How exciting! Before I left work yesterday, we had confirmation from our shipping line that two containers had just docked at Portbury (the port at Bristol where all our imports arrive). They will be arriving at our warehouse on Monday and ....... (drum roll, bated breath) on one of them, is a new range of furniture. It is all so secret squirrel that I haven't even thought of a name for the range yet. Normally what happens is that I spend a whole day trying to think of a name, come up with something crap, Becky gets drafted in, she thinks of something brilliant in 2 minutes flat, and then I pretend that I thought of it.
Phil and I designed this range about 6 months ago, and it is a 'New England' style white painted range. It is still pretty nerve-racking getting new designs in for the first time, because you never know if they work until you see them in the flesh. Normally I design all the best sellers, and Phil designs the dead ducks (ha ha - only joking Phil!).
So watch this space! It will probably take me a week to get all the photographs of the new designs complete, but then it is all systems go.
More good news is that we are also in the process of increasing our stock of oak furniture from 3 containers a month to 6. We use a supersonic complicated forecasting system which tells us what stock to order and it is based on - well - 'guesswork' to be completely frank. We guessed there would be a slight downturn in Christmas sales due to the credit crunch, and our Customers proved us wrong, leaving our stock pretty pillaged! So we are putting all new trade accounts on a waiting list, until we have enough stock in to service our existing customers.
Buying all this new stock has obviously meant that we have had to cut back in other areas, like food. Each member of the Baumhaus team is now allocated a bowl of rice a day. I told them that I was a caring employer and was running a 'Detox Programme'. Still not sure if they realise that I am buying furniture with the proceeds.........
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