Thread: I'm number one!

Torn Muniscus had it repaired on the 26th. Start physical therepy this week.

Originally Posted by RichZ

Torn Muniscus had it repaired on the 26th. Start physical therepy this week.

There's my Point man! WoW, Rich....sorry to hear about the torn meniscus, but I'm sure Physical therapy will produce a cute young intern in her little uniform to help you regain your flexibility....

I tried this morning several times to log on but couldn't, so I'm glad to see everything up and running. I spent my time creating different pricing structures for the AS.

OK, here are my continuing thoughts on the Aftershave. Rich it is true that Crabtree & Evelyn is a well known brand, with a good reputation and people purchase products from C&E with confidence because the company has credibility. And the point that you bring up is a good one to consider, because if the thought came to your mind ( and I know you are only trying to be helpful ) it will come into someone's else's.

So, in a country girl logical way of thinking......let's consider what TGQ can bring to the table along these lines.

The Shaving Forums are only an ideal place to do business if you have a good product; Men gather pretty quick to slay a lousy product to it's immediate death, and while not being in business as long as Crabtree & Evelyn....my theory is that they too, had to start somewhere.

Over the course of the last two and a half years TGQ has grown ( albeit slowly ) steadily without the advantage of a website, until this past Thanksgiving. All of my business was driven by word of mouth of which 95% comes from SRP. The reputation of TGQ products are that of quality, with attention to detail and I'm consistent. In other words I'm not a one trick pony....LOL... I'm here for the long haul.

Another thing that I believe is advantageous to our project is the fact that all the men here at SRP know that I'm one weird OCD formulating nut, who won't introduce a product for sell on the shelf until I'm confident that it's ready.

These two things come together in the birth of credibility. The men here have high standards, which in turn holds me to a high standard if I wish my reputation for a good product to continue, and I have every intention of seeing to it that it stays that way.

TGQ also has an excellent reputation for "Customer Service" and I'm right proud of that too, because that's harder than it seems to maintain that, but I am ....and my reputation has grown in that arena. This is very important to people, and in turn important for my business. People are always more comfortable to order a product from a company that has good customer service, knowing that if they don't like the product they can get their money back.

Do you know that in two and half years I've only had one product returned and that was a cracked shaving bowl. Of course I know most fellas don't bother with such and simply sell something they're not happy with over at BST.....but even there.....somebody's buying it.

So what do we have here ? A company with a steady, consistent reputation for quality products and excellent customer service. Watch out C&E cuz here I come

Ohhhhh this is getting really long ....lol.

All the above are your marketing points for the base of the product. The men at SRP will know that I've done my best, and then there's the icing on the cake....the cherry on top. The fact that there has been a private testing group going on behind the scenes for over a year ( yikes, but still that sorda works too because its makes it look hard, which by golly it is).

All of you are long standing members at SRP with good reputations too! The men will trust your guidance on this product....it's as simple as that.

I can also tell you that over the course of the past year I've sent out different batches of AS in our favored scent selections and all have been received with favor except the High Test Menthol...lol.... BUT low and behold I've even managed to find a small following for that too.

Overall I think the links in this chain are strong, and the SRP aftershave will be received with favor.

The price could be a weak link for some people, but this could be solved by introducing another lower cost AS somewhere down the line, so you have something for everyone's wallet.

OK....that's it, I'm all talked out....LOL

Soapmistress

Mornin, Mornin!

Things are getting squared away here on the home front, orders caught up.....so today is AS day. Now one thing that did occur to me with these fluctuations in my home life is that you have possibly considered.....what happens when it's time for to make the SRP AS to sell, and will there be fluctuations then ?? It's a good question.

Honestly, to some degree it's a possiblity to the same extent as what happens from time to time with the other products if there is a break in the supply chain somewhere or if I'm overwhelmed with orders, which seems to occur on a rise and fall pattern of orders.

But in the actual production of the product, the answer is no. After we have decided upon the base and the scent, then I can stop experimenting....and make the AS in large quantities. Right now, everything has to be done in small quantity with only small amounts remaining left over and this is what goes out to a person here and there to try to pull in comments from the outside without telling them anything else. Every time I send out bottles to test, it all starts from scratch "each and every time" which makes it time consuming and somewhat redundant I suppose, but because the ingredients are expensive.....oye, it's the only way I know how to do it.

When we start to make the AS in "quantity" the current work schedule here will be modified to add this into production, so it should be just fine. On an interesting note, just in case anyone is wondering how we'll go about filling these bottles up with that tiny little hole.....I have 60 cc syringes that work quite nicely

and quickly.......on a pricing note, it is doable to lower the price by 35% to 40% by purchasing a premade AS from a supplier, changing the bottle, dropping the percentage of EO used, and going with a different type label.

The following are the contents of a few Supplier AS that some of you may have seen before.


Ingredients/Technical Specs:

Aloe barbadensis (Organic Aloe) Leaf Juice, Hamamelis virginiana (Witch Hazel), Phenoxyethanol, Salix nigra (Black Willowbark) Extract, Melaleuca alternifolia (Tea Tree) Essential Oil, Polysorbate, Edta, Citric Acid


Ingredients/Technical Specs:

Aloe barbadensis (Organic Aloe) Leaf Juice, Lavendula angustifolia (Organic Lavender) Distillate (Vaccinium myrtillus (Organic Bilberry) Extract, Saccharum officinarum (Organic Sugar Cane) Extract, Acer Saccharinum (Organic Sugar Maple) Extract, Citrus auranium dulcis (Organic Orange) Fruit Extract, Citrus medica limonum (Organic Lemon) Extract, Vaccinium macrocarpon (Organic Cranberry) Extract, Phenoxyethanol, Malic Acid, Tartaric Acid, Glycolic Acid, Lactic Acid, Kosher Vegetable Glycerin, Salix nigra (Black Willowbark) Extract, Tetrasodium Edta, Citric Acid


Along with the AS samples going out tomorrow, each of you will also be receiving one of the above Supplier generated AS. For me..... THIS IS the "tell the tale" test. The bottles will be scented with the same scent but not marked as to which one is custom and which one belongs to the supplier. We'll see which one wins......

Hope y'all have a beautiful and blessed Sunday.
Colleen

Originally Posted by churley

.........and I have fired my webmaster person.

I don't mean to pry, but I'm curious...what happened with the webmaster that you let him go?

Originally Posted by Noam

I don't mean to pry, but I'm curious...what happened with the webmaster that you let him go?

Mornin

First things first.......the AS samples will go out today, we couldn't get them boxed up yesterday in time to go to the Post Office before closing, and the odd thing about those square boxes is that they "will not" fit inside the drop box .....lol

After filling our orders yesteday Prashanna worked until after 5pm to tape up all 24 bottles.

For the webmaster, it's a bit of a long drawn out story.....obviously full of delays, and negotiations over money, requests for a partnership etc, etc. I really do like Amir, and find his heart to be good and kind, but he is a tenacious little pitt bull in the arena of money and business. The bottom line is it was nothing personal, just business......I couldn't afford his services, and with all my other difficulities at home, I simply no longer cared to continue to negotiate the process.

He called yesterday to say that perhaps he has been hasty, and wishes to continue working with me......but guess what, that "ain't happenin". I am a patient person, perhaps to much so in my relationships with people, but when I'm done, I'm done. I hope he will continue to be my friend, and perhaps someone I can talk to if I run into trouble.

I've talked to website people for the last 3 weeks until I'm blue in the face, and have really only found one solution that I like. I came up with two choices; both companies give ME the ability to do my own editing, but the first company would not give me ANY discount for the website already being in place, www.websiteforge.com, which really seemed unfair to me, and they want to charge me the same full price of $2,500.00 as if they had built the site from scratch, logo and all........Now, I know I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to computers, but surely that isn't fair

The lady said, "we still have to change the coding" but I was like....."well, yeah...but you don't have to build the site from scratch either, surely that oughta count for something!" There is also a monthly fee thereafter, but they continue to do upgrades and offer 24/7 support and training.

I discovered this company over the course of the weekend, www.edit.com and they basically do the same thing, but at a "go at your own pace" and only pay for what you need. Which is far more suitable at this stage of my business and my pocketbook!

I sent in a more detailed proposal of my needs to them yesterday, and am waiting for a response. I'd be most happy if anyone here would care to look over these two companies and share your thoughts.

Soapmistress

aka "Lost in Cyberspace" ......lol. Who remembers....."Lost in Space" with June Lockehart ? yeah, its sorda like that.....

Colleen, I'm sorry to hear you're going through so much hassle with the site. I don't know that much about professional website design prices, but 2,500 seems pretty steep. However, they may be right about re-coding it. I went through it with my "design critic" hat on, and in terms of both the visual design and the code underneath it's rather sloppy. I'll spare everyone the detailed analysis . I don't mean to bad-mouth Amir or anything, but it needs serious clean-up. If you want to compete with high-end brands, a slick, professional web presence is important, just as it is with product design.

In case the people at edit.com don't work out, we have some pretty talented students at Parsons who could do it for cheaper than a pro company. Our department often sends us mass emails with forwarded requests for designers, coders, interns etc. If you're still willing to give the student-designer approach a chance, I'd be happy to forward something to the office. I'd offer to take it on myself, but I'm gonna be pretty bogged down with work until mid-May when the semester ends.

If you do go with that approach, one tip I'd give you is to ask that applicants need to have prior experience building commercial sites, and to look at their previous work. It will give you a much better sense of their ability to do a professional-quality job.

Hope this helps!

Originally Posted by Noam

. If you want to compete with high-end brands, a slick, professional web presence is important, just as it is with product design.

This is truely words of wisdom. I can tell you myself when I am considering purchasing something online I am quickly discouraged if their website is less than stellar.

It's like going into a restaurant and seeing roaches on the wall. Makes you want to run ......

By the way I didn't think your site looked bad at all. What the code looked like is another matter (not my specialty) . I will also let you know from my experience with coders they are all very protective of their style. There are also usually a couple of ways to do things and getting two coders to agree on how to do things is very hard. Good luck.

Originally Posted by RichZ

By the way I didn't think your site looked bad at all. What the code looked like is another matter (not my specialty) . I will also let you know from my experience with coders they are all very protective of their style. There are also usually a couple of ways to do things and getting two coders to agree on how to do things is very hard. Good luck.

You're right, Rich: it doesn't look bad. It's a pretty nice website. However, it could be a great website if the design and code were more focused. There are many things that you might not notice until they're changed, especially usability and navigation fixes. Most web surfers are accustomed to bad layout and confusing navigation, so it often goes unnoticed. However, if some usability tweaks were made, I think you'd notice a difference in the feel of the site. An important issue is consistency. If you have navigation menus, they should stay the same on each page. Same look (or at least modest and logical variation), same place on the page, same links. Same thing for fonts, layouts, and graphics (especially branding). Of course rules are made to be broken, but you need a good reason to break them.

As far as coding goes, it's true we all have our own little ways of doing things. That said, there are still many conventions and common practices that are widely accepted as Good Form, and violation of these shows lack of experience, laziness, and/or ignorance. Especially when it comes to writing web pages, there are ways to organize your information that will not only make your life easier when you update the site, but anyone following you will have an easier time understanding how you set things up. If you look at online forums and articles dealing with web design, you'll see terms like "best practices" and "standard compliant" popping up all over the place. Within the conventions for good style, there's plenty of room for personal style. As an analogy, consider writing articles or papers. Following the MLA or Chicago style manuals won't do much to change the tone and character of your writing, but it will provide a foundation, an underlying structure that ensures it will be properly cited, grammatically correct, and familiar to your audience (especially with scholarly research). Nobody is making you follow a style guide, but it's a good idea if you want people to take you seriously.

By the way, do you know anything about this place?

I agree 100% as an end user a web site that is troublesome to handle does not get my business.

As for Truemans no $85 is too expensive for me I'd rather spend it on shaving soap.

Originally Posted by RichZ

I agree 100% as an end user a web site that is troublesome to handle does not get my business.

As for Truemans no $85 is too expensive for me I'd rather spend it on shaving soap.

Rich, you're not thinking ahead sweetpea. See.....now a trip to Trueman's would be out of range for most folks on monthly or even weekly basis....BUT, what a "killer birthday gift" from the wife aye... or how about Father's Day ? The wife and the kids could chip in to get something special for ole Dad

Even if you only went one time, just think how cool it would be to go. Of course then you'd have to come back here and tell us all the details....

Early night for me gentlemen, and I still have to cook dinner. Should be OK though, we're havin hamburgers "On the Grill"....I am so excited. There still aren't any leaves on the trees, but it's a balmy 62 degrees. Yippeeeeeee.

I'll be back in the morning over coffee.

Colleen