Just finished a couple hours slinging dye down in my basement la-bor-a-tor-ee . . . washed out a small batch that'll be ready to go to the Boutique tomorrow - a couple of real nice long sleeve rainbowy spirals and side spirals, a REAL nice Ripple V in either a 2 or 3X, a SYF Flag for our vending tent, and a couple other pieces.
What prompts me to write, tonight, though, is a little bit of pride and some tooting of my own horn. I have a custom order for an XL Shamrock - she liked some of my green shamrocks on purple shirts, and gave me a little freedom to 'just make her a nice green and purple shamrock shirt'. So I made three variations. I do this a lot with custom orders, if I possibly can, and if I think I can sell the shirts the customer doesn't pick. These unchosen shamrocks will go, for sure, and my customer is way more likely to get a shirt they absolutely love, which makes us both happy. Sometimes they pick up one of the other choices for a friend, which makes me happy, and makes their friend happy. Everybody is just flippin happy! And I have to say that I have a particular feeling that these particular shirts will be particularly nice . . . can't wait to pull them apart and rinse them up tomorrow or Saturday. If I get around to it, I'll post pics in a future blog installment.
I can think of dozens of times I've done this. I had an order for about 15 pairs of socks to match a softball team's uniforms - I made 20 pairs, plus a few t-shirts in the same colors. The customer bought everything I made, so there were some happy fans showing their team's colors at the games, too! I had an order for about 20 matching rainbow spiral t-shirts for a family reunion. I made about 25. That customer didn't pick up the extras, but we put them all on happy customers within a few months, anyways.
We don't charge extra and we usually don't take money up front for custom orders, unless it's some odd request that I don't think I could sell if the customer didn't buy it after I made it. I've been burned a couple of times doing business this way, but the successes far outnumber the abandoned orders, and I can only think of one shirt I've been stuck with that hasn't sold. I've been thinking about adding a couple bucks for a custom request and about taking at least a small deposit - but for now at least, I like the way we do this.
Yeah, I'm bragging a bit, but I want people to know how we like to do business, and how your smile makes me smile, and is as valuable and rewarding to us as the sale of the tie dye. Check us out at our downtown New Castle, PA Boutique, or online at http://www.lovelightboutique.com/.
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