In order to meet the current demand (and nobody can guarantee that this will last), I would have to make major changes that may not be cost effective.
Firstly, I would need new premises off-site. My present workspace will only support two people working and to keep the site open all the time and sell as many watches as people want to buy, I would need another 3 staff, minimum.
The bottleneck isn't the packing, it's the production of the invoices and customs documentation for UPS. I can produce 5 shipments an hour (4 if it's for the US because they need an extra document). My nephew can pack 10 watches an hour and on a very good day, with no interuptions (rare) we can ship 30 watches.
To overcome this bottleneck, it needs at least two people producing the shipping documents and that means networking the Sage software and investing in a new IT system.
I would have to take these new employees on the books with everything that it entails:
Holiday pay
Sick pay
Pension plan
PAYE
National insurance
Employer's liability insurance
PAT testing
Maternity leave (where applicable)
Staff training
My main concern however, is off-site security. Although all my watches should be unsellable due to me being the only source of them, I still doubt this would deter any would-be robbers.
Do I want all this at my time of life? To take the business to the next stage needs someone who already has the infrastructure in place and that's not going to be me. I'll sell more than 3000 watches this year and all the signs indicate that this could be at least double and I'm not even certain that my manufacturer could manage such an increase.
Eddie