Not me….

See, I do get to relax.  Every weekend I go to Kymer’s Camping Resort in Branchville, NJ.  I’ve been up there for 20 seasons, every weekend from April 1st till November 1st.  It’s nice to have a place up in the woods.  It’s very relaxing.

However when you own an online store you really don’t get time to “relax”.  I may be away from the computer and the internet when I’m up there but I still get all my sales sent to my cell phone so I can make sure I’m keeping up with my customers and making sure that they get what they need in a timely manner.

Now, on top of that we have Castle No Fear.  A gaming community that wants more games.  I have “plenty” of new games to add, problem is, I don’t have the time to add them since I’m still working on getting as many products added to the store as possible before the Holiday shopping season starts in September.

September?

Oh yea….that’s the start of the Holiday shopping season when you own an online store.   Crazy huh?

Anyways, between going away on weekends, adding products, processing orders, adding games, managing an internet radio station, attempting to blog on this site, and being a husband and father…..I need a clone.

Even without one though, I couldn’t be happier.

~NFM

Last year we opened our store Serendipity Deals.  We did it without a lot of money…but with a lot of knowledge.

See….I worked in retail for a good chunk of my life.  I spent a lot of time with customers…in fact that got me into a little bit of trouble at a few jobs really.  I was always told that I shouldn’t be friendly…I should just get them what they want and move on to the next customer.  I didn’t like that idea and was always repremanded about how long I would help a customer.  However, in the long run those customers refused to shop in the store unless I was there to help them.  Which again would get me into trouble because I’m very friendly and I want to be sure you get what you want and you get it at the price you want it at.  Again….it seemed as if the stores I worked at (most of them are big name stores too) were only interested in me spending 2 minutes at most with the customer….getting the sale and getting them out.  Their service sucked…..

I eventually worked for a distributor.  I’d sit at my desk and take orders for luggage (high end luggage).  We would have a few small online stores contact us and tell us that they just sold a piece of our luggage and they need it shipped to “so and so”.  That’s what is called “dropshipping”…it’s one of the largest “businesses” online today.  I would sit at my desk and process an order….for instance.

Luggage Store A sells a piece of luggage to customer A.  Customer A pays Luggage Store A $440 for this piece of luggage.  Luggage Store A sends us the order and we charge them $195 plus about $17 shipping for this piece of luggage.  $200 profit????  Why was I sitting behind the desk????

I had the computer knowledge, I’ve run web sites before…several of them.  I have the customer service abilities and the friendliness.  I should be on the other side of that order…I should open my own store.

But…with what money?  It was tight at the time….

Push came to shove and my boss (there are no words to describe him…trust me) caused me to leave that position.  I talked to my wife and her and I agreed…I have the abilities…I have the know how….let’s open a store!

Again….abilities and know how don’t get you products.  Money does….

I learn about “drop shipping”.  Which simply means that I don’t have to buy the product up front…a “reputable” supplier or the direct manufacturer will ship it straight to my customer for me for a small fee on top of the products price and shipping.  Not bad right?

So I thought….

I made one simple mistake right after I opened the store.  I found a company called Doba (I’m not going to link to them since I don’t want to see others get hurt, nor do I want to drive traffic to them).

Doba “claims” to be an easy dropship supplier for “millions” of products with “brand names” and such.  Okay…I can give them the “millions” of products and some “brand names”….but easy?  No…I can’t give that to them.

For $369 I signed up for 15 months of their “service”.  I went through their catalog and added A LOT (close to 500) of their products.  I have to do this one at a time since I’m picky about what I sell.  It took me a VERY long time to get products up there.  As I added products I started to slowly get sales….and things were looking up.  More and more people were coming to the store and buying things, all sorts of things.  Eventually though I got to know the underbelly of Doba….

See…while I was getting these sales and adding more products Doba was getting new “suppliers” and new products on their site.  However….during this time they would randomly “drop” suppliers.  Which would mean that any products that the supplier had on Doba’s site would be gone and no longer available.  Does Doba tell any of their customers?  Do they say…”Hey Serendipity Deals this week we’ve dropped supplier A, C, and G because they…”?   No….they don’t say a word, not even in their monthly newsletter about how great they are and about how they’ve added these other suppliers.  Suppliers which they hide the names of by the way….

Okay….so is that my only complaint?  Hell no….

Not only do they drop suppliers randomly causing me to have to tell customers that have already PAID for the product that I can’t get it for them and causing me to look REALLY bad in the process….but…they also randomly remove or discontinue products without any notice.  Yup…that’s helpful.

Now…I can understand it a product sells out.  Sure…I’ll have to let my customer know that the warehouse is out of them.  I give my customer an option, they can either get an immediate refund or if they want I can put it on back order and ship it when it comes in.  Most customers are understanding when that happens.  Here’s where Doba kills me again.  No notifications on when a product is coming back into stock.  I can send an email to the supplier through Doba….but don’t expect an answer for at least a few days.  My customers don’t want to wait that long, especially when I have their money.

Want more?  Sure….here is one of the best ones yet.  The final straw that caused me to remove every single product I had listed from Doba….

Just before Christmas this passed year (2008) I had a customer that wanted an external hard drive.  However he wanted two of them at a certain price.  I checked Doba and found a really good one at a great price.  Now…I wouldn’t normally tell you my costs and such but let me give you an example on how much I actually make on most of the items at Serendipity Deals.  This customer wanted an external Hard Drive for no more than $80 a piece.  I checked Doba and found a 320GB External HDD for $67.95 plus shipping.  Shipping cost about $7.00 which would make the total “cost” for me $74.95.  I sold two of them to this customer for $79.95 each, my profit was $5.00 a piece.  $5.00 PROFIT A PIECE Yes….my mark up is very low…and I’m proud of that.  My customer was very very happy and paid me for two of them.  I immediately went to Doba and ordered the hard drives and even got a receipt for them…..

A week went by with no tracking at all from Doba…Christmas was getting closer and my customer was still waiting.  I typically keep in touch with my customers and tell them whatever I know so that they know I’m watching out for them….because I am.

Finally a little after a week later I get an email from Doba telling me that the order has been canceled and I’ve been refunded my money.  What?  Why?

Would have been nice to have been told why my order was canceled….but they don’t do that…great service right?  So…I figured….maybe they did their usual and dropped the supplier even DURING my order (they’ve done that twice)….or maybe they discontinued the product.  I went back to their site and looked it up….the product was still there and in stock.  So….why was it canceled and I was refunded?  Oh…that’s simple…they raised the price to $87.95 a piece plus shipping.  They canceled my order and told me that I can re-order it at the higher price instead.  WHAT???? I had to refund my customer and let them know what happened.

So…that’s Doba for you….greedy, uncaring, and absolutely NO SERVICE at all from them.

Let me give you the run down of what you get for your $369.00 a year…

• Products that can disappear at any moment
• Suppliers that can disappear at any moment
• Bait and switch tactics for pricing
• No answers for days to your emails
• No out of stock notifications
• No low stock notifications
• Plenty of sales calls from their marketing friends

What did I finally do?

Well…I found new suppliers….REAL suppliers.  Most of them are the manufacturers for the actual products…which means no middle man…and lower costs.  I removed the hundreds of products from the store and filled it back up with newer better stuff.  I get new suppliers on a weekly basis…and never ever will I go near Doba again.

That’s my rant…

Let’s start with why I disappeared…..again.  My last post was back in June of 2008.  The campground (Kymers Camping Resort) I have been going to for 20 years would be in “full swing” at that time.  That means I would be there every weekend.  In other words I had no “spare” time.

During this time though I did more work at the store Serendipity Deals adding more products and categories….and removing crap from a shitty supplier.  Speaking of….if anyone out there is planning on starting their own online store….STEER CLEAR OF DOBA.  I can’t stress that enough.  Wait…on second thought….you would then be competition wouldn’t you?  In that case….by all means….go get screwed!  However….my Doba rant is enough for another post all on its own.

How about the Castle?  Castle No Fear had one hell of a year last year getting tons of new users and we have over 1100 games for you to play for FREE.  I try and add about 6 new games a week now…typically on Fridays.  Stop by and have some fun.  We upgraded the gold system (which we refer to as Dole) as well as the arcade…and added an AWESOME casino to spend your not so hard earned dole on.

Let’s not forget that Fired Up Radio also celebrated it’s first birthday this passed February 1st!  Wooo!  Go drama free radio!

Oh….yea….my latest triumph?  After a stale, stagnent year with NFMDesigns.com I finally destroyed the “brick wall” page that I had that was difficult to read.  I dropped Joomla from the site and installed Drupal 6.1 and now it has new life!

So….expect to finally see some more activity at these sites as I’m on a full press (I know I left out “court” but I hate basketball) to bring my madness to the world!

(queue evil laugh)

~NFM

Why have I been missing so long?  That’s simple.  I got all my ducks in a row with the state of New Jersey’s business division and got all the certificates I needed for my store.   Since then I’ve been plugging away at different suppliers to get great deals for Serendipity Deals.

I’m at around 419 products and counting…and I have a TON more to add. I’ve finally gotten a few more great name brands as well including GigglyGear and The Highland Mint! We are also carrying BCW Sports Collectible displays, video game stuff, lots of baby items, and tons of stuff for your kitchen.

We had a major snow storm here on Friday, I spent the entire day sending applications to suppliers, in fact, I spent all day Friday and all day Saturday sending out applications to suppliers who I think have some great products to sell and that I can get some great deals from. The total? I sent out 194 applications! Yup…and Monday morning my email box was FLOODED! Not to mention my phone ringing off the hook….that was pretty crazy too. The worst part? 194 applications….and about 80% of them will want me to fill out even more applications. I had just recently cleaned my desk….and now….ugh. I’ve had to buy black ink for my printer twice this week….good thing it’s a tax write off now…lol.

Well…I have work to do….see you all again soon.

Go take a look…..

Okay…back now? I bet you’re wondering why the product line is so scattered…lol. There’s a simple reason for that. I didn’t want it scattered….so…I made it scattered. Make sense? Yea….I didn’t think so. I didn’t want to go in and have 100 electronics products, and 4 kitchen products since most online shoppers are women. So I started out with kitchen stuff, and jewelry….then I added games, and electronics…and so on and so forth. I keep adding little by little into each category until I feel satisfied. Not a day goes by that I don’t add at least one product. Which brings me to the point of exhaustion. My daughter went in for surgery last Friday for both of her knees. Now I’m Florence Nightingale (however you spell her name) running up and down the stairs taking her to the bathroom, changing her cryo packs, bringing her food and drinks….not to mention spending from 8AM till about 10PM on my computer working on the site. Plus…the middle of the night pages from my daughter for potty trips….

Ugh…..

I guess before I leave this message I should mention that we are having a sale until Friday on all Jewelry $30 and up at Serendipity Deals all jewelry $30 and up is 10% off until the 15th.

Hey…if you register there be sure to let me know….I’ll see if I can do something special for people that are referred from my blog. Just shoot me an email either here or there.