Lockdown Entertainment

glennerd

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I'm not even shopping for a new ukulele, but I kept checking Mim's online store this morning to see how quickly she'd fill her weekly quota.

The store shut down in 5 hours!
 
I've been watching it every week as well. Pretty fascinating.

On the one hand, I feel bad for Mim, since she gets slammed every week. On the other hand, I am happy that she is getting a lot of customers!

I should have been keeping track, so we could plot it. I know it has been going on for several weeks in a row. Can we crowd source this? Anyone remember these? I'll edit them in. We'll call it "Mim Watch: 2020." :)

UPDATE 09 Dec 2020: While I will continue to update this thread, you can also now find it plotted here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UeZUbYkDMX7JiKSsnakQ5UkJ3crQNB0f6p_ZDg0nxcI/edit?usp=sharing
Friday Date: Cap hit (hrs):
10 April 2020 ?
17 April 2020 ?
24 April 2020 12
01 May 2020 ?
08 May 2020 6
15 May 2020 5
22 May 2020 8
29 May 2020 7
05 June 2020 31 (limit hit on 06 June)
12 June 2020 12
19 June 2020 48+ (Did not see exactly when, but was after Sunday morning.)
26 June 2020 5 days (closed following Wednesday evening.)
03 July 2020 CLOSED for time off. Will re-open 10 July.
10 July 2020 Sometime Friday night, so ~12 hours. Left store open until 8 AM EST on 11 July.
17 July 2020 Sometime Saturday. Kept shop open until 10 PM, Saturday 18 July.
24 July 2020 1.5 days. Mim has moved most of her inventory off of Reverb, to her own platform. I think you can now window shop after she "closes" for the week.
31 July 2020 1.5 days (Sometime Saturday, during the day.)
07 Aug 2020 ~1.5 days (Hit cap early Saturday, but stayed open until 4 PM)
14 Aug 2020 Unknown. (Cap hit before 7 PM Sat 15 Aug.)
21 Aug 2020 Mid-afternoon Sunday, ~2 d 8h. (Closed store 5 PM Sunday)
28 Aug 2020 I missed when cut-off happened. Sorry...
04 Sept 2020 ~2.5 days (Sometime late Sunday. Storefront closed Monday morning.)
11 Sept 2020 ~4.5 days (Storefront closed late day on Tuesday)
18 Sept 2020 ~4.5 days (Storefront closed late day on Tuesday)
15 Sept 2020 ~2 days (Storefront closed sometime between Sat PM and Sun AM)
02 Oct 2020 ~4.5 days (Storefront closed late day on Tuesday)
09 Oct 2020 ~4.5 days (Storefront closed late day on Tuesday)
16 Oct 2020 ~3.5 days (Storefront closed 9 PM on Monday)
23 Oct 2020 Did not cap. (I believe this is the first time since April.)
30 Oct 2020 Did not cap.
06 Nov 2020 ~5.5 days (Storefront closed late Wednesday)
13 Nov 2020 ~6 days (Storefront closed sometime between late afternoon Wed and Thurs morning)
20 Nov 2020 ~4.5 days (Storefront close late Tuesday)
27 Nov 2020 ~5 days (Storefront closed sometime between late Tue and early Wed. Note: Mim has increased her cap for the holiday season.)
04 Dec 2020 5 days (Cap hit by AM Wednesday. Remained open, but orders will ship early next week.)
11 Dec 2020 Did not cap.
18 Dec 2020 2.6 days. Mim closed for the holidays at 11 PM Sunday night. I don't believe she capped, but she totally deserves some time off!
25 Dec 2020 7 days (capped at the last minute.)
01 Jan 2021 Storefront closed 1 week for vacation and inventory.
08 Jan 2021 ~3.5 days. Closed Monday at 9 PM.
15 Jan 2021 ~3.5 days. Cap hit Monday PM. Store remained open until Tues AM.
22 Jan 2021 ~2.5 days. Cap hit late Sunday.
29 Jan 2021 12 hours. Cap hit Friday night.
05 Feb 2021 ~3.5 days. Cap hit sometime on Monday, but I missed exactly when.
12 Feb 2021 ~1.5 days. Cap hit by Sat AM. Stayed up until noon for last call.
19 Feb 2021 ~1.5 days. Cap hit mid-day Sat.
26 Feb 2021 ~0.5 days. Cap hit sometime Friday night!
05 Mar 2021 ~0.5 days. Cap hit sometime Friday night!
12 Mar 2021 ~0.5 days. Cap hit sometime Friday night! (Again!)
19 Mar 2021 ~0.5 days. Calling it 0.5, but hit cap before 3 PM, closed orders at 4.
26 Mar 2021 ~0.5 days. Sometime late day Friday? Less than 12 hours.
02 Apr 2021 5 hours. Hit cap by 1:22. Stayed open for orders until 2:22.
09 Apr 2021 5 hours. Hit cap and closed by 2 PM.
16 Apr 2021 ~6 hours. Hit cap sometime between 2:00 and 3:00.
23 Apr 2021 ~4 hours? Sometime between noon and 2 PM.
30 Apr 2021 ~4 hours? Hit cap before 2 PM.
[One Year Mark!]
07 May 2021 4 days. Capped sometime between Mon PM and Tue AM.
14 May 2021 3.5 days. Capped Monday PM.
21 May 2021 7 days. Did not cap.
28 May 2021 ~4.5 days. Capped Tues PM. Closed at 5.
04 June 2021 7 Days. I don't think she capped? Was still open late Thursday night.
11 June 2021 7 days. Did not cap.
18 June 2021 7 days. I don't think she capped? Was still open Thursday night.
25 June 2021 7 days. Same as last week.
02 July 2021 7 days. Same as last week.
09 July 2021 7 days. (I think) I missed checking late Thursday.
16 July 2021 5 days. Closed up mid-day Wednesday.
23 July 2021 7 days. I don't think she capped. Still open at 95% when I went to bed late Thursday.
30 July 2021 7 days? I don't think she capped. Still open late Thursday.
06 Aug 2021 3.5 days. Hit cap on Monday. Cap might have been low, as she had a gig on Wednesday of that week. Dunno.
13 Aug 2021 5 days. Cap hit on Wednesday.
20 Aug 2021 7 days. Did not cap.
27 Aug 2021 7 days. Did not cap.
03 Sept 2021 5.5 days. Capped sometime late Wednesday.
10 Sept 2021 5.5 days. Capped late Wednesday.
17 Sept 2021 0.25 days. Capped in 6 hours. Not sure why the sudden rush, but here we are.
24 Sept 2021 5.5 days. Capped on Wednesday. (Actually when over cap. I was part of the problem this week, as I ordered one...)
01 Oct 2021 6.9 days? I think she capped late Thursday, but I am not 100% sure.
08 Oct 2021 7 days. Did not cap.
15 Oct 2021 7 days. Did not cap.
22 Oct 2021 5 days. Closed for personal reasons.
29 Oct 2021 0 days. Closed for personal reasons.
05 Nov 2021 0 days. Closed for personal reasons.
12 Nov 2021 1 day. Was running at reduced cap.
19 Nov 2021 6 days. Closed early for Thanksgiving.

From this point, Mim has been running without a set cap, but is posting when things will ship. It was typically 2-3 days out for most of the holiday season.

As of mid-January 2022, she is still running in this mode, so it may be time to put this to rest. I'll add a post to the end of the thread with my plot of nearly 2 years worth of data.
 
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I think it was 6 hours last week and 12 the week before?

... Actually 12 hrs April 24 according to her instagram
 
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It's good news thar someone has made some money while pandemic has been on,most companies here in the UK are worried that they will go bankrupt. I had heard that some music shops here had a rush on acoustic instruments early on before the shops were forced to close.
 
I've been watching her each week as well, to see what ukes she has up. I didn't make it on this week though.
 
Well, this week (Friday 22 May) it was 8 hours.

Bless you Mim, for all you do!
 
I've been watching her each week as well, to see what ukes she has up. I didn't make it on this week though.

Same. I wonder if she would benefit from having her own site. I feel like it's just turning into a vicious cycle at this point.
 
Same. I wonder if she would benefit from having her own site. I feel like it's just turning into a vicious cycle at this point.

Site isn't really the issue, I don't think. The issue is that she is a one-woman operation. Mim personally does every setup, and she only has so much time in the week. Once she hits what she can do in a week, she shuts off orders. Even if she had her own site that showed the inventory all the time, she still could only open orders until she hits the limit.

Her supply (of labor) is far exceeded by the current demand. While it is better than the opposite problem, it has got to be quite daunting.
 
Even if she had her own site that showed the inventory all the time, she still could only open orders until she hits the limit.

That's true (and something I appreciate about Mim's business). I guess it seems like having a small window to view and order might exacerbate the rush. I wonder how (or if) it would affect people's buying behavior if everything was visible and her quota was ongoing instead of resetting on Fridays.

I feel like she's leaving money on the table by not hiring/training others to do setup. But I think she's said her current system is not only for quality control, but also to help manage work-life balance. I have a lot of respect for that.
 
I'm not even shopping for a new ukulele, but I kept checking Mim's online store this morning to see how quickly she'd fill her weekly quota.

The store shut down in 5 hours!

I don't understand. She shut down because she's sold out?

EDIT: Okay. Understood.

"My website is working. I am not closed or out of inventory. I just sold as many ukuleles as one person can set up in one week! And this week I sold out in 8 hours. But never fear, my shop re-opens on Friday at 8am... but... if you don't want to wait... please do not go running to the big box music retailers with no customer service or quality control. They are doing ok, they don't need your business. May I suggest you contact one of my "Friends of Mim"! Check out my new Friends of Mim page by clicking the image below and SHOP SMALL BUSINESSES! We are all in this together and I know they will give you a great ukulele buying experience!"
 
"...please do not go running to the big box music retailers with no customer service or quality control. They are doing ok, they don't need your business."

I'm not sure if Amazon counts as a big box music retailer, but I hear things are looking grim for Guitar Center. Although I feel like they're always on the brink of bankruptcy, so who knows how this will all shake out for them. I would actually be disappointed if they closed down.

I absolutely agree with Mim that we need to support small businesses, and I'm worried about what will happen to some of the ones near me (which don't do sales online), but I'd be happy if we could keep music stores both big and small.
 
I absolutely agree with Mim that we need to support small businesses, and I'm worried about what will happen to some of the ones near me (which don't do sales online), but I'd be happy if we could keep music stores both big and small.

I wonder if this is something new with Mim - having to shut down because of so many orders. I wonder if she considered offering a basic setup or no setup at all to speed delivery.
 
She put up a weekly cap probably more than a year ago because she wasn't always keeping up with the orders, but it used to be the Reverb store was up for a good part of the week before it closed. Probably, it will go back to that in a few months.

I doubt she could, in good conscience, let a uke go without a setup. A basic setup for the cheapies ... maybe. Getting a free setup is basically why people buy a cheap uke from her instead of going to big box. She could do what HMS did and limit the number of cheap ukes she sells.
 
I'm glad to hear that Mim is doing well, (I bought one ukulele from her, and it's set up perfectly.)

I'm also glad that people are buying ukuleles, and hopefully that's helping them not only get through these times, but will be something that brings them happiness for many years. That would be at least something positive coming from these times.
 
It's the problem with being a small business owner. You don't want to take on other staff because you can't replicate yourself, and it makes you less profitable. People don't realise that until you are doing well, your employees often get more than you do.

I wish her well.
 
Mim had a website before she started selling on Reverb. For quite a while she was doing both. Now I think she's only selling on Reverb.

But it may have been that she reached her cap for the week and the website wasn't available the last time I tried it.
 
I thought last week (05 June) we had turned a corner, as it took over a day for Mim to hit the limit, but this week (12 June) we are back to 12 hours.

Looks like the demand for expertly setup ukuleles is still quite strong!
 
Based on my observation (and the lack of discounts), I'd say instrument sales is at the highest level in 10 years. It may even be more, but I don't trust my memory of instrument inventories observations that far back.

Even my own private sales are gone pretty quick.

This being up the question (or the advice); maybe we should wait until this ukulele craze is over and then buy.
I noticed that the Kanilea and Koaloha prices have gone up 25%+/- in the past 1.5-2 years, but our economy didn't match that expansion. So, perhaps there are discounts to be had next year.
 
I go surf Mim's, HMS, Uke Republic and a couple of other places now and then just see what's available......I did get a new reso uke this summer for my birthday.....but I keep my eyes open for interesting wants.......Mim's has a large number of Risa LP tenors right now.........steel strings.......magnetic pick up..........could have some fun?????
 
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