We hold no stock. Not a small amount β none. There is no shelf with your order sitting on it, because until you ask for it, it does not exist.
People find this strange, so here is the reasoning.
What stock actually costs
To hold stock you must guess. Which colours, which sizes, which names. Guess wrong and you have money sitting in a box, and eventually you discount it to clear space.
That discount is not generosity. It is the cost of the wrong guess, and it was always priced into everything else you bought.
What we do instead
When an order comes in, we start making. Your colour, your name, your photograph. It takes about a week for most things and a few days for the simpler ones.
That is slower than ordering from a warehouse, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What you get for the wait is an object that was made for you rather than for a forecast.
What it lets us say yes to
Because nothing is pre-made, there is no such thing as an odd request.
- One item instead of a minimum order
- A colour combination nobody has asked for before
- A name in a script we have not printed yet
- Something the customer sketched on the back of an envelope
A business holding stock has to say no to most of that, because the economics only work at volume. We do not have that constraint.
The honest trade-off
If you need something tomorrow, we are the wrong choice, and we would rather tell you than take the order. Our 48-hour rush service exists for genuine emergencies but it cannot bend physics.
If you want something that is actually yours β with the right name, spelled correctly, in the colour you chose β then a week is not a long time to wait.
Everything is made in Britain, by one person, in one workshop. If you buy something from us, somebody actually made it.