I have made some quite large mistakes across my 9+ years in business, and I thought it would be fun (or atleast educational) to share some of those stories with you and what I learnt!
I threw out perfectly good inventory by mistake
I could have cried when I threw out 200 perfectly good bookmarks along with a bunch of unusable misprints (and yes by threw out I ofc mean recycled!). Sadly the recycling had been picked up by the time I realised, so I had to reorder them. A sad day and a frustrating waste, but I will triple check the recycling bin forever now!
I over ordered seasonal products
I really over ordered in 2023 for 2024 calendars/wall planners. It was my first time with one of the designs, and first time getting wall planners manufactured - and I didn't factor in how long I would have my online shop closed for in 2023 when I placed my orders based on previous year sales. I thankfully still covered costs so it wasn't a total loss, but I really think it was an oops and I am lucky that I don't rely on business profits for bills/food (in case you didn't know, The Curious Cactus is my part time business outside my fulltime role in sustainability).
I ran out of time to deliver a wholesale order before a holiday
One very late night and expensive next day signed for delivery later it arrived with my stockist safely, but it was less than ideal and the postage took a dent into my profit margins.
I ran out of mailers (many times)
This has happened too many times. I have gotten better, but right before Christmas I had to buy more A4 mailers from the post office at 10x the cost of my online supplier as I didn't have time to wait to restock! I do reuse postal packaging I receive, but annoyingly I had nothing waiting in the wings in this size!
I packaged around 50 orders wrong!!
Luckily caught before we posted, my bf was reading orders out to me and we only realised about 50 orders in that when he said 'design 2' I was packing what was actually 'design 3' and vice versa.
And along with these I have of course done the standard...
- sent the wrong item/design to someone
- completely missed an item when order packing
- sent too many of one item to a stockist
- printed double sided printing upside down
- missed emails/Etsy messages about orders
- cut products in the wrong dimensions accidentally
- ran out of printer ink late at night with no backup
- ordered the wrong quantity of a product (too many or not enough)
- sold something I was sold out of
- misspelled a customers name (only once! I am so careful about this)
And probably loads more! What is small business life without some chaos??!!