Ok let me just preface this with the fact I don’t want this to be a whiny oh poor me post. It is not about that. This is more a lessons learnt.
I said in an earlier post that I originally didn’t understand why people would setup business after business after business. After just a few months I already had a better understanding of why that was. After a few more months I think I stand behind my newer view. That is that when you setup a business you learn so much, you discover things you just would never have thought of, and find innovative ways to deal with these hurdles. That means that as you setup the next business you already have a wealth of knowledge to pull on and pitfalls to avoid. Each business you have a bigger wealth of knowledge to pull on. Hopefully each iteration you apply the lessons you learnt and things improve.
So what are my frustrations?
Stock
First on the list I think has to be stock. I naïvely thought that the issue with lack of stock was purely a lack of focus. However other issues (like the pre-order stuff I wrote about here) and breadth of stock also play a focus. To get consistent sales across the months requires having ALL the right items in at the right time at the right price point. With there being literally thousands of different models just in the GunPla range alone that is always going to be a tall order.
This also feeds into the Catch 22 situation below. However, I have always planned on this being a multi-year endeavour to bring the company up to speed. I always expected things to be slow, so I just need to stick to my plan and keep working on growing.
Catch 22
We (retailers in the UK) also find ourselves in a catch 22 solution. Individuals can import a product directly from Japan and so place their orders there. There will be two reasons for this. Price and availability. Of them I believe availability is the real big issue. With Japan having a far more consistent supply of models than the UK it is often easier for people to purchase from Japan. This means there are less sales in the UK leading to a lower “UK” demand, this leads into less models coming in. In essence it becomes a catch 22. Retailers need customers to buy from them, but the customers can’t find what they are looking for.
Price, although I don’t think this is as high an issue, it is still an issue. Looking at the costs of everything you can understand why. For example an individual importing a model or two or three or five, is likely to avoid any taxation. Retailers do not have that luxury, you are going to be adding 20% on for VAT no matter which way you turn it. When you break down all the costs, and the fact that retailers end up having to sit on a large stockpile of stock, it makes it more challenging when losing out sales to overseas.
Note none of that is the customers fault, or problem. I expect people to buy the models they want, from where they can get it from. One of the corner stones of the business is to provide more access to more models in the UK. I want to help ease that supply issue, and hopefully give people more of a reason to purchase from the UK again.
Storage
I know I have written about this before. I totally underestimated the space I required for storage. It has forced me to come up with ideas for storage. This led to a lot of investigations and research into storage options. This investigative work is exactly what feeds into that pool of knowledge moving forwards.
Shipping
This is a more recent issue that I have found. My most current shipment should have been with me on the 30th of December. I have items that I know people want, but I can’t fulfil that yet as I am literally waiting on the boxes to be released. I paid the duty/tax import feels within an hour of receiving the email letting me know they were due. Issues like this are outside of our control. For a smaller business watching people sell products you know you have sitting in a warehouse somewhere but unable to reach, is exceptionally disheartening. I could list them on the site now, but that goes against my more ethos of being able to put my hand on it and post is out as soon as possible so that isn’t something I feel I can do.
For this all I can do is accept that this happens. I have no real control over the shipping company used by the supplier. Or rather I can use their supplier for free, or I can pay for my own which would obviously raise the overheads and ultimately what the models would have to be sold for.
Finances
I will be honest. I always knew this would be a tricky thing. Reading all the information the VAT side of things was fairly clear. However, when it comes to corporation tax, and filing etc. I have literally no idea. Even after reading as much as I can I was still left with lots of questions. This is less a frustration and more a lesson learnt.
Rather than risk getting things wrong I have erred on the side of caution. I have signed up to get the accounts professionally done and filed. This, I think, should probably be on everyone’s list. If you create a LTD company then definitely consider commissioning an accountancy company to help with this side of things.
Conclusion
There will, in all business, be challenges, and unforeseen hurdles. However, all we can do is address them one at a time when they occur. I think I would like to finish on a high note though. The thing that keeps me going are the people, the community, and the support. The people I am meeting, the conversations, the support, are second to none. The Gundam/Gunpla modellers are, without a shadow of a doubt, some of the most helpful and interesting people I have ever had the privilege to engage with. So I am, and always will be, grateful for that.
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