Well hello again, friends! We seem to be meeting this way fairly often. But things are weird and changing all the time, so we're doing our best to keep you in the loop with what's happening here at RG. We've got a lot of into in this post so I'll try to break this up into manageable topics.
Y'all are keeping us BUSY.
Saturday when we released the martingale collars, we had our best sales day ever! This past month has been a whirlwind as the orders just keep coming. When all of this started, we braced for a dip in sales, potentially a massive one, and instead we've been scrambling to figure out how to keep enough inventory of all of our supplies on hand to meet demand. So far, we're kicking ass on that front.
We can't thank you all enough for shopping small and supporting our little business. And we appreciate your patience, as we know 3+ weeks is a long time to wait for something in this day and age. Our shop went from about 10 orders a day, to 30-60 a day, and we're hustling to develop new processes to keep up with demand. The very last thing we want to do is sacrifice quality or disappoint a single customer.
Shipping Delays
As far as we can tell, shipping to... well, everywhere, is delayed. Please be patient. Europe, Canada, and Australia are specifically seeing large delays in delivery times. We encourage you not to choose expedited shipping at this time, as USPS has suspended delivery guarantees for their services, so there's no promise this will get your order to you any faster.
Because of this, and because of our current 3 week production time, we are not guaranteeing any orders by a specific date at all. We know that's a bummer, because birthdays and anniversaries are still happening, but as every commercial ever will remind you, these are strange and unprecedented times. We're all doing our best.
Out of Stocks
Right now we're out of 1" Blush Pink leather, which means any products made with that leather are currently out of stock on the website. But never fear - our leather factory is finally open and producing for us, and we expect to receive a big shipment in the next week or so. Luckily, this is the only leather we've run out of so far. And with the factory open, we are re-stocking as much as we can, in case it needs to shut down again.
We're seeing massive delays in shipments of our supplies that come from Asia. So sometimes we run out of a certain buckle or D ring necessary to make certain products. If we reach the point that we're unable to fulfill an order, we'll reach out to give you options.
New Processes
We've recruited both of our partners to help with parts of our process. Miss Tara's fiance is assembling shipping boxes and packaging orders. My Sir has taken to plating hardware and engraving. They're both helping us around the house with cooking and dishes and basically making sure we're well taken care of through 12-16 hour days. (Especially Miss Tara who is 4 months pregnant with her first!)
We're figuring out new ways to streamline production, new ways to store all of the new supplies coming in (namely, stuffies, because those little things take up a lot of space!). And if you'll remember, we work out of our garage. It's a big garage, but it's very, very full.
Gold Hardware
We waffled on this for months, friends. Sourcing gold plated hardware has proven to be more difficult than we ever imagined. It's extremely expensive, and none of the gold plating matches, and at the end of the day, it's plated, so the plating will wear. In the midst of the search for a manufacturer for gold plated hardware, we found one who provided everything we need in solid brass. There are pros and cons to both. The only con to brass is that it may contain traces of nickel. But it will always keep its color. And it's strong, heavy, and pretty. And until (if?) we become the size of company that can invest in entirely custom hardware made just for us, we won't be able to offer gold plated hardware. (Though we know, it's gorgeous, high end, and exactly on brand for us.)
We encourage you to give brass a try if you don't have a nickel allergy!
Masks
Snarky Masks: We had some rad floral masks in the shop for about 8 seconds before they sold out. (These ones had incredible sayings on them, like "motherforking shirtballs" and "WTF".) Our friend Zahava is making more of these for us as soon as she can get her hands on more fabric, but that's looking like late May/Early June.
Plain Masks: One of our print to order providers is offering a set of 3 plain black masks, so we've put those in the shop in case any of y'all are in need of such a thing.
Neck Gaiters: We've added a variety of neck gaiters to the shop in prints to match our collars, apparel, and other accessories. These are printed to order and will ship direct from the factory.
Printed Masks: We are waiting on some prototype masks to be printed for us, and if the quality is ideal, we'll be bringing those to the shop as soon as possible. These will be ready to ship, and designs will include floral to match all of our floral designs, and plain black with sayings to match our other designs, like "Yes, Sir", and "What Fresh Hell", and "Good Girl".
Leather Masks: Our friend Stephanie is a seamstress, and she is currently sewing up the mask portion of the much anticipated leather masks, which we expect to have in hand this week. From there, we'll need time to prototype and design. We'll announce a release date for the leather masks as soon as we have one. But here are some answers to your FAQs about the leather masks:
- Yes, they're breathable! We use garment leather. It's soft, and on the thinner side for leather, and it's so comfortable.
- Yes, you'll be able to add bows.
- Yes, they'll be good for play as well as functional.
- They will have 2 leather straps with buckles, and they will be set sizes, like ball gags. The sizes will be listed so you can always measure to double check for fit.
- These will be extremely limited quantity, so we'll announce far in advance so you can plan to shop when they go live.
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We will have the following colors:
- Black
- Blush Pink
- Lavender
- Aqua
- Cream
- Black with white polka dots
New Releases
Boy, do we have a LOT of stuff to release. And precious little time to make it happen, currently. While we've snuck a few cream pieces into the shop, we have big plans to release the whole collection before the month is out. And then June will bring the Kate collection, inspired by Kate Spade, with a portion of the proceeds to go to The Trevor Project, a foundation that focuses on suicide prevention in the LGBTQIA+ community, especially among teens.
We're excited to be creating more collections as a way to give back to our communities, as we have with our Feeding America collection. In April we donated $500 from the sales of this collection, which is enough for 5,000 meals for families with food insecurity.
We're still working on things like:
- Strap on harnesses
- Muzzles
- Heel locks
- New collar designs
- New cuff designs
- New stuffies
- Paddles
- SO damn much more
We're having custom faux leather printed, so that the bows and accents on our collars will match other things in the shop perfectly, like apparel, aftercare blankets, totes, journals, travel cups, and so much more.
And later this summer you can expect a witchy collection the likes of which we can't even begin to describe. We know you'll love it.
We know this is a ton of into, but y'all have asked a lot of questions lately, and you know how we like to be transparent. As always, if you have more questions, you can email, DM, use the chatbox on the bottom left corner of the website, or ask product specific questions on the product pages.
Thank you again, for everything! We adore you all!
Miss Annie
1 comment
L
That’s so exciting! Y’all deserve the influx in business!