It's been very difficult, however, to work with most, but not all, of our small and very small suppliers. But we're small as well. It is these small suppliers who have the more unusual colors and shapes of beads, or the particularly unique jewelry and general merchandise. Since we deal with several hundred wholesale suppliers, we would say, overall, that they need to be educated about how to service Internet retailers. Most customers appear to be purchasing items they can't find elsewhere.
Many customers start with a small purchase, and then repeat with a larger purchase later on.
We have been well-organized and set for receiving and processing orders. Rather than ordering from some of the more popular suppliers every day, we hold some orders 1-2 days to combine our subsequent orders to our wholesale suppliers. This became 5 days. The tornado disrupted everything for a few weeks. After this, the turnaround time stretched to 7 business days.