A while back I did a business in a box inventory experiment. It’s been almost a year now, and even on a small scale I realize that I really don’t like maintaining an inventory, and especially don’t like physically sending out orders.

This is why HouseOfRave has always continued to be a dropship model.

Since I’ve done this little experiment in selling the tattoos I’ve had to re-order inventory twice, buy more packing supplies (aka envelopes and stamps) and this time I ordered a little more stuff, which was perhaps a mistake, but a learning experience nonetheless.

So to keep in conrguence with the “small, lightweight, can-be-sent-in-an-envelope” theme I also ordered some of these tattoo sleeves from the supplier:

(Yes, that is my arm with the tattoo sleeve)

I did a quick photo shoot of them and made them a new product on the website. Additionally, the supplier was out of the standard 8″ tattoos I ordered before, so they sent 5 1/2″ tattoos instead which I had to make a new product for. So now on the tattoo page you can see the two new products.

For the smaller tattoos I decided not to sort them into individual products as that gets tedious to maintain inventory, but to sell them as an “assortment” which means you get random styles. I still had to photograph some of the different styles using the same method I did for the first tattoo experiment:

You can see all the final images on the 5 1/2″ tattoo page.

Every time I get an order for a temporary tattoo I:

• Get the “business in a box” from my room (aka the Aldo shoebox)
• Address an envelope
• Insert the tattoos (or sleeves)
• Send the “package” when I check my mail.

Relatively simple yes, but it still involves work which is best suited for a properly prepared supplier with a warehouse. For example, if someone wants the tattoos with Express shipping, I have no way of doing this without a trip to the post office. Fortunately this doesn’t happen often, but nevertheless I might remove these products at some point if I have to ship them myself, despite their (minor) profitability.