Well, it’s not exactly a huge change…just that instead of taking orders and knitting to customer specifications, I’ve decided to sell ready-made shawls. There were a number of factors influencing this decision; two of which were mainly related to time and payment.

Time
You see, for the past few months, I’ve been taking orders and knitting like a machine. To top things off, some months are really crazy and while I do receive orders ahead of their due date, I have to knit those that are needed first NOT ordered first, which made it confusing for some of my customers.

To make matters worse, I’m juggling work and wedding preparations. For the past few months, I’ve been able to make shawls under very very short notice – one week is the record (something which I don’t intend to break) – and with the new workload at the office together with the dwindling amount of time I have for preparation for the wedding and migration, I just can’t cut it anymore. It’s killing me!!!!!!! =.= So rather than upset my customer AND myself, I’ve decided to just stop the current practice and sell the end-product instead. Easier for everyone.

Payment
I must say that I’ve been naive to think that I could get away with working a small business on the basis of trust alone. I take the order, knit the shawl, mail it and only then do people pay me – usually COD or bank transfer.

While in general, payment has been smooth sailing, I want to minimize the risk of bugging my customers for payment for the finished AND received shawls. It’s very stressful and unpleasant for everyone – I don’t like bothering people constantly through emails, SMS and etc.

Demanding for payment first before delivery with the current system is hard because there is nothing for my customers to go on. But at the rate I’m going, I foresee myself being taken advantage of, which to me, is hardly pleasant. This new solution appears to be a better option – buy, pay and I’ll mail you. Somewhat like buying on Ebay. Not exactly that business friendly but it beats begging for payment for week after week.

…

So basically, the shop will be closed till after next year…by which time, I’ll have some shawls made and ready for sale. I’ll also be working on putting in some applications for the storefront and hopefully will have something decent in place once it’s open again.