What's up with your inventory?! (Or, A Song of Restock and Fire)
What's up with your inventory?! (Or, A Song of Restock and Fire)
We get this question frequently, and we certainly understand why it's frustrating for you, the customer, to come to our page and not be able to buy the things you need.
Here's a little bit about the process we go through to get wigs to you, and a few of the difficulties we face that we're trying hard to fix.
Why does it take so long to get your restocks in?
Since all our wigs are handmade (and the lace are hand tied), they take some time to produce. Our factory is one we've been working with for almost ten years now, and they have an entire department devoted to creating our items! From the moment we place an order, it takes around 45 days to create the full order and another 10-15 for the order to make its way here from our factory. If it's February or March, our restock time is bumped up to 80+ days because our factory goes on vacation for all of February, and no wigs are made in that time. We try to anticipate for Katsucon and other events as best we can, but there's invariably always something that might sell out quicker than usual, or something that suddenly becomes popular that wasn't ordered in time, which means it could be April before we can get it back in our warehouse.
Why don't you order the items earlier so you don't run out of stock?
We do order our items early, actually! However, due to the extended period of time it takes to craft the wigs, any number of things can happen. A whole new show can come out and get crazy popular in a matter of days, but we still have to wait to have the items made. During that time there's unfortunately very little we can do to speed things up or make the process faster.
Why don't you order more of all wigs so you don't go out of stock so fast?
We wish we could do that! Unfortunately, however, it's simply not feasible. Inventory that sits represents funds that we can't use to pay our employees, our rent, or purchase other product, so we must walk a fine line of supply and demand. Currently, we make our inventory reorders manually and study our reports visually (rather than having those processes automated), and not only are we fallible, it can take up to two weeks to fully understand what's going on for the past few months. By that point, entire products could have sold out, so both of those things really do work against us.
Why don't you fire your team/hire new people?
We are a small team of 13 people from top to bottom, so many of us wear several hats all the time. We do our best, and we certainly care about all our customers, but there are unfortunately only so many hours in the day (and our two sets of alien arms are only so long). Our team is devoted to improving the company and to make ourselves more reliable for all your wig needs, and we really appreciate all the hard work and time they put in to their jobs!
Are you going to have this issue indefinitely?
Our goal is to be able to anticipate and supply product as much as we can based on what we sell and what you ask for. That's surprisingly difficult when you have a catalogue of 5000+ items. We've spent the last two years trying different cart systems and inventory management systems to help this issue in particular, but we've repeatedly hit some very frustrating road blocks, and there aren't many services out there for our size that can handle the amount of inventory variety we carry. We've actually had to scrap three separate programs, one of which completely crashed our online store last May, in our search to find a program that will reliably connect to our store as well as help us accurately and predicatively track our inventory. Currently we are in the final stages of implementing our fourth inventory management service (I honestly can't believe I just typed those words); it's a warehouse-focused system we hope will be the last implementation we ever do. We are taking steps to have them build custom software that will help us accurately and more quickly see trends so we can place those orders sooner and at higher volumes. We don't like operating at a deficit any more than you like waiting on your items; trust that we find it absolutely as frustrating and heartbreaking as you do. Our hope is that these programs will help us streamline a lot of that two-week reporting and reordering process down to only a matter of days, which means more items will be coming in faster and more reliably. That has always been our goal, and always what we wanted to be able to offer you.
You all are awesome, and we couldn't ask for better or more patient customers. We wanted to let you know that we hear you, and we have always heard you, and we have never, ever ignored this issue, and we are doing our absolute best to fix it. I can't really describe to you personally how frustrating it's been for everyone here every time we've thought we've had a solution and subsequently we've had to start all over after it's proven nonviable. We all know how important this is, and no one takes it more seriously than we do or wants it fixed as much as we do. We're going to continue to work as hard as we can to find a solution, because you're the best, and you deserve it.
Thanks for reading this! We hope we see you on the other side.
Crystina – Owner of Arda Wigs