I started a baby clothes business two years ago. It took me a year to develop the clothes, send to production and receive the final product. I received the boxes a few weeks before I went on a 6-months-exchange program. It was a very busy time for me. But I counted the clothes and checked if everything was delivered correctly. I looked at the buttons of a couple pieces but not every single one of them (380 units). There were some issues like the manufacturer used the wrong size of wood buttons and a couple clothes had the wrong color thread. But we reached an agreement over this.
These past months, I’ve been focusing on the marketing aspect. Yesterday, I started taking pictures of the products to put on the website. As I opened the snap-buttons of 5 (out of 14 pieces), it came apart. So I started opening all the buttons of all the pieces. Now 50% of my product is damaged. I contacted the manufacturer and she is not in the private label business anymore. She said she delivered everything over a year ago, but that she will talk to some of her contacts and see what I can do.
I can’t sell the undamaged ones because I fear I might cause harm to someone if a button eventually comes apart. I don’t know what to do. I have no previous experience in this field. If anyone has any word of advice, I’d appreciate it!
Sorry this is the kind of thing that will sound harsh, but for only 380 units there seems some kind of disconnect between your manufacturing overseas rather than in a local factory where you can do quality control. As others have said, fix the issue and move on from it, even if it costs you some money. Consider it a part of a business education.
You need to call around to local seamstresses and get them sewing buttons ASAP! They’ll probably be happy to help
Don’t certain items like baby clothes, mattresses, other “high risk” materials have to pass a government inspection before they can sell? Like mattresses have to be certified flame retardant and baby clothes can have decorative beads on them in case of choking?
You have far too much faith in the system
Should be able to submit to an independent lab in that case and get a report, but obviously would cost money. Could you reclaim some costs from the original seller?
Go limited, insure, burn, claim… dissolve
Is it possible for you to pivot away from buttons and use velcro?
Or magnet! Magnet baby clothes are the most convenient thing ever
No, magnets are very dangerous for children. Swallowing two is enough to cause perforation of the intestines and death.
Lesson learned.
Step 1: Count Ordered Items Step 2: QA for Form, Fit, & Function.
Step 3: Resolve Issues/Errors …Snaps are the easier things ever to replace. Source the snaps and a setter and redo the broken ones yourself.
Pivot to starting a co-work space
Yup, early on you’re gonna be finding workarounds for plenty of mfg defects. Anyone in hard/soft goods has plenty of stories about doing it. It’ll cost you a bit extra, but on your first production run you’re really trying to figure out if you CAN sell your product (do people like it? Can you market it effectively? Is the pricing right?) So chock this up to thinner margins, find a local seamstress to fix them, and focus on the experimentation aspect of launching a new product. Just fake it till you make it!
If for some reason these can’t be fixed there are people who will buy lightly damaged items in bulk. Just fyi. I’m so sorry that this is happening! There are sites like Upwork and Freelancer where you may find someone who has cut and sew experience that can come up with a clever solution
See if someone local can fix them if its not too expesive
Sorry to hear you are going through this. This is the biggest fear all of us in micro-manufacturing have - not being able to watch the quality of the production once we grow and sub it out. When I do scale to where someone other than I do the sewing, it will be local so I can do QA regularly.
I started out typing advice but my honest reaction is fold.
You aren’t cut out for this and could potentially kill a young child with your product.
Not doing a QA check on goods you ordered to your design from China isn’t just basic it’s fundamental and has cost you everything this time.
The correct course of action with so many glaring issues on day 1 was to reject the delivery. The corrector action was to hire QA before the goods left mainland China. If the manufacturer was happy to do things like use the wrong colours and materials to get it shipped you could have guessed at the quality of goods.
3 weeks was plenty of time to deal with this. You chose to bury your head.
This is all going to sound really harsh but I’m trying to be on your side OP. Right now you have lost a bit of money (shouldn’t be more than $5k max). If you go ahead and kill a child you’ll lose so much more.
Given your nature is to be non confrontational and let things slide you’ll pay a fortune to get your product fixed and it still won’t be 100%. You don’t even know if it will sell yet and the journey of mastering e-commerce is harder than the YouTube videos make out.
My 2p. Chalk this up to a misadventure
No one will buy them anyway. Super saturated market and the kings of the industry will crush them. This is why 80% of Shopify stores fail in two years.
The correct course of action with so many glaring issues on day 1 was to reject the delivery.
^^^For anyone else thinking of accepting goods not as specified.
Dealing with China on small lots is dancing with the dragon. Vendor likely guesses this may be a 1X order and will never get another from you. There are good vendors, they do exist. But even good vendors may try to slip something past. Usually on a later order after you establish your niche and desperate for more merch.
TBH 380 units doesn’t sound like very much for a business. You’ll survive?