One Little Bow

Archive for May, 2009

Hey everyone, I have gotten alot of emails regarding the summer shipping times.   We will remain open after May 30th, the only change will be that orders COULD take up to 2 weeks longer than normal to ship. The main reason for this is Jen and I both are going on vacation during the first of July.  This is only estimated to happen with a few orders, not every single one. Please do not let this discourage you from ordering! It’s not as bad as it sounds   Please email us with any questions.   Jessica@onelittlebow.com

Thanks a bunch!

PS: Don’t forget our memorial day sale ends tonight! 20% off ALL orders and 1/2 price shipping! the code is ‘MEMDAY’ at check out!

“Imitation, if noble and general, insures the best hope of originality”

I can’t tell you how many times a day I get asked the question “How did you get where you are today?” The answer is simple. I was original; I was noble; I was general. Not with the bow or opening a boutique but by not ‘blatantly taking bow designs and ideas’ from people.

When I started the bow of the month program, I had only seen it down one other place. I called the owner of the boutique and talked to her about it. She was fine with the idea of me using ‘Bow of the Month.’ The only thing that was the same was the name. My idea of the program was completely different. Sure we all get ideas from each other, and we are all aware of the fact that there is only so much you can do with printed ribbon!

 
Boutiques feed off each others’ ideas. One always wants to be better than the other, and the owners seem to have a huge problem giving each other credit where credit is due. Yes I admit. I have been there. It’s not something I am proud of but I have. As my business has grown and matured, I’ve realized it is not important to be the best, what is important is that my customers are happy.

I owe probably 85% of my growth to my husband. He built my whole website from the ground up! Why do I mention him you ask? Because he has spent hundreds of hours writing ‘code’ to make my website what it is. All the time he has spent and much of the code designs he has written are published on a website for the whole world of developers to see and use FOR FREE! That is AMAZING to me. By contrast, we boutique owners tend to get upset when people ask where we get our tulle or ribbon from. Or we just completely ignore those messages.

My reason for writing this post is because I recently had a girl order almost 1 of every style of bow from me. She opened a boutique shortly after and has all of them on her site for sale. Was I upset? Sure. Not because she opened the boutique itself, but she literally used my designs verbatim with no deviation from their originals. Soon I got over it realizing that all of the successful boutiques that started on MySpace have succeeded because they were original! So props to each and everyone one of you! I know firsthand how hard and stressful this business is. When I sat down and thought about the time I spend away from my family to do what I absolutely love (making bows), the idea of being mad about somebody using my ideas to create their own seemed silly.

I wish all of you boutique owners out there the greatest success! This is a tough job! Keep your head high and don’t let the little stuff get to you. Even if it seems like a big deal, I promise it will soon pass and seem petty.

And most importantly if you’re starting a new boutique, don’t get mad at the ones who gave you the idea to start your business. Don’t be bitter or jealous. If your designs and ideas are original, you will one day be where your inspiration is. I now buy 90% of my girl’s clips, bows, and clothing from other boutiques. Why? You ask? 1) Because I don’t have time and 2) Supporting the industry I love is the greatest feeling in the world.

What a busy month it has been!!!! Between putting our house on the market, doc appointments, holidays, b-day parties and family in town…Wow is all i can say!!! I am using every spare moment of my time to work on orders!! Thank goodness I am feeling better than ever right now. I guess those second trimester myths are actually true.

Summer is officially here for us! My daughter’s last day of school was today!! She’s a kindergartner now I can’t believe it! I never thought the day would come that I would be saying that! I remember my mom following the bus to school on my first day of kindergarten, and I’ll be doing the same in about 3 months.

We want to give everyone a big heads up on our summer shipping times. Orders placed After may 30th COULD take up to 6 weeks to ship. Both One Little Bow, and Hailey’s Hair Clips will be going on vacation at the beginning of July and will not be working on any orders while we are gone. We do not want this to discourage any one from placing orders. Six weeks is just an estimate for the orders around that time period.

Policy Changes

We also have a new policy that will be permanent and is effective immediately.
Once your order is paid for, it is then put in a ‘processing status’ once this happens you will no longer be able to add new items to your order. Any additional items must be placed as a new order. If you have multiple pending orders please contact us if you would like to make shipping arrangements (IE: consolidated shipping)

The reason we are doing this is because we get a lot of people asking if they can add ‘just three bows’ to their existing order. We have in the past been very willing to do so; however, we are no longer able to do this because we have such an amazing customer base and a lot of orders to fill. We do not want to delay others’ pending orders!  We apologize for any inconvenience. Please understand we are trying to be as fair as possible to all of our customers. If you need to change something like an Ali clip to a french barrette, do not hesitate to ask. Those kind of changes we can make!

Last but not least. ALL 4th of July orders MUST be placed by May 30th to ensure timely delivery!!!

Thank you again to each and every one of you for being such amazing customers and so patient with our shipping times!! Without you, we would not be were we are today.  And I want to throw out one final thank you for reading our very fist blog post!  Our customer base has grown so much outside of myspace, I needed a better way to keep everyone up to date about what we are doing!  Please stay tuned for future news and updates from One Little Bow and Hailey’s Hair Clips!

Have a FANTASTIC summer!!!!

Jessica and Jen