the problem of inventory. {and being a small boutique business}.

hello! good morning and happy mondee my friends!

you're probably wondering, what the heck is that disaster in photos above? WELL, it's my inventory stash and my workspace. yeah. not going on pinterest.

but it's real, and it's a somewhat organized mess because i am merrily busy all the time with orders. {thank you thank you my beloved customers!}. i'm lucky too, because we have an upstairs {or upladder!} loft where i can keep a lot of clothes and fabrics without taking over our entire studio apartment. ok let's be honest, i do take over our entire apartment. good thing patrick doesn't mind messiness!

so, in a way, i'm writing this post to make sense of my business to myself and to you, if you buy purusha, or if you're thinking about buying purusha. i ponder about inventory A LOT. i think, i wish i had clothing made and waiting whenever a customer buys. i feel kinda terrible each time a customer buys something from me on my site or etsy, and i have to tell them the wait is 3-4 weeks. i can only make about 20 orders a week. arrghhhh!!!! it's just not ideal is it? until an order is placed, most likely the piece of clothing doesn't even exist yet. and it can't because it's just me and nadya. {nadya is my seamstress}. i can't have sizes S-XL {in my sizes i call this 1-4. i don't like people being called small or large. that's another blog post in itself. AND not to mention XS or XXL or XXXL. i can't even stock the "normal" sizes. whatever that means} in 82 different styles of clothing. 1. because even if i have 1 of each size in all items, a lot of people could buy the same size of one item, while one size no one buys. then i just have inventory sitting. wasting space and money. 2. there is no way for me to know what item people will be loving and want to buy a lot of. and 3. i don't have enough orders for it to make sense to have a fully stocked store. don't get me wrong, purusha is doing great. but it's still a completely small, very small, cockroach of a business {as kevin would say on shark tank}.

with my website i've tried to do the whole inventory thing. i thought, HEY! i'll make the website have inventory and see if people buy more from there. there will be less clothing, but people won't have to wait! guess what? no one cared. lol. most of the time customers don't even read those little details. {that's ok customers btw. i still love you.} i still got people buying more from etsy than the site, but of course i realized this is partially because etsy is my main squeeze. i list all my new stuff there and work harder on it than my site because i get a lot more traffic there. i know i need to work on my site more though. eventually i plan on leaving etsy. another problem with having inventory on the site was some stuff just doesn't sell. i put up some really cute stuff, clothes i thought were really f-in sweet, that no one has bought. just last week i had to put them on sale. i can't handle clothes sitting lifeless in the store for more than a month or so. they've gotta go. so even when i do create inventory, there's no way to know if customers will want it. and then i'm stuck with 6 pairs of pretty pants that i have to mark down in price. dumb.

and like i said, it's all because my business is a baby. if i had a bigger base and more people knew purusha existed, i might be able to design and make 12 pairs of something and sell out no problem. and that's still thinking really small. can you even imagine making like 1000 pairs?! AH! my dream.

patrick is always really great in helping me to see where purusha is. and he compares my business a lot to small boutique guitar brands. like froggy bottom guitars made in vermont. they have a wait time of up to 1 year. 1 year!!! because they have different styles of guitars, and can't just have them all made and waiting. it makes more sense to make the guitar when the order is received for it. unlike gibson or fender, they are so big that you don't have to wait for anything. and it's a trade off. with the wait you receive something handmade and very special that takes time, and you support a small business. without the wait you receive something that's also awesome, but made in a factory and you're just one order in hundreds of thousands with the same guitar as everyone else. there's a customer for each too.

just like there is a customer for purusha. you guys, i don't like making you wait. at all. but where i am, it just has to be. i will most definitely continue to adapt as my purusha grows, but i can't be gibson yet. trust me, i wanna be!, but one step at a time. little by little. i'll get there.

so thank you for sticking with me and nadya and purusha. i love you all and am so grateful you are on the journey with me. i promise to always give you an incredible product made with love, time, and the utmost gratitude for your business. xoxo.