Even My Stress Levels Have Stress Today *sigh*

So the Swarovski Blow-Out Sale begins today. Am I ready? Maybe. I've done everything I can do, but there's always something that can/will go wrong. My early morning is compressed - massively compressed. I need to drive south to my paper supply company and pick up the 5x7 bags I had ordered last week. They finally came in yesterday and we need that size. So, I'll be there when they open at 8:00 am. That will cut into my store prep time, but nothing to be done about it. 

We don't do BOGO sales, and especially not on 
Swarovski crystal beads. But we're doing one 
for the rest of the week, starting today. I truly 
have NO IDEA what to expect. I know my 
customers, mainly, are respectful and polite. But 
there are always exceptions. I'll have to keep my 
mind totally clear to handle the intricacies of 
the sales register and the order in which our 
sales must be input to make sure all discounts 
are applied correctly. It might be a zoo! 

I had asked Chickie to be in at 8:00 am, but she has an early morning doctor appointment and will be in ASAP afterwards. I'll get the store ready as much as possible before heading to pick up those bags, but we'll be playing "catch up" until we unlock the doors and find out if our prep work helped at all. 

Our 5x7 inch flat merchandise bags are 
essential. We deal with a lot of small 
items. We've been out, having to use our 
next size up. It will be a joy to have my 
small bags back on my shelf again. 

I know DH will be minimal assistance. I'm really not expecting much from him. He's been busy shredding paper. I think we've almost burned out my favorite shredder. It's giving scree-ing sounds and an odor of burning. I'm keeping it lubricated, but he's not great on upkeep (which it why we've burned through several shredders in the past). *sigh* 

We have a top-line personal shredder at the shop, that 
is similar to this one. It's been a workhouse, and it's the 
second one we've had for the shop. The way DH is going, 
he might burn it out within the next few days, and 
we'll have to purchase another one. *sigh*

So I really need my swim. My stress levels have stress levels today - LOL. I hope you have a wonderful day, and I'm going to leave some of my own stress in the pool today. At least we'll be able to swim outside. I wouldn't have been able to yesterday - a day of thunderstorms and possible tornadoes. Today is a bit milder, slightly (slightly!) cooler, and the pool should be open for business. I'm heading there shortly. Have an excellent Tuesday, send calming thoughts my way in my day of mayhem, and I'll be back tomorrow (hopefully with good results from the first day of our five-day Swarovski Blow-Out Sale). Be kind, stay healthy and Slava Ukraini. 

Same Tune, Different Words - *sigh*

The original idea for our Swarovski Blow-out Sale was using transparency sheets with the products listed and rub-off markers for customers to make their selections. Great idea. I purchased more transparency sheets because we didn't have enough cobbled together from other things in our past history, and set down to copying the sheets onto them yesterday. *sigh* 

This is what I was supposed to have purchased at 
my local office supply co on Saturday night. 
Unfortunately, the one I purchased was slightly 
different than this, and doesn't work with ink 
jet printers. So ... back to the office supply store 
tonight on my way home and I'll see if they 
even have the style I wanted. I suspect just using 
paper with the transparency taped on top might 
work just as well, so I might do that version 
instead. 

After several failed attempts, I finally realized that although the idea would be great if I had a laser printer, it wouldn't work on my ink jet printer. So, I wasted almost $40 on a product I can't use, and since it's opened and a few pages were used, I can't return it either. *sigh* 

So, I'm back to paper, which I'm actually just fine with. I can return the rub-off markers, but if I use the transparency sheets as a cover sheet, I can use the markers, the transparency sheets, and less paper and ink. I suspect that will be the direction to go. Not exactly the way I had intended, but perfectly useable. We'll see - the sale starts tomorrow and the first day is always the busiest. 

We have a small store, even twenty people is a big crowd for 
us. Crystals are a real draw, and a huge product type for us. 
We want to reduce what we've got, so we're offering it to 
our customers at a sale price we've never offered before. 

The sale itself starts tomorrow, so I have a day to stress out, but also to make sure that everything is as orderly as we can make it. It has the potential of being a zoo, although the sale extends through Saturday, and we're certainly not going to sell out of all Swarovski in a day. I do expect that the first day will be crazy, though. It usually works that way. But ... we have a LOT of product to sell, and if people are flexible about color and/or style, they'll get a serious bargain. It's a BOGO sale on crystals, something we've never offered before and probably will never offer again. 

It might be a total zoo, but I'm hoping that 
those customers who are NOT interested in 
crystals, won't be intimidated by the possible 
crowds. First day will be the worst - it's always 
that way - but I expect the entire week to be 
quite busy - thus, no days off this week. 

Anyway, I'll be working all week this week - no Wednesday or Friday off at all. My posts might be short, but I'll still be here every day. And, if everything goes well, we'll have some super record sales numbers by the end of Saturday's final sale. Then we can collapse - LOL. Have an excellent Monday, I have a large to-do list so I'm getting to it. Slava Ukraini. 

Thoughts of Pow Wow - It's Time to Build New Outfits

So, my brain has taken a holiday. It's Tuesday, but it was merging Monday and Tuesday schedules in my head, so I ended up cleaning the shower and taking a shower this morning before I reminded myself that it was Tuesday, not Monday, and that I swim today. I normally don't take a shower before swimming, only afterward to get rid of the chlorinated water. Silly me! Oh well, I have a cleaner shower now, and I still have enough time for a quick blog post. 

Oops! I was truly on auto-pilot this morning, to 
just jump into the shower on a swim day. Oh well, 
I'll just be super clean for the pool - LOL. 

Yesterday was the first day of our Inventory Reduction Sale, and it was totally odd. I actually sold quite a lot of items - but not a single tube of what was actually on sale. We had a very nice sales day, but it wasn't according to plan. Still, I'm not objecting to the day's end numbers, and I really don't mind selling jewelry and beads over selected Delica beads. The sale goes on for another five days too, so it wasn't a schedule crunch for those of my customers who want to take advantage of it. 

I didn't get sales for the inventory reduction sale, but I 
had a very nice sales day from my Native American 
customers getting beads for this year's outfits for Pow Wow. 

It's an experiment - a type of targeted sale that we've never tried before. As with all experiments, it has to run the course to see if it works properly or not. Frankly, as long as I get customers through the door and sell product, I'm fine. And I had some really fun customers yesterday. It's January, and my Native American customers are thinking about the upcoming pow-wow season and what they want their outfits to look like. People buying for their regalia were the majority of my customers yesterday. It's always fun to catch a bit of the excitement from these customers who can't wait until they hear the drums and singing once again. 

There's nothing quite like a Pow Wow, and we have a lot 
of them up here during the warmer months. Now is the time 
to start putting together the outfit for this year. Many people 
make themselves a new outfit every year - a lot of work and 
money. Here you have male "Fancy Dancers" entering the 
ring. I can hear the beat of the drum and the singers in the 
back of my mind. I miss Pow Wow, but DH doesn't care 
to attend any more. 

Of course, since my day started out a bit on its' side, I'm a bit tight on time. So I'm going to wrap this up here, and get over to the pool. Perhaps a "relaxing" 45 minute swim might wake up my brain - LOL. Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

It's Day 1 of Our First-Ever "Inventory Reduction Sale" - OY VEH! LOL

My desktop computer is being a bit cranky this morning - probably matching my mood. It's a Monday, I stayed up and watched football (GOOD games) and am resigned to once again seeing Patrick Mahomes in a Super Bowl. Although, seriously, I have to congratulate Kansas City. It's their fourth time at the Super Bowl in five years, and that's an outstanding achievement. Still, it's going to be Kansas City vs San Francisco again - shades of 2020! I was hoping Detroit could pull things out against San Francisco, but they just fell apart in the second half. 

It's Kansas City vs San Francisco in this year's Super 
Bowl. I'm not thrilled with it, but it should be a good 
game - entertaining to watch. They were last in this 
situation in 2020, so it's a repeat experience for both 
teams. 

Today is the first day of our first "Six Day 50% Off Clearance Sale" and we're concentrating specifically on Delica beads. Delica beads are a Japanese seed bead, made in several different sizes and two shapes - cylindrical and hexagonal cylinders. The most popular size is the size 11o, and we've got almost 50 of those included in the sale, but the majority of what we're offering for this are the other sizes - the 8o, 10o and 15o sizes. For those of you who aren't using this product, the 8o and 10o sizes are larger and the 15o size is smaller than the more commonly used 11o size. 

These are regular rounded seed beads, not Delica beads, 
but you can get an idea regarding the size differences 
and shapes. The most commonly used size is the Size 11, 
the next most commonly used sizes split pretty evenly 
between Size 8 and Size 10. 

People first entering beadwork get confused by the sizes. They're like anyone .. the larger the number, the larger the bead. Except, for beads, it goes back a century or more and the numerical designation roughly corresponds to how many beads would fit a predetermined measurement - like an inch, although that may not have been the size the factories started using initially. Still, the numbering system stuck, and although there might not be exactly 11 beads in an inch for an 11o bead, it's close enough. 

What I sell in my store are the two categories on the 
left - the standard 11o round seed beads (from several 
factories and two different countries) and the Miyuki 
Delica beads - a true cylinder bead with exceptionally 
standard sizing bead to bead. I fell in love with these 
when they were first introduced and they're still a 
favorite of mine. The second bead is the one we're 
putting on sale this week. 

Around 2:30 am, I awakened with a horrible thought. I have a specific style of 11o pulled for the sale. They were collected and organized and strung by Chickie into a sample strand, and she made a list of the Part Numbers for me - more than 100 beads. HOWEVER, I also need the Price Lookup Numbers so that we can actually pull those beads for people wanting any of them. OOPS. My early morning at the shop will be spent doing a quick look-up of those secondary numbers so that I can effectively sell the items. 

The Price Lookup Code (PLU) is what I need to plug into 
my computerized cash register to be able to sell the 
product. The Delica Bead part number is the color number 
and we organize our beads by those numbers. Our 
string of beads on sale are also organized by our 
part number, but we need to find the beads by the 
PLU. Oops. First thing I'll be doing, as soon as I 
get into the shop, is making a cross-reference list 
so that beads can be pulled easily. 

Also, it's a Monday. It's Chickie's "day off" and I'm working with DH (who tries to be helpful, and usually only gets in the way). By the end of the day, I'll be a wreck - LOL. If I can get today to run smoothly, tomorrow will be a breeze with Chickie, and hopefully I'll have all of the kinks worked out so that Chickie will be OK on Wednesday and Friday and I'll get my own days off. We'll see. In the meanwhile, since I don't have anything else earthshaking to share (not that any of the above is earthshaking either - LOL), I'm signing off. Have an excellent Monday and I'll be back tomorrow for a quick post before hitting the road to get to the swimming pool. Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.

Apologies, Beeps in the Night, and an Upcoming Sale

I hope I got caught up with everyone's posts and made comments where I could. I had a "free" hour+ to spend on the computer last night. I apologize - sometimes time just isn't there for me to be "spot on" for my comments. Be assured, I do catch up ASAP and leave my feedback, especially when asked. 

I count some of you, my readers, as some of 
my very best friends. I've known several of you 
for more than a decade - probably closer to two 
decades by now. I chat to you every morning, 
and I try to keep up with your lives as well. 
You  live in my heart. 

Next week will be an experiment at the shop. It's the first week of our "Inventory Reduction" sale, and it's encompassing large categories of my best-selling seed bead - Delica beads. It's not a  across-the-board discount. It doesn't apply to every style. It does, however, encompass all of the sizes other than the standard (and most popular) size 11o, and some select styles of 11o that aren't super popular. It will be a LOT of work behind the register, but I think I've figured out how to make things a bit easier on me and my staff. At least, I hope I've figured this out. 

We're going to be doing at least one, possibly two, Inventory 
Reduction Sales on select categories of merchandise each 
month. We need to clear out slow-sellers and less popular 
colors/styles of beads. I doubt we'll do anything about 
the Indian goods - but I have other outlets for those items. 

The sale itself is a 50% off sale - something we've NEVER offered in our 30+ years of retail. We're trying to clear out the chaff and leave the kernels of wheat. We need to be lean when we do our Close-Out Sale later this year. So, meanwhile, our customers will be able to take advantage of some really awesome savings on a product they love. I'll see what happens - it's one full week of six days, with savings of 50%, so it might be a zoo; but I'm hoping it will be a steady flow instead of a flood. 

We've never done discounts this deep before. Our pricing 
is fair, and we're well aware of what other places charge 
for similar items. But, we're going to do it now. I have 
four sales currently in the works, and then we'll reassess
and see how things are going. 

To top off (or to start) my day off on the "right" foot, the downstairs smoke alarm beeped four times while I was in the shower. *sigh* I checked both of our smoke alarms after I was dried off and dressed, and they're showing "green", but I suspect the batteries need replacement. I'll set DH off on that task for the day. He'd BETTER get it done - it's not super hard, and it really won't take him a lot of his time. It was unnerving, to say the least, hearing the beeps when I couldn't do a thing about it. I figured I'd just die in the shower - LOL. 

We have something similar to this in our 
den and in the upstairs hallway. I don't think 
we've changed the batteries in several 
years, so having it beep on me this morning 
wasn't unexpected, but it was a bit of a 
shock, and certainly came at a poor time since 
I was in the middle of my morning shower. 

So, I'm done rambling for the day. I hope I've caught up with everyone's posts, and that everyone who had a birthday earlier this week has been contacted directly in a note. I hate being late for celebrations, but it's just been one of those weeks where I had too much crammed into too few hours. Have a wonderful Saturday, I'm going to enjoy my Sunday of relaxation and be ready to dive into the sale starting Monday. *Hugs* to each and every one of my readers - you're my lifeline to sanity (now and again only, because being insane sometimes describes my life to a "T" - LOL). Slava Ukraini and חיים למען ישראל.