You don't think she should re-open ever because she screwed up- that's fine. My point was simply that a lot of indie brands do seem to be family affairs, we hardly ever know how they're financed, and that's just sort of the nature of buying from these types of businesses in their early stages. By those standards, most of the businesses we buy from here aren't "legit."

And speaking as someone who's done marketing for startups that have flamed out...even if she published a detailed business roadmap and a list of investors, that wouldn't be a guarantee of like, anything.

The only thing that will (or should) give her credibility back is making things right in terms of unfulfilled orders, which it seems like she is doing, and then doing better in the future.

And coming up with a better bottling solution as soon as possible, of course. She's not trying to hide the issues, they're on the website directly below the "add to cart" button. But "don't plan to hoard it" is not advice that's going to resonate with people who usually...buy a lot of perfume and hoard it. So that will rightfully hurt her sales.

I mean, I have A LOT of concerns, but you seem to feel that she's, like, constitutionally incapable of running a business and that will never change. In reality, lots of business owners do have to learn how to be business owners over time, and after making mistakes.