Shipping Issues for My Business

I work for a medium-sized company that specializes in international supply chain management. We partner with many different companies around the world and help them figure out ways in which they can improve upon their current operations with production, packaging, and supply chain management. I have worked in this business for many years and have worked with a very wide range of companies and businesses across the globe. We’ve seen it all in terms of mistakes, changes, adaptations, and transitions that different companies have made in regards to packing and shipping, production, and supply chain management.

From a young age, I’ve always been taught that it’s important to have a side hustle or something that you can use to make money on the side. They say that extremely wealthy people have at least 7 different sources of income. With the craziness surrounding the  pandemic, I have found my current side hustle for the time being. I started off by making face masks for family and friends as gifts, especially when the pandemic first became an issue. Many people had a hard time getting their hands on affordable face masks due to shortages. However, I began to sell these masks online in my local community through Facebook marketplace and eBay as a way of making a little extra income on the side.

My background as a supply chain specialist has helped me in lots of ways as I have worked to find my niche market with my facemasks. A big problem that arose during my early days producing and selling face masks was having enough supply on hand in order to fulfill all the orders that were coming in. With the shortage of face masks on an almost global scale, you can imagine that I had a lot of orders coming in on a daily basis. I began to hire some of my close friends that were willing to help me produce these masks. The process of making them is not very hard or complicated, it just takes a little bit of knowledge with fabric and sewing machines. Some of my friends who were willing to help were already familiar and competent in these ways, so it was very much a welcome help to my production process.

Another problem arose when I started to sell my masks on a more national level. I needed to quickly and efficiently obtain packaging and shipping supplies; packages, adhesive, poly bags, and other sorts of materials were in high demand at the time, so it was hard to obtain some of these items on a regular basis. Shipping my face masks was relatively easy with UPS, and it did not add a whole lot of extra cost to my production and shipping costs. I only added a small fee with each purchase for shipping if it was an out-of-state order. 

Overall, my side hustle has been quite successful during the pandemic. Things have gone well with shipping, and I don’t see a lot of complaints about lost or damaged items. I made sure to look up some of the highest quality poly bags I could find. Things have slowed down a bit due to the pandemic becoming more managed and with a very saturated market for facemasks. However, I am glad to have found a side hustle that can really produce a lot of revenue.