What's New With You?

It's been awhile. I have been enjoying the beautiful Spring and now Summer weather too much I suppose. So, what's new since early May?

Some updates on some of the other posts, well we finally got the old Spike from First & Main back in stock and he's been moving quickly. He really is an adorable bulldog stuffed animal and I am truly thrilled that they went back to his old design.

All of the other dogs breeds I mentioned awhile ago have also come in, though a couple have already sold out.

We are still awaiting the shining stars, as expected, - they aren't due in until August, but I've also ordered a Thanksgiving Turkey and a Christmas assortment so I look forward to receiving them along with all of the others.

We'll be running a "Christmas in July" sale soon. I need to clear out some of our holiday items from last year to make room for the new. I'm expecting my Christmas orders in around late August, early September, so they will be added to the store as they come in. We're getting in some nice items that I am excited about such as a singing Elmo stocking from Gund, it's soooo cute!

In addition to the holiday items that will be on sale, we'll also have some of our other toy and gift items on sale. It will be a great time to stock up on holiday decor and gifts for your kids, other family and friends. Check in with us in July for the sale. I will be trying to start it off in early July, but that's approaching so quickly that it might be a little bit later on in the month.

I've been working on some changes to make to the home page. Nothing too major but just some stuff that I hope will make it look better and provide a better experience for our customers. I am always concerned with the usability of the site. Hopefully these changes will be implemented by my webmaster (and brother) in the next week or so.

The creator of the shopping cart program I use for the store is due to release a new version, perhaps by the end of the summer, so if it features some things I am looking for, I may upgrade to that. I would like a better shipping calculating system, as well as an easy way to add things like an insurance option and I'd like making an item a gift easier to do at the end of a shopping trip and so on. One thing I hope this new version will feature is a way for customers to go into a category and then to be able to search by price, high to low, low to high, etc. So we shall see what this upgrade brings, and we'll probably be utilizing it if it adds up to a better shopping experience for our customers. That is always my goal because you aren't going to want to shop with us if it's not a good experience, and we wouldn't expect you to.

So, that's the news for now. Personally my husband and I have been getting work done around the house and yard. Taking down hedges, painting rooms, that type of thing. We're looking into getting a new fence. Our existing one is a wooden split rail fence that is probably about 15 years old and is rotted through. Our dogs, especially the one I call the beast, my pointer Tucker, are not helping the longevity of the fence, so we need to do something before they take it down.

And, as I said, we've had such lovely weather that we are just out there enjoying it as much as we can while it's here.

Don't forget to check in at the store in July for some nice savings on a bunch of items and check in later in the summer to early fall to see our new holiday inventory!

~Erin