Spiders, spiders everywhere - I have had a delivery of spiders almost every day this week and I now have a bug house full of them. I had a large number come in yesterday afternoon, they have all been housed and fed but I haven't had time to enter their details on the website yet. I think it will be pretty busy today. I generally spend time on Fridays catching up with paperwork because there is no posting to do before the weekend. As I sit here now looking out onto my lovely garden (I think it's lovely) and the sun is shining I want to get out there but it will have to wait until tomorrow. I haven't checked the weather forecast but it will probably be raining.
It has been another hectic week, my husband was away with work, I have managed to add several jobs to his 'to do list' in his absence. Sadly it looks like he will be spending a second weekend trying to fix our daughter's, boyfriend's car. It needs repairing as it is conked out on our drive at the moment.
It is almost a year since my super duper, automated website went live. It has transformed the business and greatly increased sales. I was looking at the statistics shown on the site this week. It is so interesting to see what sells best and who buys what. There is a list of my top buying customers and it is very interesting to see that my top repeat customers are from outside the UK. I have two really great European customers who regularly order from me. I am very grateful of their custom and it has made me think about advertising in Europe. There is obviously a problem with language as the only one I speak is English but my niece who lives in Luxembourg is fluent in German and I think French too. She is rather busy as she works full time and has three young children but I'm sure she would help if I ask her. I suppose the best way to go about it is via the forums but I am hopeless (even when they are in English) and I really don't have the time. I still haven't managed to put out a newsletter to those customers who have ticked 'subscribe' on my website and it is now almost a year. Oh, if only there was two of me! Talking of forums, I still have my spies who tell me what is being said about me (usually it's good!) and I must just mention Facebook, sorry I haven't got a clue and it hasn't even reached my list of things to do. I only signed up to Facebook to enter a competition and now I keep getting emails saying that Joe Blogs wants to be my friend. I may get round to it one day but I would need my daughter's help, like most teenagers she lives on it. I don't even recognise half the people sending requests?
It is clear from the stats on my website and it is quite obvious without even looking at them that my best sellers are spiders and cockroaches. I just cannot breed the cockroaches quick enough for the orders that I receive but I am trying. I have had a population explosion of the Domino cockroaches, I have never before had such success with them. I have been selling tubs cheaply, bulk buy packs of adults (which are a nightmare to pack as they move so fast and climb up my arms) and even selling them as 'live food' tubs. I must admit I'm not sure how good they are as live food, my geckos don't seem to like them. Any feed back please, do your spiders, bugs, reptiles eat them? They are beautiful little creatures and not smelly like some cockroaches. I still remember the disgusting smell of the Harlequin cockroaches that I once kept. I had to stop selling them, they made me heave but some people thought the smell was like pear drops. They didn't smell like any pear drops I've ever eaten but the spiders didn't seem to mind as they were happy to munch on them.
I really don't want to cut out selling some of my favourite bugs, even if they don't go well. The sale of stick insects has continually declined over the last few years. Perhaps people are just too busy to collect the bramble for them, I know pet shops cannot be bothered. I only have one large cage of the more common species now, I have to keep them all together as I cannot justify keeping them in separate cages if I am only going to sell two in six weeks! I tend to sell most of them as batches of mixed stick insects because it is too difficult to keep a track of what's in the cage and what is showing on my website. I do have a few cages of more popular species like the Jungle Nymphs, Black Beauties and the Peruvian Ferns. I have some new stick insects and Horse Head grasshoppers arriving tomorrow.
Well I think that is about it, as usual I could ramble on but I need to start all the paperwork that is sitting beside me. I must just say that I have appreciated the fact that more people have phoned me with their enquires this week, rather than all the complicated questioning by email. I have also been informed that the phobia of using the telephone is Telephonophobia!
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