State of the biz : shop update

As you may or may not know, we are moving to Italy!! Read this post, for more information on that. One of the things that I had to work out when we were thinking about going and then once confirmed was what is going to happen to my business and what is it going to look like going forward. Or can it go forward at all. As you may know I sell greeting cards, mugs and pins in my shop Little Sloth and have for 3 years now. So a couple things, I can't run a business from a military address in Italy. There are rules against anyone running a business from a military address because the military is then associated with that business and of course they have enough worries. Also, if I was going to be running my business from Italy I would have to file Italian taxes and all that stuff because I would have to run it out of an Italian address (per what I said above.) Also the majority of my orders are from the USA so the shipping to the USA would be twice as long and more expensive from Italy. So basically all things pointed to me not taking my business along with me to Italy.

So where did I go from there? First I talked to Clark and my mom and my friends about the issues then I decided that if I could I would transfer it back to Washington State and have a fulfillment partner run the shipping aspect of it. I then talked to my accountant about how and if something like that would work. He said that it would work just fine and that I could just run the online business aspects because you can run an online business from anywhere and I could keep the shipping part of the business in the United States.

At this point, I have officially transferred all my product to Washington State and that is were it will ship from for the forseeable future. I have a fulfillment partner there that is wonderful and that I trust and that is super excited about this venture with me which in turn is making me even more excited about coninuting designing and illustrating. That leads me to my next point, I will still be designing and illustrating the products, running all the customer service, promoting, paying bills and ordering

supplies. I am just now out sourcing my shipping. At first I was really nervous about this transition but now that we are about 3 weeks into the fulfillment partner running all the shipping and there hasn't been any hiccups just a few phone calls, I am super happy. I actually think this move will be a good thing and help my business grow which I did not expect. If anything I excepted my business to shrink from this and thought maybe it would continue but at a smaller scale and I would produce just a handful of mug designs and a couple dozen card designs but after the awesome transition I am excited to keep all the products as is for now and I even plan on expanding in some areas.

With that said, there are limited product quantities as of right now in the shop. If you go to purchase a card or mug and there is none available then that product is sold out at least for a little while until I can stock back up. So if there is anything you have your eye on make sure and go grab it while it is in stock in the shop. This also means that I am no longer doing custom orders. I used to take a handful of custom orders and also change colors upon request but I can no longer do that. Basically what you see is what you get now.

For me, designing and illustrating will mostly be in my future which is fun because that is the best part. It's funny because 3 weeks ago when we transitions I got back to North Carolina with none of
my products and no rush to ship orders and felt a little weird. Like I have all this time what am I suppose to do haha. But I have filled it, of course. Did you see I am now designing iPhone cases on casetify?

So yeah that is the shop update for now. Basically everything will continue to run as normal just from a different location and stuff is not directly shipped by myself anymore. I, of course, still oversee everything and take full responsibility for any errors or mistakes. Okay thats it for now! You can shop my handmade products here or my iPhone cases here!
love, Carlee