BP13: Woops, We just "lost" $80!
30th July 2019
Wait, what?! I thought you were careful, so what Happened?
Well it is pretty unfortunate.
During our prototype sessions, we managed to bring in an interesting mason jar LED jar lid, which allowed to us to create (literallly) LIT products, without the customers ever having to worry about battery life.
This jar lid was meant to fit jar openings that were about 7cm, and they fitted really well with our prototype product. As you can see from the picture on the right, this particular Jar Lid could fit with the "Glass Bowl" we were using for our floral desk designs. Since our customer then had really liked the look and incorporation of these LED lights, we jumped the gun and I ordered $80 worth of these Mason Jar LED lamps (about 25 pieces, of differing LED Light options and sizes), thinking that we would be able to use fit these LED jar lid covers on all our future products using this glass jar bowl design, and that would be something customers would really like.
However, things don't always go to plan.
When the shipment of new LED Jar Lids came, I was stunned by the ill-fitting nature of the jar lids that arrived. It seemed as if the jar lids were defective and smaller than the specification. However, later using the ruler, we realized that the jar lids were according to specification - to be able to fit jar openings of about 7cm.
As we tried to fit the jar lids on to other glass jars in our inventory, The issue was mainly because the size of our supplier's jars were not very consistent. Even though the glass jars were of the same specification, The opening of each of these jars actually varied by a couple of millimeters. This was the reason why the mason jar lids could work well with our previous glass bowl, but could not fit our new shipment of glass Jars.
But all is not lost, as we have a plan!
We are stuck with these ill-fitting mason jar lids, as there is no return policy, and the lighted jar lids that arrived were still matching the specifications agreed.
Thus we are taking these measures instead:
- First, we would try to find glass jars that can fit with these lights, while maintaining (or increasing) the visual appeal of our decorative pieces. This is the best way to add value to the inventory which is already "stuck" in our hands.
- We will also begin selling some of these jar lids on our online shopping platform (Shopee). This way, others on the shopping platforms will buy up some of this inventory. Having played with these lights the most, it's basically a solar panel, with a string of LED lights and a 600mah AAA Rechargeable Battery within a nice mason jar lid package, so I'm sure there will be others who will be better able to incorporate these LED lights to their decorative products. Online platforms and delivery services are widely available now, so redistribution of these LED lights should be a manageable task. An unintended pivot for sure, but this feels like the best way to respond.
In the meantime, we will take this as a learning opportunity, and bear in mind that dimensions (especially for our glass bowls) can vary in size. We will be more careful and take this into account when buying future fittings.