Thursday, September 27, 2012

How Do You Sell a Seahorse?



This cute hand-beaded seahorse keychain from Guatemala is one of the items I sell in my online store, Tapir and Friends Animal Store. I love that it's RED! So bright and colorful! And for people who lose their keys, what better than a red keychain? After I receive it from AtitlanArts.com, I give it a part number and a name. In this case, it's: "F1977 B218 - Seahorse Beaded Keychain from Guatemala, red." The "F" stands for "Friends," and it preceeds every part number, making it easier to recognize it for the part number it is. If the number were only "1977," it might be confused with a year or the last four digits of someone's phone number. 


Every item is stored in easy-to-access bins. The "B" part of the part number is the bin where it's stored. Believe it or not, it took me nearly 10 years to figure out that if I included the bin number with the part number, it was a no-brainer to find the item! When an order comes in from our shopping cart, the bin number and item number appear with each product. Here you will see Bin 218 if you click to enlarge the photo. Current numbers are on "ecru"-colored tags (off-white), while green denotes some leftover old numbers.


If we open Bin 218, it's filled with ziplock bags Every small inventory item in the store has its own bag. There is the red seahorse in B218. And it has the part number on the bag. Voila! Easy to find, and no confusion. I think those may be unicorn keychains in the bag next to the seahorses, and I see some beaded frogs in the back of the bin. In the case of these medium-sized beaded frogs, it would say "Frog Style 1" on the bag, because that's how it's coded on the web site.

My web page: tapirback.com.

1 comment:

Catherine Todd said...

Love it - this is exactly what we need to do. Thanks for the details and instructions, and photos to make it all worthwhile!