Almost every product we buy these days has a barcode attached to it. For retailers and manufacturers, it's an easy way of keeping track of what's been sold and what needs to be re-ordered. What, then, do you do if you make your own products? Do you use a barcode or a QR code? How do you get barcodes? How do you batch generate QR codes? What interface can you use when you're out and about to scan the barcode or QR code and have it update your stock levels? And can all this be done on a budget?

Barcode or QR code, that is the question

A quick Google search and it didn't take me long to discover that the barcode route was going to cost. EAN and UPC barcodes consist of a series of numbers, 5 of which identify the manufacturer, the rest identify the product. Scannable barcodes, it seems, need to be authorised by GS1 in the UK, as they need to be on a central database and this, of course, incurs an annual subscription fee. The QR code route, however, was a lot more appealing. QR codes can hold a lot more information than the humble barcode for a start, and a QR code is a lot more accessible when it comes to generating one. But what happens if you have several hundred products that need identifying? How do you go about creating a unique QR code for each and every product?

QR code plus Google chart API equals streamlined spreadsheet stock control

There are an increasing number of websites that allow you to generate a QR code for yourself or your business. QR codes are often used on promotional flyers, business cards and posters, but when it comes to batch generating 400 or so QR codes, individual generation using one of these websites would be a very time consuming proposition indeed. A bit more research led to the Google chart API, which is, essentially, a URL that you can add to the end of to create different QR code images. With very little experience of APIs and whether what I wanted to do was possible, it was clear that I needed help at this stage, so I put a call out on Facebook. After a few emails backwards and forward, Karl, a former financial trader and Excel expert, came up with a solution.

I'd found an Android app called Inventory Droid that I'd used as a base for a spreadsheet. Inventory Droid allowed me to download a csv which listed the name, category, brand, location, cost, retail cost, quantity, UPC and date entered into stock of all the items that I'd manually entered into the app. Of course, at this stage, as I didn't have the UPC, I was unable to use the full functionality of the Inventory Droid app, which would have allowed me to scan the products and adjust the stock levels as I sold or made them. From this csv, Karl created a formula in a spreadsheet that joined the name (including the size, colour etc) and category of the product to a URL that related to my website. This URL was then added to the Google chart API.

Another column of the spreadsheet used a formula to add the html for "image source" to the full URL so that this column could be uploaded to a website. The QR code images could then be saved, along with their name and category in text as a title of the image.

Although this latter stage involved a fair amount of right click, save as, I soon got into the swing of it, and I discovered I could used keyboard shortcuts with one hand and the mouse with the other hand. As a result, I now have over 400 QR codes, that relate to the items I make, in a folder on my desktop ready for cardboard tags to go on freshly made garments.

Importing the information into the Inventory Droid app to make QR code stock control possible

Now that all the stock was tagged with QR codes, it was a case of importing the csv from the spreadsheet back into the app on my Android phone, including the QR codes in the UPC column. And this is where I got stuck again, with an error message coming up when I scanned my first item and the app wanting to force quit. I emailed the developer of Inventory Droid, sending him my csv and what had happened. He got back to me within a couple of hours and, after a few emails, we'd sorted the problem out.

I can now scan an item when I sell it and, with a touch of a button, move it from "In Stock" to "Sold". Using the same technique, I can increase the number of a particular item I have in stock when I make a new garment. I can check whether I have something in stock when I'm away from the stock room. And I can download the csv from both "In Stock" and "Sold" to add to my accounts. The cost? A bit of time, some tags, inkjet labels, and £3.04 for the app.

(Just a little word of advice, though - make sure you leave out the commas and apostrophes from the URLs!)

Different media requires quite different types of photos, it seems. If you want to show your garments on a website so that people can get an idea of what they look like on a body, and maybe even how well made the item of clothing is, then it's good to have shots from lots of angles. Video helps too, as the viewer will get an idea of how the garment will move, how it flows. Putting both the still images and the videos into a video package and sending it off to YouTube can help widen the audience who will get to see your images, as well as making the viewing of the product shots a lot more interesting.

Promo photos, however, especially for the printed press, need to be more like an artistic snap shot - and a very highly polished snap shot at that! You need professional models, a theme, a studio or location and someone who knows not only how to take photos, but also knows how to light and stage a good image that represents your brand or signature pieces.

Wow, what a weekend! I've been working on this newly updated website since Thursday with the very talented Phil from Softforge. And it's really starting to take shape. There's still a whole heap of features to add, photos to upload and modules to tweak, so please bear with us. Any comments, questions or feedback, do please drop us a line or give us a call.

Is being an alternative fashion designer all fittings, toiles, meeting buyers and drinking super skinny frappucinos? 

Not if you're the designer and head honcho at Jed Phoenix of London it isn't. Sure, I spoke to a model today. He's a rather unconventional model but I think he'll make for a very character-filled photoshoot this coming Sunday at St Dunstan's in the East. What else was on today's to do list? I chatted to someone who sells adult pinatas about potential adult only events they could sell at (saving the blushes and lack of knowledge that my Prince's Trust mentor coordinator has on the subject!). I pressed the sections needed for 4 pairs of strap trousers and cleared the cutting table of things that needed finishing. I walked to the post office to post some replacement spikes for a men's shirt to a repeat customer, and I received a delivery from Office Needs Direct, before doing loads of admin and wondering where my day had gone!

I've been head honcho at JPOL for over 10 years now and I'm realising the benefits of having good systems in place. So I'm implementing things that probably come as second nature to most people who work in bigger companies. I've learned a lot about spreadsheets and formulas over the past few weeks, and I've asked a rather talented geek to help me with a system that creates QR codes that will be the last piece in the puzzle of the new Android app stock control system. 

Another busy day ahead tomorrow - cutting kilts, hats and jodhpurs, designing kataginu emblems. Oh, and meeting a model for a fitting...

When it comes to models, I like those with real character and the model from the most recent shoot certainly has lots of that! I was introduced to him via the photographer and character technical director Nick Savy (aka Reg Flobert). Nick told me a bit of background about Madboy Mark and I was very comforted to hear that Mark and I share some views on a fundamental philosophy on life and that we are both interested in the teachings of a pot bellied guy who lived 2500 years ago. Y'see Madboy Mark used to be an old school London businessman and is called Madboy for a reason!

Thanks to a lead that a Jed Phoenix of London customer had given me, I'd chosen St Dunstan's in the East as the location for the pinstripe menswear shoot with Mark. It's a beautiful location, tucked away in the backstreets between Tower Bridge and London Bridge, on the northside of the Thames. I'd spent the morning putting the finishing touches to Mark's outfit - sewing buttons onto the waistcoats and adding the straps to the tailcoats. Since the fitting with Mark a few days previous to the shoot, I'd decided to make the 3 piece pinstripe outfit from the new triple stripe fabric, as it was the perfect opportunity to show what the new fabric looked like in context.

It's always a pleasure to work with Nick. The fact that he knew Mark pretty well was also a bonus. Nick directed, Mark modeled and I just did the occasional bit of styling. There seemed little point in interferring when I knew that Nick is a master with the camera and creating a stunning image. Despite Mark's initial apprehension about being "the ugly guy", he soon stepped into the role of alternative menswear model and added some real character to the clothes.

This blog post is about a passion that isn't just about the needles and threads of fashion. It's about the noughts and ones, the geekiness that I feel increasingly underpins any brand or business that wants to be successful in the modern age. Exciting times are ahead. This new Jed Phoenix of London website is going to include some very interactive new features.

I'm a self confessed geek. My best buddy and web developer is an astro-physicist turned computer programmer who is also pretty clued up when it comes to people. I studied maths, biology and social sciences at school, so I like to figure out how things work and how people interact with them. What has all this got to do with an alternative clothing brand in the 21st century?

The internet is filled with online shops selling all manner of products. But, let me ask you this - what is it that makes you buy from one website over another? Is it that the product is cheaper than anywhere else? Is it that the website has been recommended to you by someone you know and/or trust? Do you like the level of customer service that you get from a particular website? Is it accessible? Are there incentives for you to keep going back? To what extent do you feel pressured to buy? Or do you feel like the website offers you more than just an online shopping experience?

During the years that I've been running Jed Phoenix of London, I've seen a fair few people return to buy again and again. Jed Phoenix of London has become synonymous with quality, style and a brand that people want to be part of. That's why, in 2010, Nick, Sonya and I came up with the Ambassador Badge idea - a concept we want to expand on on this new cutting edge Joomla website by using Alpha User Points to reward you even more for being an essential part of JPOL. We also want to use QR codes and other technologies to enable you to get discounts on garments you buy from us. And, with much of our business coming from recommendations, we want to give you a little extra something for introducing your friends and admirers to the Jed Phoenix of London website too.

Basically, one of the main reasons why I love running this alternative clothing brand is because I meet lots of fabulous people, be they customers, fellow traders, event organisers, or folk who are just curious about getting dressed up in something a little different from the norm. Cutting edge fashion isn't just about the clothes, it's about the people who wear them too. And that's what those at JPOL want to put across on this new website using some of the latest technologies that are being created for the new ways we all interact online, as well as in person, in the 21st century.

If you haven't already done so, please do bookmark us, check out the Jed Phoenix of London Facebook page, or follow Jed Phoenix on Twitter. There's going to be lots of changes on this website before the end of 2011!

Living in London, being self employed and having spent most of my 20s inside various nightclubs, it takes something quite special to get me going out and about without a load of gridwall and garments in tow. But having spent the weekend before at Infest, surrounded by alternative gothic and industrial folk, I felt like I was on a roll with the whole nightclub vibe. Fellow Birmingham Bizarre Bazaar traders Jules and Rich travelling up from their home town in the West Country to go to Club Antichrist was another factor that helped break my usual "pipe and slippers routine" on this particular Friday in September...

I knew that I wanted a change from wearing my normal Jed Phoenix of London attire of pinstripe strap trousers with metal buckles, shirt and tie, so I went with an outfit that I made before I set up the business and that I used to wear a lot in my clubbing days. Age has been relatively kind to me, and my garments of choice (black patchwork leather on red waxed cotton chaps, with a cropped lace up leather sleeveless top) were flexible enough to allow for a little middle aged spread. I even found my pair of very exclusive Terry de Havilland electric blue 3 inch stack boots that I first wore in Paris when modeling for Velda Lauder in those glamorous "good old days" in the 1990s.

Just as Jules, Rich and I got out of the cab outside the Colosseum in Vauxhall, however, it felt like one of my boots had landed in chewing gum and got stuck, then released. I looked down to discover that I had a broken boot! After a decade of being neglected and living under my bed, the glue that stuck the upper to the sole had given up the ghost. Luckily, I was with someone who had their thigh length boots in a bag and was roughly the same sized feet as me so we did a quick shoe shuffle in the changing room and entered Club Antichrist with no-one any the wiser for the slightly unplanned footwear!

Club Antichrist, for those who don't already know it, is a night of "industrial fetish gothic mayhem" that has been running at Club Colosseum in Vauxhall for the past 7 years. Run by Missy and d.void, Antichrist is cleverly held on a Friday night from 8pm till 6am in a venue that features several themed rooms - a performance area, a dancefloor, a playspace, a couples room, and a chill out space. It was here in the chill out space, with lots of seating, ambient lighting and great alternative music (played at a volume where you could chat to the person next to you in relative comfort) where Jules, Rich and I gravitated. It was the perfect spot to people watch and meet up with friends. We all went on occassional wanderings, where we usually bumped into at least one more person that one of us knew but hadn't yet chatted to. The atmostphere was friendly, lively and there was plenty to keep you entertained until the wee small hours of the morning.

The next Club Antichrist is October 28th - the Halloween Special. I'll be up in Whitby, trading in the Leisure Centre at the Whitby Gothic Fringe Festival (October 28th, 29th and 30th) but Jed Phoenix of London is donating a pair of trouser braces to the Club Antichrist raffle (with over £2500 worth of prizes!) so if you're not gothing it up in Whitby that weekend, then get down to Antichrist!