A few changes here & there

Good morning! I'm happy to report that we did get some orders over the weekend and got them to the post office Monday morning. Something I have noticed is that we only have friends/family using our website to order. We have had a few Etsy shop orders, though, to people previously unknown. It's thrilling to get any orders at all. We really do a happy dance, a high five, and even a few jumps of joy. We are such newbies. haha

This week I did a small redesign to the website based on some comments we have had. I removed the yellow buttons and changed up the whole color themes, and added buttons to our shopping pages in the header, so they are easy to find from every page. I definitely do not want you to get stuck on a cart page with no way out. I think overall I made it more user-friendly and nicer to look at.

I also reworked our pricing, titles, and descriptions on both Etsy and our website. We are really working on our SEO. It's harder than it sounds. I still am unsure how to get Bing to crawl us; the page Wix links to in their instructions is not there. As for pricing- Etsy pricing is a bit higher, it has to cover their fees. But overall, I think our pricing is a fair value for handmade crafted items. At this time, for purchases over $25, we still include free shipping.

Speaking of shipping. We sent out an order a few weeks ago via UPS ground. It was to a local address, and the price was $3 cheaper than USPS Priority Mail, and it was supposed to get there the next day. Well, it did not arrive the next day. The tracking info said it was handed directly to a man at the home.

This order was to someone I know, so I trusted her 100% that it did not arrive. I went to the dropoff location, and they could not help me due to them being a franchise. I called the 800 number, and they could not help, only that it had been dropped off. We use Shippo for all of our shipping labels, and we could ask for a refund from them- but only after 20 days.

So I went to work on remaking the order. Two days into the process (it really takes us some time to stain and clear coat the wood pieces), the package randomly showed up and arrived with other items ordered from other companies! 10 days after it supposedly was first handed to the customer.

What did I learn from this? First, saving $3 was about to cost me a lot more than that. Also- I am 100% a Customer Satisfaction kind of person. It comes from my years of working in the service industry. If something is not right, I am going to fix it every which way I can. I am an "above and beyond" kind of person, and our policies need to reflect that.

tldr: Our new policy is to stick with USPS Priority Mail for all shipping. Updated our Return Policy to 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Anyhow. Please take a look around our website and give us some feedback!