We spend quite a lot of time deciding when something is ready.
Material, shape, production, weight. A seam moved slightly down or to the side. A fabric knitted. A packaging that needs to survive being sat on or dropped somewhere between Portugal and Stockholm.
Eventually we have to stop and just consider the product finished.
Or so we thought.
When we reopened our shop last week an order came in for a T-shirt. And suddenly 25 Eur looked like a very different number.
It was a perfectly reasonable shipping price when we were looking at a pair of boots. Less reasonable when there was the one T-shirt in the packaging.
So we changed it and then comes the next part.
An order leaves the website and becomes something physical again. Someone has to find the right piece, check it, fold it, pack it, print the papers, put the right label on the right box and hand it to someone else.
For us, all of that happens with Virgilio or Roberto in Portugal.
They have been part of what we do for a long time. They knows the products, knows us, and knows that when we say something should be simple, there is a reasonable chance we have made it complicated somewhere along the way.
This first week back reminded us that making things and selling things is one thing, getting them from us to you is another.
A 60 Eur T-shirt and a 500 Eur pair of boots can live side by side on the same shelf. They probably shouldn’t cost the same to send. A parcel going to Stockholm is about to go embark on a completely different journey than the one going to New York. And a beautifully made boot risks becoming slightly less beautiful if its new owner spends a week wondering where it is.
There are faster ways of doing some of this and there are probably, almost certainly, smarter ones too.
But there is also something we don't want to lose in the process. We know where our things are. We know who handles them. And when something goes wrong, there is an actual person at both ends trying to make it right.
For years we have said that time is part of the product, apparently logistics is too.
Maybe a product isn't finished when the last stitch is made or when it goes into the box and gets dropped of.
Maybe it should be considered finished when it reaches you.
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