WHEN YOU MESS UP.

July 19th, 2018

Me realising I’ve made a pretty  e x p e n s i v e  mistake. 

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Let me tell you what happened.

As you guys know on the 1st of July I launched Maì. 

I had this date in mind and wanted to make it work. Sometimes I can be pretty stubborn.

I didn’t have the kiln, and I didn’t have first hand experience with selling online.

But I wanted it so badly, so I tried my very best to make it happen, and told myself as long as everything else was working fine on the website, the pottery section could wait.

I was right about that, but here is something I didn’t consider: the price of gold.

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The night before launching Maì, I checked that everything worked correctly, and spent a few hours doing some math to figure out prices for the fine jewellery I was about to sell.

I had this e-mail saved, in which I was told how to calculate what my final prices should look like, if executed correctly…

weight in grams x gold title = gold weight
divided gold weight x daily quote (the price of gold changes everyday) = gold value
gold value + manufacture = cost per piece (% to be added)

(this is translate from Italian so I may not be using the technical wording)

Alright, so it’s a pretty simple and straight forward formula, yet on the invoice I was given (and this is all my fault) I wasn’t fully sure what numbers I was looking at, and because I was rushing to do the math so I could put the pieces for sale, I must have misunderstood some amounts and went on to create a price for each item in my store.

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Cut to now, I’m realising that I’m not making money, compared to how much I’m spending myself to buy the pieces.

So today I decided to bring out my invoices again, look up the numbers, and check each piece.

It turns out I was selling some of the pieces for way less than I, myself, was buying them for. Luckily some others weren’t negative, but actually matched the price so I didn’t lose too much money, but the bottom line is that I’m awful at math and only now realised – after hundreds of orders that I’ve sold and shipped – that I had extremely low prices which wouldn’t turn a profit.

You can imagine the joy, and how stupid I feel.

But I guess I’ve learned my lesson, and if anything all the people that bought the jewellery so far had a pretty good deal!

I’ve now adjusted the prices, but you will see yourself that unfortunately they are much higher than before.

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When I went to Italy my cousin warned me that by the numbers on my shop, it seemed like I was underselling the jewellery, but I was being stubborn, once again, so when I restocked everything, I kept the same prices, worried that if I put them any higher, it wouldn’t seem fair.

What I’ve learned now is not to rush when it comes to business, and to listen to people that know more than me on the field!

This situation really sucks, and I’m trying to brush it off and tell myself that I will make the money back, but I wanted you to know that if you see higher prices on the website, you will know why.

On a positive note, thanks again to all for the amazing support you are giving Maì: seeing you guys ready on the website on the day of the restock made so happy. I will keep adding more and more products, and I hope you will keep liking what I put out, even if the price of jewellery has increased!

I hope you are all having a much less stressful day than me.

UUUUUUHHHHHH.

Marzia