Over the past month, Roy Van Broekhuizen has been feverishly trying to keep up with orders for his bags.
On Feb. 9, The Orange County Register published an article about Laga Designs International, Van Broekhuizen’s fledgling Irvine business that sells bags – $15 cosmetic totes to $300 travel bags. His embroidered purses are handmade by tsunami victims in Aceh, the Indonesian province that was destroyed by the earthquake and subsequent tidal waves on Dec. 26, 2004. He wants to help these survivors because he grew up in Jakarta.
Since that article ran, nearly 900 e-mails flooded Van Broekhuizen’s account. They’ve come from potential customers and sales consultants wanting to throw Tupperware-like home parties for the bags.
He’s filled orders for 300-plus bags. Consumers are ordering online as well as visiting his showroom, in his Irvine condo, where two women recently purchased $700 worth of products. He recently signed on three new sales consultants and plans to add 10 more.
Business, he said, has been “unbelievably great.”
But he’s been working 18 hours a day to catch up, answering e-mails at 3 a.m.
“I’ve still got a bunch more e-mails to go through,” he said. Starting from the earliest e-mails, he’s now only up to those dated Feb. 15.
At the moment, he’s only filling individual orders. He’s holding off on the potential corporate orders.
The Santa Ana store manager for Cost Plus World Market, an Oakland-based chain with about 290 stores, sent an e-mail to learn more about the bags.
“I have not had time to send samples to Cost Plus,” Van Broekhuizen, 58, said. “We’re running out of bags.”
He and his wife Louise, 52, are trying to fix that problem.
Previously, two factories produced less than 1,000 bags a month for the Van Broekhuizens. They’ve since doubled their production count and would like to increase it to 3,000 bags a month.
“Originally we were both going to Indonesia” to talk to new factories, Van Broekhuizen said. But with all the orders to fill, he had to stay behind.
Looking at all the e-mails in his account and the potential future orders, Van Broekhuizen says, “I’m kind of scared now.”
Published: March 9, 2007
By HANG NGUYEN
The Orange County Register
original article originally posted at the OCRegister.com in response to the article: Giving is in the Bag.
