by Danielle Campbell-Angah
s the Gulf Coast is still rebuilding from the damage rendered by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, we now find ourselves in the midst of another hurricane season. While people living in coastal states are likely to have a serious hurricane plan, people throughout the rest of the country — or the world — may not have considered how they, too, may be affected by hurricanes.
Carol Chastang, spokesperson for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), notes that suppliers can be incapacitated by an emergency in the same manner that artists can be. An artist who lives in Kansas, for example, will be indirectly hampered if a key supplier in California suffers damage from an earthquake.
Chastang encourages artists and craft entrepreneurs to find and work with alternative suppliers in advance to secure backup supplies in the event of an emergency. “When the disaster hits, everybody’s going to that [available] supplier,” she points out. If you’ve already established a relationship with the company, you’ll be in a better position than an artist who has no relationship at all.
The following are two examples of how crafts suppliers weathered storms that nearly closed their businesses.
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| Illustration by Dave Fontaine |
Consider the story of Bead Biz, a supplier operating in the French Quarter section of New Orleans. Owners-sisters Jean Elizabeth Glass and Esther Kobernick and their families relocated to Connecticut following Hurricane Katrina. Prior to the storm, the sisters counted local artists and other bead enthusiasts in the area as clients, but the bulk of their business, about 60 percent, came from tourists.
Although their business property was not affected much by the hurricane and subsequent flooding, they kept their merchandise in their home, which sustained flood damage. The items they had for sale were ruined. Glass estimates they threw out $15,000 to $20,000 worth of destroyed merchandise, recalling the stench of wet bone beads as they sorted through their soaked belongings. All they had from the business were the records for the past three years, money from the cash register and a few necklaces they grabbed before the hurricane hit.
Katrina hit August 29; in November they applied to the SBA for money to rebuild; in May they began receiving those funds. In the meantime, friends helped out. The sisters obtained stock to sell thanks to the generosity of many of their bead wholesalers. They were able to appear at retail and wholesale bead shows with the help of organizers who donated table space to them.
With no plans to return permanently to Louisiana, they have changed the focus of their business to selling at bead shows and fulfilling some mail orders.
Although Bead Biz has been able to reach a new group of clients, it has been much more challenging to reach the old ones. The client contact lists were destroyed in the storm.
Glass expressed frustration at being unable to get in touch with loyal customers like a woman in California who bought plastic letter beads every year for an annual event. Although Bead Biz has been able to get a new stock of letter beads, “I don’t have her phone number,” Glass says.
In order to communicate with their clients after the storm, they had calls to the store’s toll-free number routed to their cell phone, posted notices on their Web site and posted messages to New Orleans-area message boards for artists.
They wanted clients to know how to get in touch, but they also wanted to know how their local clients weathered the storm.
“I miss our customers,” Glass says. “I worry, ‘Are they OK? Is there anything I can do for them?’”
Stuller, a company located in Lafayette, La., which was also hard-hit by Hurricane Katrina, has a different story. Stuller supplies everything from raw materials to finished jewelry, tools and equipment, displays and packaging materials to clients in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. While Hurricane Katrina did not damage the property, the business experienced interruptions with local package deliveries and temporary loss of the use of its toll-free lines, which came through New Orleans.
A message from the automatic attendant for the company’s phone system and messages posted to the Web site alerted customers to the communication problems. They were directed to contact the company via the Internet, fax and local lines which were up and running.
Hurricane Rita, which came on the heels of Katrina, created staffing problems. Some associates weren’t able to get to work due to flooding. But, Stuller customers were largely unaffected by the problems the company faced from the storms.
As an artist, there are lessons to learn from these stories. Be sure you have several ways to get in touch with your suppliers — a phone number, e-mail and Web site, for example. After an emergency, they may be trying to reach out to you. Make sure you can hear them.
A more important lesson, however, is to develop contingency buying plans for supplies. It’s best to set up these backup vendor relationships in advance, and to occasionally place orders with your alternative vendors, says SBA’s Chastang. If you’re already a valued customer, they will find a way to get you what you need quickly, she adds.
Kathi Gordon, a jewelry artist in hurricane-prone Pensacola, Fla., estimates she has close to 50 vendors for supplies. “I don’t have any item that I couldn’t get if one supplier went out of business,” she says. Gordon is still growing her business, but she likes this strategy not only as a way to be prepared if a supplier is struck by disaster. Some of her suppliers are very small, part-time bead makers who may go out of business with very little notice, she explains. Additionally, her orders are small compared to others, and some suppliers get overwhelmed at different times of the year. She knows her order may not be a priority for them.
In the event that your affected supplier has unique products that you can’t find anywhere else, Glass recommends that artists be patient with companies that are still able to function after an emergency.
“Keep in mind that [suppliers are] dealing with their entire lives being turned upside down ... their business, their house and their family,” she says. Artists who can be patient may ultimately get the supplies they need, and they will be helping their long-time supplier through a tough time.
Danielle Campbell-Angah is a free-lance writer in Ridley Park, Pa., who makes jewelry in her spare time. She can be reached at dcangah@yahoo.com.