Story Tuesday: Expansion

We have finally come to the end of this series. I am very content to have been able to document most of the events that have made way for us today. It has been 5 years of hard work and dedication and we are more than happy with all that we have been able to accomplish. We are even more happy about all the things we have in store for the business to expand. This series will be compiled together for an easier read and available for download from our website. A printed version may follow based on the demand.

Part 12: Expansion

When we first opened what is now A&S Covers, we had hopes of doing much more than just cases. Our equipment had the potential to do more items but we did not expand to other items for several reasons. Some of the reasons were that to add more items to our inventory we would need more money, also because we were still very new and it would be hard to compete with the other more established companies, but most importantly, we didn’t do anything else but cases because Armando’s vision was to be known for cases and then expand.

At the time we refrained from adding more items to the inventory mostly for financial reasons. Today, in the middle of 2019, we have more factors to our advantage. We are not as small and unnoticeable as we were at the start, and we have gained much more credibility from the customers that we have gained. People aren’t as afraid to deposit money into our account because they trust that we will send their item as promised, that’s because they have either purchased from us before, or know someone that has purchased from us and received their order. We’ve even been able to gain a customer base in the Caribbean because we have a lot of good customer reviews, we have also made the payment method more convenient for them and our staff’s professionalism has portrayed nothing but trust to our customers.

This year was scheduled to be huge for us. We had plans of hosting a large expo like event along with the conclusion of our e-gaming tournament. The event was scheduled for August of this year and was to bring gamers and tech-savvy participants together all in the name of marketing our brand. Unfortunately, we have made the hard decision to postpone this event until next year. Like with everything in life, there wasn’t just one reason for this decision but a combination of multiple factors. Some of the bigger factors have been, the fact that a lot of players signed up for the tournament but did not complete their registration by paying the registration fee, and we have had a delay with obtaining our new machines to expand and add more items to our inventory.

The new machine was to have been here months ago and would allow us to have items for the event such as t-shirts, water bottles, trophies for the winners and much more. The plan to get the new machine is still a go, but that when that arrives, it will take up a lot of time and manpower from us to be able to handle both the expansion of the business and the promotion and execution of the expo event. It was an extremely hard decision to make but we know that it is only a delay and not a cancelation, we also know that when we do host the event, it will be more than welcomed by our supporters.

With our new campaign scheduled to be launched before the end of the summer, we are still very excited and busy with what will happen this 2019. With 6 more months in the years, we are sure to still be able to get a lot of other secret and not so secret plans that we have had in the drawing plan. Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster ride, but a ride we enjoy living.

We are resilient, and we will persist until we are able to host this event. If you have read the event series you will know that failures have never held us back and we won’t allow them to start holding us back today. The next 5 years ahead of us will be as exciting and eventful as the 5 years we have faced already. We look forward to sharing our journey with everyone.