Hello Out There......
Well, the web site is published. I'm glad that is done and it's out there for the world to see. I'll be happier when we start actually getting orders. I'm sure Carol will hear from me minutes after we get the first.
Getting orders is going to require that we have more than the 118 items we have out there right now. The issue at hand is the process of populating the database is extremely sloooooow. Having checked everything we can possibly check on our end (computer geek husband and I), we really feel like it's one of two things. It's a bandwidth issue on GoDaddy's end or the program was not really intended to maintain the number of products I need out there or not tested to do so. This is pure speculation on our part since we can't seem to get the "advanced technical" folks to call us as promised.
I've been trying to work with GoDaddy on this but have been sadly disappointed by the lack of support on their part. I contacted them initially via email and for a while it felt like I might be getting somewhere. Then it fell back down the customer support ladder and ended up in the form letter stage again back at the beginning. You know, that point where you have to prove all over again that you know what day it is, who the president is and where the power button is on the computer. At least, that's how it makes you feel.
After failing in the email loop, I decided to call them. I love GoDaddy customer support as you can actually reach a real person in a reasonable amount of time. They talk to you like you are a real person. So far, so good. I talked to a guy that seemed to be with me and understand my frustration. He "escalated" it to the "advanced technical" people and promised me I would hear something in 24-48 hours but most likely within 12 hours. I arranged to have them call my husband since he is well versed in what I call geek speak. It's been a week now and we've heard nothing. This morning I emailed my contact at GoDaddy to get a status and was told I need to call again and have someone "escalate" it for me.... again. He was busy with other calls and customers. This means I have to start at the bottom again. I don't understand this customer service philosophy.
At this point, I am forced to research a better shopping cart program that can handle the volume of items I need in it.... about 4000. That's why I purchased the "unlimited" item "Premium" shopping cart from GoDaddy. My options are to keep loading product into the database at a snails pace and not say anything to GoDaddy (highly unlikely), keep telling GoDaddy my story over and over until I get the right person and we get it resolved (frustrating but somewhat more likely), or just shop for new shopping cart options and fight for a refund from GoDaddy (looking like the most probable solution). Words cannot express how disappointing this is.
On the up side, I set up our blog over the holiday weekend. You'll have to check it out. Carol has already blogged so you can get the other half of the Simply fibers story from her...:-). This blog is a free Quick Blog we got with our GoDaddy hosting service. We'll see how it goes.
I also launched our Traffic Facts with GoDaddy. I'm able to see the site traffic info. Very interesting. One of the things I looked at was an error list. I'm glad I did. Turns out that I had all of my "home" links going to my old home page..... remember I had to change the name of it to index.htm??? Oops. I'm sure that confused a few people. I'm getting good at editing the site and publishing it. I added a few things and obviously have lots of room for improvement but it's out there and I'm happy about that.
Till next time, Sandy
