The Last of the Real Clean Numbers

This will be the last month that QuickBooks gives me good year-over-year numbers. Because there was no "Curio City" class LY, I can only get numbers for Kraken Enterprises as a whole until next February, when the separate classes came into being. As soon as Blue Hills revenue starts coming in, general Kraken numbers will be ridiculously skewed -- I expect Blue Hills to book five figures in May. From an accounting standpoint, the two companies are not remotely similar. Whereas >90% of Curio City's revenue goes to costs, 90% of Blue Hills income will go to payroll.  

Does that make you wonder why I still even bother with Curio City? There are a lot of reasons. None of them are very convincing alone, but taken together they make a good case for Curio City's continued existence...for now. For one thing, Curio City reliably delivers at least a small paycheck every other week. Even though Blue Hills formally launched in February, it hasn't actually landed a single dime yet, and it's going to remain erratic for at least the next several months. That five-figure project that I alluded to above was a one-time thing that might or might not be repeated next spring. But this is grist for another post.

April

Total income: +10.9%
Total COGS: +11.2%
Payroll: -23.6%

Marketing: -49.9%
Net Income (Profit) vs LY: +699% (+$630)

Actual Profit/Loss: +$540

2017 YTD

Total income: +0.6%
Total COGS: +2.2%
Payroll: -54.9%

Marketing: -44.6%
Net Income (Profit) vs LY: +109.8% (+$2,120)

Actual Profit/Loss: +$189

An  unexpectedly good week made this an unexpectedly good month, considering that I pay little attention to Curio City beyond simply filling orders. Tuesday alone was better than most days in last December. As far as Excel is concerned, the YTD is actually running $43 ahead of LY (for once, QuickBooks' $72 gain is more optimistic). This was the sixth-best (seventh-worst) April ever, and another $73 in the next day and a half would bump it to fifth-best.

Last Tuesday I got a flurry of Metal Earth orders amounting to $182, almost all of them for Star Wars models. As I've lamented over and over, Metal Earth never sells outside of Christmas. A cluster like that means that there's got to be a random act of media involved. One customer used the "how did you find us?" pulldown to say "You were linked in a blog post or online article," while another one said "Searching for something on Google." IDK if a post about Metal Earth sent people running to Google, or if it directly linked to my store. My best guess is that it was a Star Wars fan site.  

Also, Dove kites started to move this week, so I presume the Christians are having another holiday -- Pentecost, maybe?

May should come in more-or-less flat to LY. I just signed my first contract for ongoing work as Blue Hills, so I expect more writing work next month, and I know there's at least one editing job coming.

Social Randomness

Week 3 of 7 is going to end $1,250 in the red. Thanks to LY's $1,500 bird kite order, this week would have "broken even" at $1,500 behind LY, so the negative $1,250 result counts as a positive $250, as far as I'm concerned. Rationalization aside, though, November's now running $750 behind LY and I'm facing strong numbers next week. Pulling this month out of the fire is unlikely. In fact, it's likely to be the worst November on record -- a distinction that would've fallen to last November had it not been for that big kite sale.  

Someone shared a years-old Facebook post about Panther Vision beanies; that Random Act of (social) Media was worth somewhere around $250. As an antisocial person, this social media stuff baffles me. I stopped paying attention to Facebook long ago, after they admitted that they suppress business posts. It never occurred to me that a real customer might visit my page, read ancient posts, and actually share one (likes are all well and good, but shares are pure gold). Unfortunately, the mini-rush panicked me into placing another $600 reorder.   

That will probably prove to be a good thing; Panther is already sold out of yellow, orange, and orchid beanies. The popular navy, black, and camo hats are likely to disappear next week. I knew that would happen and stocked up early. Right now, I'm nervous that I have too much inventory; in a couple of weeks I hope that it will prove to be too little, which would mean that my overall buy was just about right. 

I'd hoped to use December to pay off the $7,400 debt that I've already incurred, but circumstances compelled me to add another $1,400 in reorders. Oh well, needing more stock is a good problem to have. I just wish people would buy some of my other stuff like, oh, Metal Earth (Amount spent: $1,833; amount earned: $210).

Yup

Cyber Monday proved that there is nothing wrong with my website. Christmas blew in with 15 transactions worth more than $800. Sales peaked on Wednesday with a nice, round 30 orders -- half of them for Santaur ornaments, and half of those going out of the US. It's already been a very good week. Now I need two more just like it. I don't know if it's possible; my most popular stuff is already gone or very nearly so, and we're still a week away from the desperation stage when people buy the unpopular stuff.

Most of my competitors jacked Santaur's price to $20+ after Gizmodo and Reddit featured it; I quickly sold 30 at $15 and could have sold twice as many if I'd had them. It's probably stupid, but I reordered yesterday knowing full well that I won't see them until 12/11. Since sales usually crash by 12/15, I probably just spent $225 on something that won't sell for another year. But maybe I can l blow out one more shipment if the hysteria keeps up.

PayPal didn't kill me, obviously, although $8.23 inexplicably disappeared from my balance. I'm meticulous about my deposits and half an hour's error-checking didn't uncover any mistakes. I finally decided not to waste any more time and wrote it off...but I don't see how money can just disappear unless PayPal is playing some cute game. I've had a lot of international sales; maybe they took extra charges for exchange rates? I don't know. There's no line item showing the debit and the merchant interface is useless.   

The Fortune for Tunes is Four

The first Newsday-inspired Tunes for Two order arrived at 10 am Monday. I immediately launched into full holiday mode -- same-day shipping, delivery-time countdown on the News page, and a Valentines-specific welcome message on my main page. Then I sat back and waited for the orders to flood in.

They didn’t. 

At 2 pm I dropped the price back down to $9.98. Simple sleuthing that I should have done a week ago showed it selling for as little as $5.86 on Amazon. How can they even do that? Either they're liquidating old stock or selling stolen merchandise. I paid $6.31 apiece including inbound freight. Other competitors are selling it in the $8 range; my page didn’t even register on Google’s first search results page. Anybody who googles the product name rather than typing my URL into their browser – which is nearly everyone -- is going to buy it someplace else.

I ultimately sold three more pieces at the discounted price. Final tally: 36 pieces bought for $227.12; four sold for $42.93. So much for the big score. Oh well, at least I have a lifetime supply of these things for future Valentines Days. I might make my cost back eventually. There aren’t any batteries to go bad in storage, competitors will drop by the wayside as they sell out and the product ages, and next year I’ll start it off at $7.98.

The related TV spot that they recorded on the 5^th won’t air until the 10^th, so that’s completely pointless.