I just want to keep good people employed.

Employees are unaware of the situation, so I did not include their photos. If you would like, I can always ask them.

Summary: A large online retailer lost over $125,000 of our inventory, we had no sales for months, I covered salaries and expenses with savings and short-term loans. I have not paid myself since February. All donations will be used to pay off the short-term debt and buy inventory to support future operations. Your donations will keep 4 good people employed. It would be great to give the employees a bonus, they deserve it. Details below.

The longer version:

Hi, I’m Josh, and this is my story.

I don’t sleep well, the thought of closing the business puts 4 good people out of work and I wouldn’t be able to support my own child. But I get out of bed at 6am, put on my happy dad face and get my little girl ready for daycare. After the daycare drop-off reality sets back in and I know I have a problem. Now I’m almost to work and I put the happy face back on before the staff arrives.

We took a large loss in the first part of the year and I did what was necessary to keep paying my employees and keep the business afloat. The hole I dug seemed reasonable at the time, but here I am, asking for help.

We were approached by a very large retailer to supply them with inventory. But here is how that works: We send them inventory, then they sell it for us as they have a very large platform. So we own the inventory and they charge us to fulfil orders.

This was a very calculated decision. We tested them out over a year ago to make sure we understood the process and nuances. The process is very slow and there are plenty of nuances and getting help to fix issues is difficult. However, the visibility is tremendous, and we did sell a lot of items quickly. So we understood the risks but were ready. In order to be successful, we would need a large volume to be sent to their warehouse. So spent 7-8 months planning inventory (mainly apparel) and had a schedule to send spring / summer items in December and January to allow for processing time etc. and have our items on the website ready to go. We also sent a mix of fall/winter items as well.

What we didn’t anticipate:

The ability for a warehouse to lose 75% of our inventory in a short amount of time. We had not ran into this issue during our ‘trial’ phase. As it turns out, to report lost inventory there is a lot of paperwork involved to prove it was lost. We used their suggested shipping service, but still had to send them a pdf that a box of our inventory was delivered. We had to re-upload 100+ different inventory lists, then we had to go into their system to check our own status as we were not given any notification.

Long story short, 3 of us spent 5+ months checking in and submitting ‘help’ tickets. Since most of our inventory was lost, we weren’t selling anything on this large platform. We do have other outlets for sales, but couldn’t just pivot since there were only so many hours in a day.

I had hope we could fix the problem and bounce back. So I used my savings and took out loans to pay the employees, pay the bank, pay for daycare. For me, I went bare minimum. Thankfully I don’t have a lot of monthly expenses for myself. My car is 12 years old and has been paid off for a long time. I do get HBO MAX since it has Sesame Street and other Kids Shows and Movies.

Turns out, hope wasn’t a solution.

We really never received an answer on how it all happened. Thousands of emails that typically said “ we are working very hard on this.”

At this point I have minimal inventory and no reserves. Sadly I chose to borrow more money. I knew better. This is a viable business, it’s been in operation over 6 years. We have the ability to reallocate sales, but require the capital to purchase inventory and need time to ramp-up.

We are in a rural area and I am very fortunate to have a great staff. I do my best to be flexible with schedules and it had paid off greatly for me. I tell them all the time, just send me a text if you can’t make it in, I don’t need a reason, life happens, no worries here. They covered for me recently when my child’s eye doctor appointment lasted 4 hours and I greatly appreciated it. (Everything is fine with her eyes, the doctors’ office was just ‘running behind’ at 9am).

I’m 43, I struggled in my early 20’s after college to get a good job. I worked in corporate America for 20 years and saved as many pennies as I could. I didn’t plan to buy a women’s clothing distributor, but an opportunity presented itself and I took on the challenge of small business owner. It’s the happiest I’ve ever been at work. I went from suit and tie to forklift driver overnight. It’s hard to explain. I know I enjoy the challenges that arise daily, I enjoy teaching the staff about excel and the process of buying and selling. I tell you this, so the next part of my story has context on why all the warehouse workers are female.

Turns out, I don’t get many applications from males. Understandable. We get in shipments of women’s clothes and repackage to ship. I don’t particularly care, t-shirts are t-shirts, jeans are jeans. To me its all ‘product’ to sell.

Warehouse worker is the title, but a better title would be “we do everything needed.” I work the office, clean the bathroom and move boxes in the warehouse. The staff helps with office tasks, inventory evaluation and purchase, updating the website, answering the phone and emails…the list goes on and on (They move boxes too.)

(Names of Employee have been changed)

Cara is a single mom and often needs to take off to take care of her child. I will say her child needs more attention and help than most. She told me she took the job due to the flexibility. She had held other jobs where essentially, she was punished for needing to leave work to take care of her son in emergencies. Cara also gives Faye a ride to and from work daily.

Faye has been with me the longest. She works hard. I’ve helped her pay for car repairs but still she is currently without a working vehicle. She knows the warehouse better than me at this point. She is my go-to.

Sara works 2 jobs, a family and really digs into problems to solve them. She uses her own personal laptop (at home) to help me out when needed. I do work late hours, but I don’t expect anyone else to worry about that. So I learned a long time ago if I send Sara an email in the evening for a request, I wake up to a response she wrote at 10pm or 6am. I apologized to her, that wasn’t my intention for her to work that late or early, its just when I had time. Her response “I don’t mind, you let me take off whenever I need to, it works great for me.” ( I wasn’t going to argue with her, I just don’t send her late emails anymore.)

Dee is our newest employee. She started right before our big ramp-up to the retailer. She was hired mainly for warehouse work/clothes sorting etc. Very quickly she transitioned into being on top of the ‘help tickets’ for our lost apparel. She now is mainly in the office and really enjoys learning. She has been a great surprise with her willingness and attitude. She is exceptionally polite. She newer to the work-force and defies all stereotypes about work ethic.

That’s my story. I have not informed the employees as they have enough to worry about in their own lives. Greatly appreciate your help. If you would like a tour or want to learn how to drive a forklift, let me know.

Gofundme said not to include my email or phone number. Feel free to message me here with any questions. Happy to answer them.