Super Cool Email About Stuff

I don't know what to title these

Hello people of the internet! It feels like it’s been ages since I last wrote to you, so I fancied rambling away for shits and giggles. Do I have anything cool to say? Maybe not.

So yeah… let’s just do some sort of recap type thing where I randomly talk about a bunch of different things that need the odd bit of touching upon.

First up…

Ross Vs Rachel is back!

Ok, it’s not as cool as “whoever loses has to do the garden” what a load of unfair bollocks that turned out to be. Jeeeeez. Got tucked right up on that shit.

Nope. This time, it’s whoever loses has to cook the food of the winners pot. That sounds proper confusing, right? Basically, Rachel picked Tikka Masala and I picked Garlic Bread. So IF Rachel wins. And that’s a MASSIVE if. Then I would then have to cook a bloody Tikka Masala (or Korma as Rachel doesn’t like Tikka Masala).

Likewise if I win, then Rachel’s cooking us a garlic bread. Kind of. I’ve changed it so it counts as an “Italian of my choosing” as a garlic bread is too easy.

And of course, the loser will have to do it as a TikTok video.

So yeah… they’re totally free so if you’re gonna order then why not vote on what we have for dinner at some point in the future. First one to “sell” is what the loser is cooking.

I hope that makes sense.

I’m slightly confused and I’m writing this shit.

FYI… we’re like 16/17 in that photo. Jeez.

Subscription Box

September’s subscription box theme will be: AUTUMN.

I keep forgetting to tell you all before the first of the month. So for a lot of you it’s just a surprise as to what you’ll be getting each month. But I dare say you’re used to it and that’s all part of the fun. As a bit of pre-warning though I can say that October will be the Spooky Sweet Shop. So there we go.

Natalie starts this week

On Thursday Natalie will officially - although she’s already on payroll - start with Teddy Eva Scents. So she’ll be the 4th person that’s now on payroll - Jenny, Kath, Aaron and now Natalie. Which feels mental. But since Rachel actually goes back to work NEXT WEEK we probably need the extra hand.

It’s a bit of a nerve-wracking time to be hiring someone since we have no idea how the economy is going to fair over the coming months. If you take the pessimistic view - which I often HAVE to have when running the business - then we’re probably going to sink into a full blown recession that might last at least a year.

Optimistically speaking, the economy might be ok. The energy crisis certainly can be sorted should the people in power wish to do so. I dare say we’re all waiting to see what Liz Truss is going to do in the coming week. My guess: freeze the energy cap so it doesn’t go up in October. Win win for everyone. She looks like the hero, people don’t have higher bills, and the energy companies still make a good profit.

Have we added anything new?

Since we’ve been away the past week we haven’t really gotten a whole lot to add to the website.

We’ve added more Naughty Mystery boxes - which is always a favourite to make up.

Then we’ve added some more scents like Alien, Fluffy Towels, Daisy, Maple & Citrus, Praline, Cherry Slushie, and probably a few others.

Still having delays on Teddy Pots

So the date we’re due to get Teddy Pots has now been pushed back to Sept 20th. I think it’s due to strikes that are happening in the ports? At least that’s what we’ve been told.

And in fairness, global shipping is often a crapshoot when it comes to expected delivery dates.

Also, a rising surge in the dollar hasn’t been fun for international ordering either. Our clamshells and Teddy Pots have jumped around 10% in price purely due to the conversion from dollar to pound. Luckily that’s the only thing that we personally import internationally.

We have looked at moving manufacturing to the UK for it all, but you’re basically looking at around £2500/design to get the tooling done. With three designs - the cockshells, pots and clamshells - we’d have to fork out £7500 just to get designs done in the UK.

Maybe it’s something we can gradually do one design at a time in the new year, but we’ll see.

Does this count as unnecessary information that no one really cares about? Maybe. But sometimes I like giving useless business information to you lot so you can see a little bit behind the scenes I guess.

Anyway…

I will actually re-list all these on the Teddy Pot listings rather than one drop-down option as I think people prefer having them all on show like we currently do, rather than a single drop down listing.

Yep. I’ve just gone and done that, so they’re all on there as normal now. They’ll just have “1oz version” in the title for now.

Likely delays via Royal Mail

Oh, also… Royal Mail will be striking again - unless a deal is made - on Thursday and Friday of this week. So we’ll be unable to send on those days. We will try and drop stuff down on Saturday though. Just thought we’d let you know.

Of course this is outside of our control and I dare say you’ll be hearing about the strike from other retailers too. Not that I mind. If I was still working for Royal Mail then I’d be striking too and don’t really blame them for doing so.

Oh… I’m back to writing a book

I know loads of twats say they’re writing a book.

Most people who say they’re writing a book don’t end up actually writing it as they spend more time talking about it than actually writing it.

I may be one of those twats.

But at the moment I’m giving 30 minutes every day - no idea where I’m pulling that time from - to dedicate to writing. I doubt very much I’ll be able to keep it up every day. Three kids and a business doesn’t exactly lead to free time galore.

Will it ever get published? Fuck knows.

But in theory we can always self-publish via the business. It can’t be that hard, right? After all, prior to starting this business there was a LOT of things I didn’t know how to do, or didn’t think that I could do. Yet we just kinda had to learn how to do those things.

Basically, imagine if I sent you a newsletter that was 50000 words instead of 1400. It’ll kinda be like that. Hopefully it’ll be alright. It might be shit though. Only time will tell. I’ll try my best.

And that’s about it?

I think that’s it.

Basically we’ve added more stuff to the website.

So yeah… thank you for reading and I’ll try and write again some time soon. Perhaps give you a “book preview” type thing so you can see what sort of bollocks I’m writing.

Much love,

Ross & Rachel x