Who dat is? A mean brother, bad for your health; Lookin damn good though, if I could say it myself. Yes, I am 37. No, I don't believe it either.
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
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Things are bad right now.
As many of you know, way back in 2020 we weren’t sure if our business was gonna make it. Our factory was already on break for Lunar New Year–a month-long holiday for many businesses in the area–and with the announcement of COVID19, everything shut down indefinitely. We knew immediately we were in for a bad time. Despite our fears, our sales grew so far beyond anything we ever expected, to the point where we had to hire two employees just to keep up with demand!
Unfortunately, even after our factory reopened, our problems were not over. Their quality drastically declined almost immediately, to the point that a significant amount of our fabric would literally fall apart in transit between the factory and our office. Because of this, we discovered that our sales rep had no idea what she was doing and knew nothing about the factory she was representing, so when we told her the fabric was garbage her response was “👍 factory said it’s good!” At the beginning, only roughly 10% of our new product was defective and we were able to sell the affected items with a reasonable discount. By the end of our relationship with that factory, 40% of our midi skirts and 70% of our miniskirts were defective, some affected so severely that they practically fell apart when touched. And still, our rep said everything was fine and there were no problems and the fabric composition had not changed.
So in 2022 we changed factories. We hired Ash to handle this since I was way too busy managing fulfillment to do the amount of research and communication necessary to find us a factory that met our criteria. Finding clothing factories that can make clothing over a size 2-3X is significantly more difficult than one that can’t because it often requires larger and more expensive machinery. But Ash did it: she got us set up with a new factory that has excellent certifications for both their labor practices and their methods for textile production, that delivers consistent, high quality sewing on well made fabric that can be printed without suffering loss in detail–and she was armored with the knowledge for what makes a quality garment so she could check them if they tried to screw us on quality. Their minimum orders were way higher than our previous factory’s, so we decided to focus on ordering more units of fewer designs. We ordered way too much our first round–some of those designs were in stock until the 2024 blowout sale! But it worked out, and slowly we had a warehouse full of stuff to sell.
Fast forward to 2024, business is slowing down between the economy being bad and what seemed to be a general skirt fatigue amongst our customers. We tried expanding into shirts, which would’ve been successful if our minimums were lower. In the late spring we realized we were in trouble if we didn’t make drastic changes and we ultimately decided to end in-house fulfillment and transfer to a third party fulfillment center that would support domestic shipping in Canada and eventually the UK, EU, and Australia. In order to make that transition affordable we drastically discounted everything and that sale was super successful! We were able to begin shipping from the fulfillment center with an almost clean slate, even if it did mean having to close the store for almost two months and thereby missing out on two very important months of sales.
Unfortunately, we were stupid. We continued to order new designs on an every other month schedule instead of switching to an every month schedule, forgetting that having a backstock in a variety of designs is what previously helped us float between orders and now we quite literally didn’t have enough inventory to match the sales we made for last year’s holiday sale.
That brings us to now.
We’re a little stuck. We have a round of skirts in production (yay!) but they won’t get here until February (boo!). To get back on that monthly cycle we would need to order the next round of skirts right now, but we can’t pay for production until that next round of skirts gets here; if the current sale goes well, it’s paying payroll, not production. We are currently in the very difficult, horrible situation of not having enough money for next month’s payroll unless we are somehow able to make significant sales with our very sparse inventory.
We’re scrappy and we do our best to adapt to disasters and I’m sure we’ll find a way to adapt to this one as well, it’ll just take us some time to get there. Basically we’re going to be okay eventually–hopefully later this year–but in the meantime if we seem frantic, now you know why.
If you’re been considering trying out our viscose shirts but haven’t been able to justify paying full price, they’re on clearance PLUS half off right now! That’s $9-$15 for the viscose tops, and other tops on clearance are $20-$45. Some of the shirts we’re having a LOT of trouble selling are now priced below cost to help us recoup some of the money we spent making them.
Any amount of support helps right now. Sharing posts, telling your friends, buying a $9 shirt–all of it helps. If our clothing isn’t your thing, we also have a Patreon you can support for as little as $1 a month. https://www.patreon.com/mayakern
Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your day and that 2025 is a brighter, kinder year for us all.
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I haven't kept up with my art updates in the past year, but I did take of sketching again in December. I've gotten attached to a new pet character "Chariot" that I am hoping to show of more of soon. I think she's at least partially inspired by my buddy Conjuredcrow's work. Enjoy these two sketches and expect more sculpture and drawings being shared soon!
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I let @dat-soldier pick an OC of mine to draw and they picked Etrena :333
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Incoming designs hitting the shop! All by @godivaghoul Find on Shibe.ink this Wednesday
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tumblr discourse after 13 years on this fucking website
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Drawing OCs in IRL photos came up during a conversation uhh several months ago. Finally got around to it!
I guess Lacrima isn't as acrobatic as she thought
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reblog to reblog from the person you reblogged from
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I’m still thinking about that “is OSHA regulations Cop Behavior” post. Like. You know who thinks regulations are for losers? People who build submersibles out of logitech gamepads and rejected carbon fibre. People who trust starlink as their only surface lifeline.
Do you wanna be like the fine film on the floor of the Atlantic that was once a billionaire? Is that the hill you’re really gonna die on?
We have an expression in my field- “Regulations Are Written In Blood”
People don’t have fucking safety standards as a power trip, we have them because somewhere in the past, NOT having those regulations killed or maimed someone.
A lot of laws out there are bullshit- safety regulations sure as fuck aren’t. I have the literal scars to prove it.
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I will miss you if they finally realize about you, Tumblr the website and app Twitter account. You shined bright, you magnificent being.
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Still a little off on the edits but let's try this again! I will have two handmade, one of a kind artist cast Space Werewolf ball jointed dolls available this Friday at 2pm PST. These elastic tension dolls tested every ounce of my patience , 20 molds made, 20 casts for each doll and so much trial and error that I regretted being born. However, I love these pieces and while they are far from perfect they are very special to me. I hope they go on to be a special thing in someone else's life too! More pics and info soon.Song is Familiar by Agnes Obel #missmonster #missmonstermel #spacewerewolf #elasticdoll #bjd #customfigure
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