Navigating the Current Economic Environment

Supply line disruptions, labor shortages, literal economic inflation...I could ramble in detail on them and try to connect all the strings, but that doesn't practically solve any issues facing the store.

I wouldn't have believed you if you told me the biggest hurdle the store would face 2 years after founding was lack of available supply. We have several distributors supplying us with Qualatex, TufTex, and Cattex balloons. Going forward, we are going to attempt to focus on only selling these 3 brands. Qualatex and TufTex are available to us locally in the USA and Cattex is by far the most popular brand for unique shapes and designs desired by looners. Sadly, Qualatex has been limited in color and size for products and printing, and TufTex supply is nearly wiped out across the USA and printing has been suspended since spring. For the time being, Cattex is still supplying us as needed without issue. This puts us in the position of either working with other brands (many having their own supply issues or quality concerns) , sacrificing on colors/sizes for the sake of inventory, or just sitting on our hands, which has been my preferred strategy over the last few months. I would much prefer to try and wait out the storm to produce EXACTLY what the customers want rather than risk making something that has a mediocre reception, leaving us sitting on a ton of unsold product. I have made a few exceptions, such as reprinting our Balloonicorns on blue and pink Q36s when we would have much rather reprinted them on vibrant jewel tones in white ink. Other things I'm not willing to budge on; such as waiting out the supply shortages to reprint our pooltoy husky design on Qualatex 16s rather than Unique 16s.

Anyway, that's the mindset we are at right now. Here's a list of future projects I'm sitting on my hands with until the opportunity arises...

Zebra headshot print on TufTex 24s

Reindeer headshot print on TufTex 24s

Lioness headshot print on TufTex 24s

"Thicc Redwood" print on TufTex 24s (The above could be done on Qualatex 36s...but I believe the price point would be too high; I really want a product with a $3-$4 price level in the shop) Pooltoy Husky reprint on Qualatex 16s

Pooltoy "Alan" 2-Sided on Qualatex 36s

Any previous 2-Sided prints on Qualatex 16s (if there is interest)

Stocking Qualatex 36s

Stocking TufTex 24s

Stocking Qualatex GeoDonut 16s

Stocking more Cattex 14s (They have a lot of pretty colors!)