on multiple boxes at a time, I had some of the product here and I was able to shift things around where it ended up being really great anyway. So work on multiple boxes at a time, get stuff here as they have it in. And that comes to number 3. Make sure your deadline is earlier than the actual deadline. So let's talk about BC, before COVID That's what I call it, BC. Um, and so before COVID I could easily have items arrive 2 weeks before I needed them, um, and give myself that 2-week buffer in case something happened and something was delayed. It was never really delayed more than a couple of days, so that 2-week buffer always always worked and I never had issues with it. Now, AC after COVID, um, I need a 30-day buffer. And so right now I'm working to get stuff in. My deadline is now 30 days before I actually need it. So when I give someone a deadline of when I need something, it's actually 30 days before I need it because it's taking that long sometimes. To get it. And it's, it's for a lot of reasons, like manufacturing is super behind. Um, a lot of the manufacturing plants that I have used no longer exist. They're behind. They can't keep up with the demand because so many factories have closed. Shipping is just a hot mess, like all over the world. Shipping in the US is a mess. Shipping international is a mess. And so if something's ready, it may not be able to be shipped to you for another 30 days, even after it's been manufactured. So you've got to create this buffer so that you don't have all this unpredictability in your business where you don't know when stuff is going to show up. It's not like we just— when it shows up, we put it on our website and we sell it. It's not like that. We've got to have a certain amount of products at certain times and to hit our deadline so that we can fulfill our orders and continue on. And that is stressful when you can't rely on your product showing up. So I want you to use these 3 ways to help you reduce that stress because it looks like we might be navigating this product uncertainty for a little bit longer. So number 1, I want you to use multiple vendors, build relationships with multiple multiple vendors. And a relationship is not just talking with someone. They need to see a buyer history. They need to know you. They need to know that you are, you know, a strong business. So I want you to buy from multiple people. That could be for your online shop, that could be for your store. But when I call up somebody and say, I need 1,000 pieces of this, they gotta know that that's not a joke and that I have bought in quantities like that before and that I'm reliable, you know, as a customer. For that, that order. So use multiple vendors. Number 2, work on multiple boxes at a time. Work out as far as you can. Keep working on where that product is all the time and making sure it's coming. Work on multiple boxes at a time. Number 3, make sure your deadline is earlier than the actual deadline. So don't tell them when you actually need it. Tell them you need it 30 days before you do. That's going to keep things coming and less stress and less worry on you. It's not if it's going to happen to you, but it's when. And if this hasn't happened to you yet, just know that it could and it's not the end of the world. Be prepared, be proactive, and ultimately be transparent. I've had to tell my customers, hey, we're going to be a week late this month. The product's coming, it's on its way, things have happened. But I don't want to show up and have to tell them that every month. I don't want to disappoint them every month. I am transparent when that happens, but I'm also proactive by trying to get things here earlier and work ahead of things too. So when it happens, be transparent. Your customers are going to understand. They're dealing with the same things when they walk into Target. They can't find anything. I bought furniture in October that I still don't have yet. And so they understand what's happening and they are going to give you more grace if you show up and tell them and be transparent than trying to hide it. So that's my advice for you. Don't let it stress you out. Know that it's very likely it could happen to you. It's how you handle it. It's how you can problem solve that's going to make or break the month for you. Make sure you subscribe to the Launch Your Box podcast. I'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review it. Let me know which episode is your favorite so far. Don't forget to join me next week right here.