Getting Organized

Staying Organized

Being organized is essential in any business but it’s even more essential when you are running a business part-time while holding down a full time job. The last thing you want is to spend hours of wasting time looking for items you know you’ve bought but can’t find. As my sales have increased over the months i have had to increase my organizational skills. I could quiet easily manage my stock inventory by keeping it in boxes in my office.
As sales increased and i increased the diversity of my stock this system soon fell down. I had to invest in a racking system which I installed in my office. This enabled me to place each stock item nice and neatly in it’s own box. I had restored order to my business and everything was running smoothly. Standing still however is not a part of my long term plan. Increasing my stock variation is essential to my plans for growth so it was inevitable that I would have to impinge on my newly ordered system.
I have reached that point now. My racking storage system is looking very dishevelled. Where once there was only one product in each box on the rack now there is three or four different products. This is causing me problems when it comes to locating stock and keeping a check on the stock level.
So I’m looking to invest in more racking to accommodate the additional stock. I will have to do this sooner rather than later. Fortunately there are plenty of very good cheap racking systems available that are suitable for a home business. EBay has a good selection and many of the manufacturers put their stuff on eBay. So I’m looking to invest in some good racking to increase my storage capacity.
This will get me back into an ordered state and keep the business organized. As I plan to keep increasing my stock I’m going to have to keep thinking ahead about where to store it. This is why every time I increase my stock level I consolidate my position, get used to the increasing orders, make sure I can cope easy enough before moving on to the next level. I want to avoid a scenario where I have tons of stock listed with no ordered system to cope with demand when it arrives. So back to trying to create some order.
Till next time…..

Finding A supplier

I chose to sell art products because I have an interest in painting and have always enjoyed messing about in the creative sphere. After a hard days work it’s always nice to unwind and I find painting, even though I’m very bad at it, to be relaxing. I thought if I were going to set up a business it would be better if I sold products I had some knowledge about. Although I recognise that this is not essential to setting up a business. You can soon educate yourself about the merits of any product.

Finding the right supplier was quiet difficult. If you search the internet by googling wholesale sites for whatever product you are looking for it soon becomes clear that most so-called wholesale sites are really retail masqarading as wholesale. I’d say the majority of the so-called wholesale sites on the net are retail sites.

From my experience, wholesalers don’t advertise themselves on the net, and even if they do they don’t have on-line shopping carts. So finding a true wholesaler is quiet challenging and requires some heavy research and creative thinking. Once I found my first real wholesaler, I applied for a catalogue and waited expectantly for it to arrive. The wholesaler called me and told me that he would deliver it within a few days.

I was eagerly looking forward to the catalogue arriving, envisaging hundreds of products at low prices so I could make a good mar-up on them. The catalogue arrived one Wednesday and as soon as I arrived home from work I opened it and sat down to read it. The products were great, the range of products large, it seemed perfect until I looked at the prices.

Now I know wholesalers don’t give things away but the prices this wholesaler were charging were ridiculous. A ten-minute search on the net revealed that I could buy the same items cheaper from on-line retail stores. As an example one product they were advertising at wholesale prices was only 7 pence below the retail price. Seven pence return on a £5.00 investment was not what I was looking for.

The other products were all priced similar. The scope for mark-up was limited. I don’t know who used this wholesaler but I soon decided that I wouldn’t be. So it was back to researching. I soon found another one. I phoned up and explained what I was doing and they were happy to send me a catalogue. I knew that I was onto a winner this time when the sales executive I spoke to told me wholesale discounts ranged from 35% to 50% with monthly offers that went up to 70%.

Again, I waited eagerly for the catalogue to arrive. When it did and I glanced through it I knew I had found a true wholesaler. The prices were better than I expected leaving plenty of scope for a decent mark-up. I was in business and I immediately drafted my first order, which arrived very quickly. The crucial part of my business was now ready to launch. I had established a good supply. Over the coming months, I would need to find other suppliers but for the time being, I had the stock to begin trading.

Finding the right wholesaler is the first part of setting up a business. It does take a little researching and you may end up going down some dead ends but perseverance usually pays off in the end. Remember a genuine wholesaler will want to sell to you, after all they are in business to sell. Just because you are just starting trading, it doesn’t mean that you have to accept anything that is put in front of you. If the prices aren’t right then move off and find someone else.

Years Of Corruption And Mismanagement

Recent events in the stock market have proved what most of us suspected all along. That the whole economic system of this country has been run by greedy, selfish, incompetent, corrupt and ethic less people, who over the last twenty years have been filling their pockets with other people’s money on the grounds that they possessed some magical formula to make rain. Today they are exposed as the incompetent, irresponsible mediocrities they are.

As usual though, they have walked away with their ill-gotton gains while the rest of us are left to pick up the bill, and what a bill it will prove to be. Our pensions are going to the wall, our savings will be taxed even more to pay for the feckless and our hopes of a half decent retirement are evaporating by the day.

I can always remember an interview with Margret Thatcher when she was prime minister. The interviewer was questioning the wisdom of removing the cap on how much plc directors could pay themselves. The argument was that the cap on director’s wages in plc companies was discouraging the brightest and the best business men from taking jobs in British PLC companies. By removing the cap on director’s wages these wonder men would come flocking to British PLC companies and use their super powers to propel the companies to world-wide dominance securing the jobs of the workers.

When the interviewer suggested that they may abuse the system and pay themselves huge incomes that they didn’t deserve. Mrs Thatcher, in her best fake indignant voice said something like “these are professional people, they wouldn’t do that.” Within months of the cap been removed stories of excessive director’s pay began to leak out as these “professional people” began to fill their pockets with money they did not deserve.

The feeding frenzy continued for twenty years with ever more excessive payouts to chairmen for failure, mind boggling sums of money were stolen by these barons from PLC companies. No thought was given to the working people who had over the years built these companies up. They were expendable on the new alter of globalism. Their wages forced down deliberately by mass immigration approved by all the political class.

Now, after years of corruption, greed and incompetence the whole thing is collapsing around our ears. The people responsible have fled with their sacks of money to their country houses or overseas properties, so they won’t have to face the consequences of their greed and corruption. Meanwhile the people who have spent their lives working and saving are left standing in the road while their lives collapse around them. The very same people who will be hammered for tax to clear the mess up.