Carmina Shoes - Definitive Thread (reviews, advice, sizing, etc...) - official thread.

[Wcutsmart]

Shoes yes but let me answer your question. "However, you don't seem to be mentioning your employees at all."

When covid hit for this business all employees were laid off since most everything was closed. Then maybe you know about PPP so that was applied for in hopes to retain employees. This business was approved and as soon as it was called back all employees. Only 2 yes 2 were willing to return since everyone on unemployment was making an extra $600 per week. Seems many employees were making a killing on unemployment and did not want to come back to work. So yes I can trump someone getting sick with no one trained wants to return to work at all. So lucky there is one very Jr employees, one senior employee, and me. Hours of operation are 9am to 10pm 7 days a week very hard to cover with 3 people especially when at many times more than one is needed. I had no choice but to get my 17 year old son who was still in 12th grade remote school involved as much as possible and get my wife who was working full time remote involved. This was to help me and my senior employee not kill ourselves since we were putting in 80-100 hours weeks at the start. It was almost impossible to hire more employees as no one wanted to work since they were making so much on unemployment. We had no choice but to take what we could get and many did not work out because they could not put out the standard. It was very hard to fire them for doing a crap job since we were so tired but we have standards and they were not getting it. Before you ask yes we tried working side by side to train them some of the issues were more basic like showing up to work or showing up on time as in not hours late.

During this time we kept up our standards as we had so few customers we did not want anyone unhappy. It was good that we had the PPP to keep paying the employees with sales so low. But we kept going and we started to see new faces and they were coming back. Slowly people started to come outside and drive around and more people were coming and ordering online. Remember standards high = customers happy = return customers.

So guess what happen? We don't qualify for the new 2nd stimulus loans... you know why? 2020 sales are 23% higher than 2019 and we were closed part and almost no sales part of 2020. In fact current monthly sales are exceeding all historical months since this business opened in 2006. How about that building sales during the worst economic slump in recent history.

You know the secret? Very simple, happy customers who get what they ordered made to a standard of excellence.

Oh yea back to shoes. True I am not a shoe maker but if I was the manager at Carmina... I would be in the factory checking on shoes in production, checking on shoes as they were packed, doing the same thing I am doing now making sure what is going out the door is of our standards of quality so we have happy customers.

Even in the middle of a pandemic it is possible to maintain quality standards. Unless you have managers and owners that just don't care what they are pumping out the door. Also remember we here on this forum are a small number of Carmina's customers. We here have a large amount of messed up orders can you imagine the actual total number of bad orders. Yes it's much more than we are seeing here. The fact is no one at Carmina has been paying attention to what is going out the door or what is going on in the factory.

This is a time in history where a smaller company like Carmina can actually take customers from other shoe makers by providing a superior product. Yes it's true many companies are struggling to survive some have given up already. What does that mean? It means there are orphaned customers out there looking for a new company to do business with, anyone still in business should be actively trying to snatch them up.

Unfortunately it's not nice just a business fact that the times we are in are survival of the fittest. Many will probably fail and only some survive, just nature's way.

Lastly even if I was the CEO of Allen Edmonds you can bet your life on it, I would be in the factory checking on what is coming off the production line and going in boxes, and you can take that to the shoe bank.

Me: not asking any question.

007Bond: Shoes yes but let me answer your question. "However, you don't seem to be mentioning your employees at all."

Me:

 

[Wcutsmart]

Shoes yes but let me answer your question. "However, you don't seem to be mentioning your employees at all."

When covid hit for this business all employees were laid off since most everything was closed. Then maybe you know about PPP so that was applied for in hopes to retain employees. This business was approved and as soon as it was called back all employees. Only 2 yes 2 were willing to return since everyone on unemployment was making an extra $600 per week. Seems many employees were making a killing on unemployment and did not want to come back to work. So yes I can trump someone getting sick with no one trained wants to return to work at all. So lucky there is one very Jr employees, one senior employee, and me. Hours of operation are 9am to 10pm 7 days a week very hard to cover with 3 people especially when at many times more than one is needed. I had no choice but to get my 17 year old son who was still in 12th grade remote school involved as much as possible and get my wife who was working full time remote involved. This was to help me and my senior employee not kill ourselves since we were putting in 80-100 hours weeks at the start. It was almost impossible to hire more employees as no one wanted to work since they were making so much on unemployment. We had no choice but to take what we could get and many did not work out because they could not put out the standard. It was very hard to fire them for doing a crap job since we were so tired but we have standards and they were not getting it. Before you ask yes we tried working side by side to train them some of the issues were more basic like showing up to work or showing up on time as in not hours late.

During this time we kept up our standards as we had so few customers we did not want anyone unhappy. It was good that we had the PPP to keep paying the employees with sales so low. But we kept going and we started to see new faces and they were coming back. Slowly people started to come outside and drive around and more people were coming and ordering online. Remember standards high = customers happy = return customers.

So guess what happen? We don't qualify for the new 2nd stimulus loans... you know why? 2020 sales are 23% higher than 2019 and we were closed part and almost no sales part of 2020. In fact current monthly sales are exceeding all historical months since this business opened in 2006. How about that building sales during the worst economic slump in recent history.

You know the secret? Very simple, happy customers who get what they ordered made to a standard of excellence.

Oh yea back to shoes. True I am not a shoe maker but if I was the manager at Carmina... I would be in the factory checking on shoes in production, checking on shoes as they were packed, doing the same thing I am doing now making sure what is going out the door is of our standards of quality so we have happy customers.

Even in the middle of a pandemic it is possible to maintain quality standards. Unless you have managers and owners that just don't care what they are pumping out the door. Also remember we here on this forum are a small number of Carmina's customers. We here have a large amount of messed up orders can you imagine the actual total number of bad orders. Yes it's much more than we are seeing here. The fact is no one at Carmina has been paying attention to what is going out the door or what is going on in the factory.

This is a time in history where a smaller company like Carmina can actually take customers from other shoe makers by providing a superior product. Yes it's true many companies are struggling to survive some have given up already. What does that mean? It means there are orphaned customers out there looking for a new company to do business with, anyone still in business should be actively trying to snatch them up.

Unfortunately it's not nice just a business fact that the times we are in are survival of the fittest. Many will probably fail and only some survive, just nature's way.

Lastly even if I was the CEO of Allen Edmonds you can bet your life on it, I would be in the factory checking on what is coming off the production line and going in boxes, and you can take that to the shoe bank.

I feel for all the extra work you and your family had to cover for. By the sounds of it you reside and do business in America/Canada. Here in Europe, not all countries were as privileged to get (extra) money for their employees from the state and what was promised was never done on time which has caused lots of issues in itself. Think if you have someone in care, your wife lost her job, you are being paid less and risk getting sick yourself with covid.

I am glad you managed to turn this crisis to your advantage, good for you, but don't think it's fair to expect everyone to manage the same in a crisis situation, especially since the context can be so different. You don't seem to be having very good employees if they are not dedicated enough to come and work for you.

The only thing I agree with 100% from what was said is:

Ultimately, it comes down to taking pride in your job/work.

Can be tough finding pride in something when you don't know what tomorrow brings and you are just working to survive and your whole set of values has changed because of that. The whole pandemic implications can be very profound for some. I wouldn't really know how or why to judge that.

Still, that being said and with the risk of repeating myself - there's always going to be a bunch of Karens who will contradict me, I was impressed with their staff at the store, so knowledgeable, well-mannered and impeccable service and I feel very sorry for their experience these past years.

 

[zag73]

I feel for all the extra work you and your family had to cover for. By the sounds of it you reside and do business in America/Canada. Here in Europe, not all countries were as privileged to get (extra) money for their employees from the state and what was promised was never done on time which has caused lots of issues in itself. Think if you have someone in care, your wife lost her job, you are being paid less and risk getting sick yourself with covid.

I am glad you managed to turn this crisis to your advantage, good for you, but don't think it's fair to expect everyone to manage the same in a crisis situation, especially since the context can be so different. You don't seem to be having very good employees if they are not dedicated enough to come and work for you.

The only thing I agree with 100% from what was said is:

Can be tough finding pride in something when you don't know what tomorrow brings and you are just working to survive and your whole set of values has changed because of that. The whole pandemic implications can be very profound for some. I wouldn't really know how or why to judge that.

Still, that being said and with the risk of repeating myself - there's always going to be a bunch of Karens who will contradict me, I was impressed with their staff at the store, so knowledgeable, well-mannered and impeccable service and I feel very sorry for their experience these past years.

Their customer service is excellent- in store and online ?
I think European governments have been significantly more generous with cash handouts than the US government ? Don’t forget, we’re more left leaning in Europe.

 

[jischwar]

Their customer service is excellent- in store and online ?
I think European governments have been significantly more generous with cash handouts than the US government ? Don’t forget, we’re more left leaning in Europe.

That was my understanding as well

 

[zag73]

That was my understanding as well

Certainly in the UK, the government has been throwing cash at companies to keep people on. I should imagine the continental Europeans have been even more generous. Although, happy to be corrected. Here in the Uk, companies can claim up to £30k per person prorata for the year.

 

[stephenaf2003]

Still, that being said and with the risk of repeating myself - there's always going to be a bunch of Karens who will contradict me, I was impressed with their staff at the store, so knowledgeable, well-mannered and impeccable service and I feel very sorry for their experience these past years.

The most important part of all that you wrote is what I bolded above. SF is fully stocked with Karen’s, it is known.
Also, an aggrieved Karen is a business’s nightmare, they just won’t go away until they speak to the manager. The worst ones still won’t go away, even after they speak to the manager.

 

[Blastwice]

@007Bond congrats on what sounds like a job well done in terms of growing your business during these difficult times... In the interest of further steering this thread FAR off course, I'd be curious to hear more about one detail you described. If you prefer to take it to PM that is fine as well. No judgment here but if you could comment more regarding the unemployment pay vs. work I'd be very curious to understand it better.

At the time when this was discussed in the media and from some politicians I deemed it to be "politics" and not a real world issue. Sounds like I was wrong and that this was a function of states (or employers, or both) having stingy min wage guarantees, which meant that the UE enhancement passed by congress meaningfully altered normal decision making for impacted employees. I can't recall the specifics of this program and I am not too familiar with UE in the first place so perhaps I am way off base. Really just curious about it since far out of the realm of my own experience.

He's saying that at his business his base pay for employees is so low that they made more being on unemployment than working for him.

 

[zag73]

He's saying that at his business his base pay for employees is so low that they made more being on unemployment than working for him.

We don’t know that....it may well be that they’d rather earn less and not work.

 

[serbarristan]

I promise I wash these pants. Love the waist on the Sineu.

 

[zag73]

I promise I wash these pants. Love the waist on the Sineu.
View attachment 1577739

Tobacco suede?

 

[Blastwice]

We don’t know that....it may well be that they’d rather earn less and not work.

People getting that stipend were some of the lowest wage earners in the US who also happened to be unemployed during a pandemic. It's really laughable (and victim blaming) to think these people would rather see their family starve to death or lose their home because they're lazy or whatever.

It was a political issue in the first place because employers, like this fine fellow, complained this was more pay than people usually got on their normal paychecks and thus it was a job killer because "why would anyone work for me for less when they can do nothing and get a bigger payout from the government."

 

[jischwar]

We don’t know that....it may well be that they’d rather earn less and not work.

No, that really wasn't the case. The combination of federal unemployment and state unemployment amounted to an annualized pay rate of $41k-$45k. Employees in the food service industry (I'm making this assumption by piecing together tidbits from his post, so I could be wrong) on average make less than this.

 

[stook1]

People getting that stipend were some of the lowest wage earners in the US who also happened to be unemployed during a pandemic. It's really laughable (and victim blaming) to think these people would rather see their family starve to death or lose their home because they're lazy or whatever.

It was a political issue in the first place because employers, like this fine fellow, complained this was more pay than people usually got on their normal paychecks and thus it was a job killer because "why would anyone work for me for less when they can do nothing and get a bigger payout from the government."

You know a bit more about this than me, it sounds like. Was it an across the board UE enhancement or was it only to hit a min pay threshold? ie. for states where min wage is higher did this not come into play?

 

[007Bond]

People getting that stipend were some of the lowest wage earners in the US who also happened to be unemployed during a pandemic. It was a political issue in the first place because employers, like this fine fellow, complained this was more pay than people usually got on their normal paychecks and thus it was a job killer because "why would anyone work for me for less when they can do nothing and get a bigger payout from the government."

"People getting that stipend were some of the lowest wage earners in the US "

This is a false statement the $600 and now the $300 is being given to Everyone on unemployment from min wage to hundreds of thousands. Completely does not depend on your original pay. So if you were in some state with $5 min wage or you were in NYC taking home 300k you got your unemployment plus the $600 or now the $300.

So what is more true is if you were one of the people making low wage you really did not want to go back to work.

But even if you were say making $25 per hour most states you would take home about $600ish a week now the gove gives your another $600 you are mostly double pay this is why most no one wanted to go back.

BTW this info I posted can easy be verified on any State unemployment site.

 

[jischwar]

You know a bit more about this than me, it sounds like. Was it an across the board UE enhancement or was it only to hit a min pay threshold? ie. for states where min wage is higher did this not come into play?

Across the board, it was from the federal government