I’ve been sharing about BGLH Marketplace’s eventful summer which included a temporary shut down, and a move into my parents’ home following my mother’s cancer diagnosis. You can read part 1 of the story here, and part 2 here.
After a week of sorting my little basement workroom at my parent’s house was finally cleared. And there were a few gems in all that junk, including my sophomore college yearbook. Lol!
That’s me in the middle, second from the left!
My Dad gifted me two large, dusty collapsible tables, and I spent an afternoon furiously disinfecting them (and evicting a family of spiders.)
Finally, when I was satisfied that everything was clean, I started bringing supplies into my new workroom and setting up my space.
It went from this…
To this!
I was ready to get started, but when I opened my boxes of inventory from New York I found that about $6,000 worth of product had melted in transit. And so my first two weeks of work were spent painstakingly re-whipping melted product.
The employee my Dad had found for me, Jean, had just moved to the United States from Haiti for asylum. He was strong, kind and eager to work – but spoke not a lick of English. I am Haitian on my Dad’s side, but my creole is tragic, so much of our communication was done through Google Translate. Still, GT has its limits, and I found it impossible to explain the complexities of our insulated packaging process.
So I kept Jean to straightforward tasks – like scooping bowls and molding African black soap bars – while I stayed up for hours packing and shipping orders.
Outside of the house, the challenges of running a high-volume small business in a quiet suburban neighborhood were quickly becoming apparent.
My parents’ UPS delivery driver – after years of dropping off lightweight packages – had to get used to hauling 55-pound boxes of shea and cocoa butter to our door. To say he wasn’t happy is an understatement. I woke up one day to find a 40 pound pail of almond oil on its side, punctured and leaking on the front porch. It had been haphazardly thrown down.
Our mail lady was far kinder. She delivered our packages with a smile (to be fair, the packages she had to deliver were far, far lighter) and was happy to get to know me. In Brooklyn I qualified for daily USPS pick ups that saved me hours of driving packages to the post office. Because our mail lady was so kind I broached the topic with her. She was eager to do it.
I decided to start slow. I prepared a box of about 15 insulated packages, ranging from 1 to 5 pounds each. I pulled the box from the commercial freezer in my Dad’s garage and handed it to her. As soon as it hit her hands she doubled over, a shocked expression on her face, and lost her grip. Packages went flying everywhere.
“I’m so sorry!” She exclaimed. “I didn’t expect it to be so heavy!” I assured her it was okay and helped her get the insulated packages into her truck, but I put the idea of daily USPS pick ups out of my mind. I’d have to get used to driving packages to the post office again.
And so, multiple times a week I drove to the post office with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of packages in tow.
The local post office proved to be less than welcoming. One Saturday afternoon my Dad called me to the door. Standing there was a man in official United States Postal Service attire, with a grim look on his face.
“Maam, we cant keep shipping your packages.”
“What? Why?!” I asked, confused.
“Because these packages contain dry ice, and dry ice requires different packaging. Several of our postal workers have complained about this.”
All that was going through my mind was, “Now I know these suburban postal workers did not just snitch on me!!” But absolutely, yes, they had.
I explained to the postal rep that I didn’t use dry ice to package my butters. I used non-toxic cold packs that don’t require special packaging. I walked him over to the commercial freezer in the garage and opened the lid. I also gently pointed out that, had they been concerned, the postal workers could have spoken to me the many, *many* times they’d seen me in their facility. *Sigh*
All challenges aside, BGLH was coming together. By early October I’d gotten through the backlog of summer orders and things were stabilizing.
Click here for the final part of this story!
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A few things;
1. As of today all outstanding orders, reshipments and refunds have been sent. If we missed you, or you have a question/concern, email le***@**************ce.com.
2. The brand is back 100% up and running, so if you need to place an order shop now.
3. Vanilla Body Oil is *finally* here!
More later!
~Leila
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