If you want to skip this long drawn out saga ( I just can’t keep it short!) please just read the highlighted bits for the news 🙂
Hello everyone! As many of you who’ve been following me for a few years know the technological struggles I’ve faced in trying to sell my dolls. I started off on Etsy, which was great but then felt like it was time to move to my very own website – this is when I created bamboletta.com. It was so nice on there, I could keep track of customers (great for ease in tracking orders, etc), things like figuring out sales tax was a cinch – behind the scenes stuff that makes running an online business easier. After having my own site for a few years as my ‘popularity’ (for lack of a better word) grew so did the problems I encountered. First it was the overselling issues – it was not uncommon for many people to check out with the same doll. This was such a heartache for everyone involved – those emails I had to send telling people that the doll they thought they bought was a glitch was really sad. My hands would sweat and I’d go super pale before each upload – hoping and praying that there wouldn’t be any oversells. Then something else started happening – screens would freeze up on people, pictures would just go missing, dolls wouldn’t appear and people would buy dolls before they even went live. After some investigation it turns out that ‘malicious scripts’ were used on my site that essentially wore it right down. I had the most bandwidth possible and a private server yet nothing helped this stuff from happening. A very stressful time. You see, I really believe that the dolls find their homes. I like the idea that the doll finds their way to you – but what was happening , with the programs and such, well, that was not the case.
Then I moved to Big Cartel – which has been really great so far. The tech support staff has been good – trying to help out with as much as they can. Recently though we’ve been noticing dolls held up in carts (so, when someone has a doll in their cart they have 30 min to check out, which btw I can not change – Big Cartel has it set to 30 min) for hours at a time – sitting there. Unavailable to buyers yet not being bought. I am so sorry it’s been so hard to buy a doll – I just haven’t been sure on how to sell them sometimes. Believe me, I’ve talked to so many people about my situation. I can’t afford the $30k that comes with building a site from the ground up and mostly I can’t hire on IT people to keep track of every program or script that has been placed on my site. With using something like Big Cartel I have back up that can help out if something is going on.
Now, we do have something in the works with Shopify but there is a bit of a glitch that we are wanting to work out before we make it live. My move to Shopify is so that I can get that ‘behind the scenes’ stuff I want in a shop. Big Cartel just doesn’t have it. So, until we work that out we are still on Big Cartel – which brings me to my announcement …
We will now have TWO uploads per week – on Wednesdays and Fridays. We are varying up the times to be more accommodating for people. Now that I have Brooke to help out it’s easier for me to do the evening and later uploads! Love that Brooke! Dolls will still be shipped out each Tuesday like normal. Our uploads will be split in half so an upload will have 25 or so 15″ dolls, 10 (or so) LB’s and some baby and jointed dolls. The other big thing is that the carts will only be open for two hours then everything will be shut off. Dolls that are not sold or were held in carts will then be place on my Etsy shop. Randomly. If you subscribe to my Twitter or are a fan on Facebook I’ll drop a few hints. I did this as a trial thing last week and it went really well!
Also, the Frock Shop will be stocked up each Tuesday at 11am PST. It will be left open all week and orders will be shipped out each Monday (Tuesday if going with a doll). If we make a few items that we just can’t wait to show you we will put them up in the shop throughout the week. So, if you buy several items throughout the week we process them all on Monday so we ship them together and then refund you the shipping 🙂
I will have the month’s uploads posted at the start of each month – you can check here for the updates.
We just hope, hope, hope that this makes it easier to buy a doll. We have noticed that there isn’t as much of a frenzy during an upload which is great – it looks as though supply is meeting up with the demand! By October my group of 35 (!) amazing sewers, stuffers, dyers, seamstresses, knitters and crafts ladies will be up to about 100 dolls per week and that’s where we are staying at. I don’t want to get any bigger. The dolls still gets lots of hugs and love in the studio passed around from mama to mama – it’s a really neat thing.
One more thing – I’m thinking of maybe taking a waiting list .. maybe. What do you think? I’ve mentioned it before but the thought of it scared me. But, now I have Brooke and she is good at organizing stuff like that. She has no idea I’m writing this – I am SO going to get it tomorrow!! Haha!
Thanks so much everyone! Seriously, I feel so much love thinking of you gals on the other end of the screen clicking away trying to get a doll. And the joy I feel when someone gets one when they’ve been trying and trying, well, it’s really unique. Seriously, I have the best job in the world and I have you all to thank for that.
xo
C
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