Looking for Office and Warehouse Space

We currently run our business out of a warehouse space in a funky part of Seattle called Georgetown. I am sharing it with another pet business that makes dog treats. Our lease is up next month and we have been looking for a new space. Our current one is just too dirty and has no heat and bathrooms are not clean! Long story but landlords have turned this in to their dumping ground. It is what you put up with on your first lease!! Even though they own many buildings, a lot of their tenants have to leave because of the economy. We have asked them to clean the place but not even a response. They must have so much money they don't care if their tenants leave!

Good news. Because economy is bad we have had some great opportunities open up for us for new places to lease. We found a great spot in a cute office park near by. Right across street from Post Office and the best coffee house in town. They are willing to work with us on price and terms. Yea! We think to move in at end of April. The space has great Feng Shui about it. I know we will be successful there. Now, about the moving part...........

Finding a Sewing Contractor

I needed to find a sewing company that could work with me in smaller quantities and someone who was close by in Seattle. I did search in yellow pages first and talked to several companies and went to their shops. Nothing. Either they were too big for me or I they did not work with nylon webbings. I needed a company that had industrial machines handling webbing in various thicknesses.

I did find one sewer and gave her several rolls of webbing and some ribbons, supplies, etc to try out. SHe tried to "help" me by sewing all 100 yards of one ribbon on to 100 yards of webbing, to cut up later. Problem was I need projects done as ordered so that we could conserve webbing for styles I needed made. All of that was wasted. She did not help. ALso the quality was not good. Crooked stitching and lots of stray threads. Back to the drawing board.

I am not sure I can remember how I found the one company I still use today. But "Sandy" was my savior. They were willing to work with my smaller quantities and grow with me. They were starting out as well. She did beautiful work and caught on quickly. This company is still with me today after 10 years! I did need one more sewer because we were growing past Sandy. I had some new items that she could not do. I put an ad on Craigslist and the first gal who called me worked out wonderfully. Lucky again! Works out of her home and has family that can help if extra busy. Both of these sewers are within 30 minutes of our warehouse. Yea!

One must have patience when looking for a manufacturer. THere is a lot of sending supplies and samples back and forth and tweaking. Be patient. It is worth it.

How it works with an outside sewing company is that I have all supplies (parts) of collars sent to them directly. I gave them a master sheet of all of our designs and sizes. Exactly how much ribbon and webbing to cut for each size, the hardware needed etc. I will email them an excel sheet of items needed. They sew, call me when done and we pick up and bring back to our warehouse, package and ship for orders.

It all Started in My Kitchen

I think most businesses start small or by accident. My parents had a chain of fabric stores growing up. By the time I started making dog collars though they had closed the stores down. But I still had access to all of their vendors. This was about 1999. I just adopted a great dog and wanted a fun dog collar for him. I started by buying the supplies at retail prices since I was buying a few bits at a time. But I was mainly doing it for my own dog. Well, friends wanted some for their dogs and people at my dog park were asking as well. LIGHT BULB! I think we have an idea.

I started sewing on my personal machine at my kitchen table. My roommate was not too happy to loose this space. I gradually bought rolls of webbing and 25 - 50 yard put-ups of ribbons. My style of collar was to sew a printed ribbon on to nylon webbing. I use the side-release clip buckle rather than a "belt" buckle style. I did not want to have to punch holes in webbing. You needed a heat punch to do this.

I would say the most fun was researching the supplies. Especially the ribbons. We had the internet obviously but not to the extent as now. It was hard to search for ribbons. Most companies did not have websites yet. I would go from fabric store to fabric store finding ribbons or fabrics I liked. I would take the vendor name down and contact them directly by phone asking for catalogs. My initial line was only about 10 different patterns. We have over 40 now.

Getting Started in the Pet Industry!

Hello everyone! Well, we finally did it. We are starting this adventure of blogging, Twittering, Facebooking, etc. So much work, so little time! But fun. ALthough I should have started this long ago I am hoping it is never too late.

My name is Anette Wachter, owner of Pet Elegance. The photo to the right is of KOZMO our top dog here at Pet Elegance. We have been in business now for just over 10 years. Owning my own business has been, shall we say, "interesting". Owning a business in the Pet Industry has been "wonderfully interesting". I am hoping to tell you my many adventures throughout the years and update you on events to come. Can you make money at this? Are there lessons to be learned from mistakes? YES and YES!

Like any business the basics are needed. A business plan and money. I had one of the 2. Business plan. Great, but hard to move on without capital. But plug away I did and somehow I made to 10 years!

It will be interesting to see where the next few months and years will take me. Our economy is going to be drained of a lot of money soon. Hopefully we can start filling it back up. I have taken great pride that we have always hired local manufacturers to make our product and bought all of our supplies from domestic suppliers. I feel it is so important. Yes, my business bottom line could be slimmer if I had our product made overseas. But there is more to business than that. It is important to give back to your community. My community happens to be the USA.

How I got started in this wacky wonderful business................check back soon!