Kitty Hooch™ Wholesale Automation

What follows is an explanation of how we go about what we do. Let's keep some things in mind first of all.

1. Portland is the number one test market in the country. What does that mean? It means this is the most difficult US metropolitan market to launch a business in in the country. I had a Seiko Receptor watch. If you didn't live here you couldn't buy one.
2. Oregon is the leading catnip producing state in the country, but virtually every commercial grower mulches their catnip. All the major toys are made in China. It was not at all clear that we could viably produce raw sufficient raw product, manufacture finished product and do so at a reasonable price.
3. There was no premium market we were even aware of at the time we started. We had no idea even if our efforts would be rewarded!
4. We set out to compete with multimillion dollar companies in a multibillion dollar industry, but we were two people who had recently lost everything when external circumstances had made our previously successful business cease to be viable. We started Kitty Hooch with grocery money and ate a little less for a while. We had no R&D department and yet did better research than any of the big companies.

I guess if you have enough advertising dollars you don't need research. Especially if you don't want it eating into your profits. Now as we realize our vision it's easy to see in hindsight we were right on the money. It was never that easy for us. We had to believe.

Staying in Contact

Initially Alison used recipe cards to keep track of customers. I wrote a web based database application using Quanta plus. It took her a year to really start using it and in 2007 we began using an internal application I developed using Kommander on Linux. What is fun is that I am the project lead for both these software projects and once a year I go to Europe to meet my geek friends, drink beer and play with our laptops. In 2008 I began to work more on Kommander and took a larger role in development. In doing this, and with some help from some friends, I was able to make a very impressive tool.

Alison now loads in prospects to her database 100 at a time using my tool that slices and dices text files unitl they are data ready. She can filter her leads on time zones and status and every call that ends with a favorable status automatically generates a callback. Alison can see when she talks with someone the notes from every call, every piece of information she mailed, emailed or faxed and every order. She can also pop up a special calendar to see how densely she is scheduling her time. She can create custom menus with custom emails and she can schedule alerts which automatically pop up to remind her of followup calls. She can also edit these. On top of this she has other included tools to view and search phone logs, move stale followups, plan activities and more. She can view duplicate followups and even find orphaned leads and customers and set new followups. She has reports that summarize her performance to the minute. In short she has all the tools she needs to be very effective.

Next on the list of my plans are a special mini web interface she can use with her Blackberry on the go that will automatically communicate with our local network and update her logs. She also has a remote sync program so she can take her laptop and call. Additionally my do list includes email alerts for followups and a bluetooth dial capability.

And now to process those orders

When Alison sends info she gets a dialog to manage that which records the information items and product samples she is sending. Likewise when she has a sale she gets other windows automatically popping up. First is the order form. However as the contact application was written with one database (MySql) and the internal Kitty Hooch database is written in the more robust PostgreSql there are synchronization issues. If a store is not in the main database a dialog pops up with the store information filled in. If everything looks good she clicks a button to add the store. When that happens an HTML based link posts to our admin section and adds the store online. Then the store dialog closes and Alison enters the products for the order. If you order one of our promotional packs a single menu item fills the order form. I don't want Alison to sound like she's reading a novel while she's trying to talk on the phone. I want her to be doing as little work as possible and paying attention to our valued client stores.

Once Alison saves the order other things happen. First that order enters our local database with a status of not shipped. Then each of the products entered are passed in review with our store product table. If the product is already shown as carried by the store the last order date is updated and a new expiration date is written for the product. If it is not carried yet it is added. Then all the information is sent to the web site where scripts there perform the same process, Now it's a matter of reviewing the inventory, special orders like monogramming and what our contractors are doing. One of the things on our do list is to have our contractors schedule commitments online in a special admin area. Once the products are ready the order is marked ready to ship in the wholesale ship manager.

Of course the final thing Alison always does is type her log notes and save. This records her time on that call and if this is the first order for a store it logs this and completes the key exchange with the main database. While it is not possible to write one SQL phrase for two database at once it is possible to talk with two databases at the same time and merge their information with Kommander. Consequently synchronization of all data sources can now be handled automatically. Duplication of effort is not only time consuming and annoying, it is a breeding ground for errors. I never fix errors. I fix systems that eliminate future errors.

Shipping your order

Most orders are going automated through USPS and we also can use UPS. When the order is ready the pull list and invoices are printed. The pull list instructs our girls who handle shipping what to get ready and has special instructions if there are any. It also has a page with invoice numbers and store name for the packaging until it is weighed and the shipping label is attached. Information packs can go very fast. Product can get backlogged a little easier.

For our next amazing feat we plan to automate this by updating the web site with all information on orders including scheduled ship dates, tracking numbers and more.

Online orders

I'm pleased to hear Alison is getting positive feedback on ordering online. I attempted to set this up years ago and she told me that nearly none of the stores she talked to expressed any interest. Of course we won't sell wholesale to just anyone. We screen our client base. Over the years we have had a few requests we simply refuse to offer a wholesale account to. You will need to verify with us who you are. Our most probable way to do this is by us sending you an email with a 24 hour time window to create a login. You will go to the link and enter some validation information and it will enable you to initiate your account. Our goal is to provide you convenience while using stringent measures to protect your sensitive information. What follows are key factors we plan on.

• Access to prices, ordering and order history will only be through user name and password over SSL
• Lost password will be supported only to the account email and only with key question validation
• Credit cards will only be kept on file on our local server behind a firewall. Data access is additionally locked down to only certain computers on the network and extra precautions we take will not be further explained. Just keep in mind we don't even connect to the internet with an operating system that can be compromised by viruses unless that operating system has no access to internal networks.
• Store addresses can not be changed from your admin interface without confirmation directly through us. This way nobody can hijack your account and get your product unless they can do it in your store under your nose.

Even more good stuff

What you can be sure of is that I will work into the wee hours of the night and Alison will be up at the break of dawn. We are highly motivated. Our vision is to become a major player in the industry, but please note... We will never forsake our boutique store market for the larger accounts! We really don't need to, and besides it costs to scale our production because the only place we do automate is in information systems. Everything else we do the old fashioned way. If there is anything we missed here or any input you might have to help us do even better we are always interested in hearing it. In the mean time I look forward to completing the tasks I've outlined here. The first part of 2009 has been a blur of coding and a lot of fun. I am very excited to continue and overtake even larger challenges.

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