The main theme of the famous movie Gangs of New York is a song called The Hands That Built America. And while for many people, America is associated mainly with huge and super-rich corporations, in fact, it was the numerous small business owners who created the greatness of this country over the decades.

Small business is in fact the cornerstone of any economy, which large companies, alas, often forget about nowadays. And an instructive story from the TikToker @mugsby, which we’ll tell you today, is just about this.

More info: TikTok

The author of the video is a small business owner and she tells about facing a non-payment issue with Francesca’s clothes chain

Image credits: mugsby

According to the author herself, as of today, Francesca’s owes her over $132K for 4 unpaid orders

So, the Original Poster (OP) owns a small business named Mugsby and specifically works with Francesca’s clothing chain to sell their products. However, in her recent video, the author admitted that as of today, the company owes her business $132,461.92. “Um, it sucks,” the woman claims, and it’s really hard to disagree with this.

According to the author herself, she has been working with Francesca’s for about a year, and then, in November 2023, they stopped paying her. Yes, they stopped everything. And since then have failed to pay for five purchased orders.

Image credits: cottonbro studio (not the actual photo)

And besides, as the original poster states, they have a purchase order sitting in their warehouse currently made specifically for them that they’re unable to ship due to non-payment. The TikToker says she was inspired to post this by another viral video made by Taylor Elliott designs, the author of which complained about a similar problem.

And, of course, such non-payments create a significant problem for any small business – simply because they make a serious hole in their budget. Moreover, as the original poster sadly admits, summer “is notoriously slow for a lot of small business owners,” and she is no exception, so she was seriously relying on that money.

In any case, as the author admits, she sincerely hopes that people, and in particular other small business owners, having learned about her problem, will be more careful in choosing counterparties for cooperation. Well, perhaps, if someone also has an issue with non-payments from Francesca’s, they can join forces too…

Image credits: yescocktailco

Francesca’s was founded in 1999 and faced the menace of bankrupcy at the height of the pandemic 4 years ago

Let us remember that women’s specialty chain Francesca’s was founded in 1999, and in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, it was already faced with serious problems. Despite the fact that the company was under threat of bankruptcy that year, they somehow managed to cope – even if by closing some of the stores and selling them to new owners in February 2021.

Since then, the chain’s fortunes have seemingly stabilized: it successfully launched a new brand, Franki by Francesca’s, entering the “tween” market (young kids aged between 8 and 12), by mid-2023 bringing the total number of Franki stores to ten. And yet, according to Sourcing Journal, it was in November 2023 that different Francesca’s partners began complaining about problems with non-payment.

Image credits: Polina Tankilevitch (not the actual photo)

“Retailers tend to pay their critical vendors first. There are certain goods that they must have to achieve their business plan,” Sourcing Journal quotes a former retail executive. “Just because the retailer may have had a tough 2023 doesn’t mean it is going out of business. It might still have decent free cash flow.” However, for the author of our story today, this may be little consolation, since the money has not yet arrived in her account.

On the other hand, perhaps such viral videos (and as of today the OP’s video has 7.2M views and more than 388K likes on TikTok) will force Francesca’s management to turn their attention to the original poster. At least according to the TikToker @TheCliffnotesGal, the Taylor Elliott designs account is currently missing the video the OP refers to. It’s likely that the removal of the video was part of the agreement with Francesca’s.

Image credits: Phillip Pessar (not the actual photo)

You can watch the original video here

@mugsby Thank you @Taylor Elliott Designs for bringing awareness. #smallbusiness ♬ original sound – Mugsby

By the way, in the comments to the original video, there are many other small business owners who also said that they are experiencing numerous issues with non-payments, both from Francesca’s and from other large companies. “This happened to me 8 years ago. Large company had us under contract for 106k. Took 7 months just to get them to court. 1.2 years later won case… recouped 47%. Ruined the business. Hope you prevail!” one of the commenters told their own sad story.

In any case, according to responders, it is very important when people publish such videos – because in this case, TikTok becomes a kind of platform from which you can draw people’s attention to any important problem. “I think this is so important for people to hear about. So we all understand how important it is for us all to support small business,” another person added. So what do you, our dear readers, think about this story at all?

People in the comments sided with the author and told their own stories of non-payments from large companies

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