Conflict Resolution

So we had our first disagreement today. (Erm, yesterday actually. It's 3am.)

I asked the guys what they thought about having a layaway program. Jay had no opinion, and Matt wanted to know details about what kind of plan I had in mind. Note to self: do not bring something up to Matt unless you have done some research and have a plan, because apparently he isn't the lets talk it out kind of person.

So panic a little and spout out the first thing that comes to mind (or jot down, since it was over facebook messenger), and he was like "sounds good to me." I don't know what this says about me, but I get nervous when people agree with me without asking any questions or suggesting changes, especially if I'm in BS mode. It weirds me out. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm clever. I'm just not that clever.

So I sat down, looked up some articles about how to write a decent layaway policy, and jotted down something I thought was fair which wouldn't take advantage of the customers but would cover us and prevent undue risk on our part. Turns out Matt and I have different ideas about what constitutes "undue risk". He is not okay with letting people do special orders and pre-orders... like at all... which kinda blew my mind. I had kind of taken that for a given.

It wasn't an argument or anything, just a bit of a disagreement. I was basically like, "What? Really? Won't that lose us a lot of sales?" and he was like, "No, and here's why..." and I agreed. Or rather, I let it go. I still think pre-ordering, especially for big selling items like new set MTG boxes & event decks makes plenty of sense and is a minimal risk. Even if the person who ordered it doesn't come back for it, those items will sell pretty easily. On the other hand, I definitely see his point about special orders. If it isn't popular enough to carry as a regular stock item, you run the risk the person won't come back to pick it up and then you have to figure out how to move that product, even if it means taking a loss on it. And some of things we'll be carry are high ticket stuff. It's a tough balance between serving your customers and covering your own butt. Still, if you required them to pay for the purchase up front to mitigate that risk? Meh. I don't know.

I mean, Jay and I wouldn't be looking a starting a business with him if we didn't trust his judgement. It's not like we can't revisit the topic if the need arises later.