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fussballclub
vulpinecc
Hi all, just found this and thought I'd reply. As Bashthebox will hopefully back up, from my detailed DM chat with him this Summer and twitter replies, I'll always take the time to explain stuff as best I can, even to The Likes of Him (joke, Seb). if you ever have any problems, hit me up on @aslongasicycle. No BS (I hope).
We've definitely had problems this year and the growing pains had started to show, which makes me sad. We/I took on too much. My fault. So over the last few months I've been simplifying the whole shabang. We weren't terribly good at wholesale, and I love online, so now Vulpine is purely ecommerce on vulpine.cc. Simple means I can put resources back into service, which I love. I used to do it all myself, but with growing so fast, I handed it off. The Summer Sale was way bigger than predicted, and poor Dani couldn't keep up, particularly not with refunds, which it turned out, were taking an age, as our ERP software (bit too specific?) was garbage. So at least now I've changed it.
In the end it took 5 people (there are 7 staff), including me, instead of 1 (Dani), to reply to all the service emails and do all the refunds (more sales = more refunds). The usual fast week-long turn around became weeks. I hated it. I've always wanted perfect service, and I was staring at very annoyed people on our email inbox, trying to do our best to help. I totally sympathised. Victims of our own success, though we learnt a huge amount. It may not count for much, but our heart was in the right place, but our systems weren't. Now changed.
Umm, not sure if I answered everything, but the blog on 2015 was written because loads of friends, colleagues and customers asked. I guess because, like many of you, I grew up dreaming of cycling, and then I did (rather too simplistically) Become My Passion with Vulpine, they/I thought it would be interesting. There are many customers who are fascinated by the life I've created, which I find a bit embarrassing (but not enough to stop me writing about it, ahem). To be honest its nice to write down, because its so mental being in the middle of it, you don't really take it in.
Anyway, do ask anything you like. Even my PIN number.
Nick.