It’s so hard to know whether or not this will pay for itself. We have always been exclusive to the web. We didn’t want to get into producing a catalog because our product line changes so quickly. I feel like we need to take this step because it will really increase our reach. Many of our customers are in Chapters of anywhere from 5 to 100+ women. A lot of them (women 50 and over) are not super saavy with their computers or the internet. If we start sending catalogs out with our orders, these women can share their catalog at their meetings. We have hundreds of requests. So this is our next project, I guess I have to move forward with it.

A really fabulous thing happened to us today…our gateway went down…at least that’s what I think happened. ARHHGG!!! No explanation, just a lot of screaming on our part, and it’s back up. But we missed out on all of our morning orders, which tends to be our busiest time. I know it’s water under the bridge, but it’s just so maddening! Mostly because we shouldn’t have to pull teeth with our host to get it accomplished!!

Yesterday we opened a new page on our site that I’m kind of excited about. It’s called Hatters With Hope and it’s hat styles for patients going through chemo and dealing with hair loss. We’ve had a number of requests for this, and it’s probably long overdue. It’s hard not to spread yourself too thin sometimes by trying to sell too many different things. However, if your customers are asking, you want to oblige.

We have a section called Groovy Grandma which carries fun gifts for grandmothers to give and receive, and now we have Hatters With Hope. Groovy Grandma has a lot of potential, but we are only just now starting to really develop it. For each new section on the site you obviously need to inventory up to make it a substantial shopping experience. This is what I mean by spreading ourselves too thin. Are there enough hours to do it all? Sometimes you have to evaluate what you do well, and sell well, and develop that to it’s potential. I know we have done that with Red Hats By You. I am always concerned that we have time to continue to do that. The kids are now in school, so our schedules have definately freed up, so I think we are up to the task.

Our Hatters With Hope section is still being added to, and we’ve asked our customers to add suggestions to our blog to help us. This is such a powerful tool…the blog. I actually don’t post the suggestions from customers, because my competitors go in and steal the ideas. I filter them, and go in and read them and store them. I’d suggest that all ecommerce sites have a blog to help them develop their product lines. It’s helped us tremendously.

That’s it for now.

Just when I think I have it going on, and stock up on the product I’m so sure is going to be huge, these customers of mine change focus. Lee Ann and I are stocked up, we went to this fantastic wholesale show and found lots of stuff we’d been looking for forever. I’ve spent the last two weeks stocking my site full of great new product. I have 6 pages in my what’s new section!

The first week of new product was amazing..they bought, and we have had a great month so far. This is the second week, and we are doing fine, but they aren’t buying the new stuff, they are buying all of this random stuff…I have to go in and look at my statistics and see what pages are being hit. If I had to guess, it’s not my what’s new page.

It’s so curious. You want to be able to predict your trends, but sometimes you just can’t. My customers are constantly keeping me guessing. I’ll have two weeks a month where I am right on the money with the products I highlight, and then two duds. Such is life right? I’m grateful for the good weeks, I just need more of them. I’ll check my statistics, and review what is pulling them into the site. I have a feeling some of this random stuff is placing high on the engines, and is pulling them in.

That’s it for now..

M

We had two orders overnight to Australia…very cool. These are certainly not the first, but it seems to be a pattern lately. I wonder if we are coming up prominently on search engines in Australia? How would I check that? I’m assuming that Google in Australia would cater to Australian businesses, right?

We don’t ship internationally on a daily basis, and when we do, customers are supposed to choose international shipping, which they almost always DO NOT, so we have to contact them and let them know that we have to charge them for shipping. It’s a hassle, except that when we do get those orders they almost always are nice big orders, so we don’t have a reason to complain at all. There’s an additional amount of paperwork required for these orders, and it’s nice when the order is worth the extra effort.

I think the most exciting part of this kind of order is that we are developing in a new market, and who wouldn’t get excited about that? New markets=new business, and that’s fantastic.

Lee Ann and I started working together yesterday at one home. Up until now we’ve been working independently from our own homes, but the issues with that are obvious…we don’t really have a feel for what the other one does. Now that our kids are in school full time, we are spending at least 3 hours working together, hopefully 3 or 4 days a week. I have to get the courage up to start answering the 1-800 phone, which is scary to me, because I don’t love chatting on the phone with people I don’t know. We are basically looking to cross-train each other in what we do. It’s crucial to moving forward and having an understanding of the pressures that each of us deal with. I’m really looking forward to this because what we do is so completely different. I’m sure this is a big move for us.

That’s it for now. I’m at Panera Bread sending out my SaleMail, enjoying my second coffee for the day..kids are in school, second full day…whew! I love my business.