One week until my summer holiday!
One week until my summer holiday! It is all go in the bug house trying to get the animals ready for me to have a week off. My website special offers have really gone down well, it has taken quite a bit of organisation but it has meant that I have managed to lessen the number of animals to a far better number. Most of the special offers are set to finish on Monday. I will certainly send out orders Monday - Wednesday but I may not be able to post on Thursday as there will be a lot of last minute feeding to do. I may have cut down but I still have a huge number of spiders, all needing to be housed and fed separately.
Last weekend I received a record number of orders, it seemed that every time I glanced at my computer another order popped up. I was delighted, Monday and Tuesday were pretty much completely taken up with packing bugs and trips to the post office. Then I was amazed when I didn't receive a single order on Monday or Tuesday, it just didn't seem to make sense. However it finally made sense on Tuesday afternoon when somebody rang and pointed out that nobody could log in on my website. I immediately contacted my web guy and he soon sorted it (I don't know what I would do without him). Evidently a software upgrade had taken place on Monday morning and something had caused a problem with the site. It took Simon a while to figure it out as strangely there was no problem with viewing the site and no problem with the admin side. I was happily updating items and carrying on with my special offers, oblivious to the fact that nobody could buy them!
I haven't really had any 'extra' time this week so I have skipped dog training. I will have to go again when I get back or they will be kicking me out of the dog club as I didn't go last week. Teddi is adorable but she is still crazy with other dogs. I walk her around the park until I spot a dog that may be robust enough to cope with her rough and tumble play. Then I let her off the stretchy lead and keep my fingers crossed. Many dogs squeal as she approaches at break neck speed, I actually heard a lady squeal recently! (Teddi is very friendly, she just looks like a wolf). I decided this morning whilst trudging around the park in my wellies, what Teddi and I need is a cat sized companion. I could cope far better with a smaller dog and Teddi really, really needs a friend - just have to convince hubby now (probably not good timing as Georgie and I are leaving him behind when we go to Cyprus).
Somebody actually asked if they could advertise on my website this week, they were willing to pay. I was quite chuffed but hubby pointed out that they didn't actually say what it was that they were advertising, hum, maybe not. I still think that I could make money from advertising, I get thousands of hits but I don't know anything about it. I really must get on with setting up a links page, this won't be paid for advertising just pointing my customers in the direction of websites that I like. They will probably all be animal related but I won't be linking to other sites selling bugs! I have given up on the idea of providing info on each tarantula species, the more I got into it, the more complicated it became. I may however put a little information box on some of the larger spiders. I have some beautiful specimens but it is difficult to market them on my website. I have said it before, if I had a shop they would go like lightening. The thing that concerns me is that I will have to be careful to keep it up to date. I do a lot of cut and paste, plus moving items around the site. I may need a little disclaimer, something like "this info is current for June 2012, if you are viewing this at any other time, it may be completely wrong". I think this idea is a work in progress!
This next week will be taken up with preparing everything for the holiday, hopefully I will then get a week of relaxing in the sun (if it rains in Cyprus I will cry) and then it will be home again and restocking furiously. I already have a large number of various spiderlings in my sights and I have placed an order for 50 Giant Train millipedes. The millipedes should arrive towards the end of July. It is quite an outlay to buy 50 but every time I get a few, they sell instantly so I am expecting them to go well. I am not taking any orders in advance, as I always say "nothing goes on my site until I physically have it here". I have learnt over the years that even with the best of intentions, all sorts of things can go wrong.
Well that is it for another week, actually I doubt if I will get time to write my blog next Friday so that might be it for a couple of weeks. I do need to pack sometime!