Po Campo bags first hit the shelves on July 3, 2009. After almost three years of storing our bags in my parents’ basement, we finally have a warehouse space to call our very own. Just one of those things that you take for granted as part of a business, but it turns out to be a big deal when you have to set it up yourself from scratch.

In January we went from being a home-based business to having a space of our own in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood, sharing a basement industrial space with Mohop! shoes and Icon Modern furniture. Fun fact: it used to be a dominatrix dungeon!

The Dominatrix and the studio. Like I said, nothing fancy, but home.

After getting settled, we started drawing up the warehouse plan, knowing how many bags we wanted to keep on hand to fulfill orders and how much space we had to utilize. We found modular shelving that fit our requirements, only to find out upon delivery that it was too big and heavy to get off the truck with the lift-gate. We frantically turned to Craig’s List to find people to help us carry the shelving into the basement before the delivery driver got too annoyed and left. This was a particularly stressful day. Fortunately, it worked out and we were able to fit the new shelving units into our cozy little space.

The warehouse area pre-shelves and product

The long-awaited shelves...but just a few inches too big to be taken off the truck with the forklift. Doh!

Starting to set up the shelves. This is 1 of 25.

Getting there...

After two long days of shelf building - we're done! Time to go see a movie and have a cocktail.

The next step, a week later, was unloading product from the shipping container. I don’t think I’ll ever forget this day: Seeing the container arrive, removing the seal from the outside and then spending the next two hours hustling to move all the boxes inside and into their dedicated spots on the shelves. It was like Instant Warehouse. I want to give a shout-out to Chicago’s Chainlink and my studiomates Mohop and Icon Modern for drumming up so many volunteers on such short notice – definitely would not have been able to do it without you!

Full to the brim with Po Campo boxes

Starting the unloading process. Just have to dive in!

We had two hours to empty the truck, so boxes went on the street first.

Filling up the shelves. Those are Logan Totes on the right there.

ALMOST DONE!!!

Voila! Po Campo warehouse open for business.

Kicking back with pizza and pop. Thanks everyone!

We have a lot of exciting plans for 2012 but finding a studio and assembling the warehouse is the first box we get to check off. I’m looking forward to sharing with you the other new things in the works – stay tuned!