What a ride, what a ride.
We don’t do the Christmas thing formally, since we aren’ t a close knit family and my kids are all over the country (except for the one that lives in my basement!)
I did almost all my gifts ordered online, which were minimal since we are below poverty level, and the rest we did cookies for people since we were able to pool our foodstamp cards and get supplies.
So; just before Thanksgiving I decided to add credit card payments to my store. I realized that many of my customers leave the store because I only took paypal. I worked with my store company to add credit card processing and they got me directed in the right place, which was a great place. Unfortunately the next week when I called back like they told me to, the next person told me that my account wasn’t set up for credit cards. Not because I wasn’t paying for it… But because I had signed up during some ‘promotion’ they had, and for some reason that precluded me from accepting cards outside of paypal. *HUH*???
I know that there is much discontent in the online community Ebay and otherwise about the Paypal monopoly forcing their hand into things, but this really was a suprise to me, especially since this ’special deal’ thing they were talking about certainly didn’t offer up any savings or differences to me!
After dealing with several more ignorant people there I suggested their new logo should be ‘I don’t know why that person told you that.’ It seemed I heard that so much I wanted to scream!!! Every time I started off with a new person, I got told something different and opposite, and I was working 15 hour days trying to get my store working.
I missed Thanksgiving altogether. We did nothing. That is, until 4pm when my daughter decided that she MUST have dinner. She decided to go to the store to get stuff to make dinner. I said you better get a thawed turkey, or we will be eating on Saturday!
She came back home in about 45 minutes, with all the trappings in tow; including a turkey she was so proud of, cause she found one that had the pop-up thingy. I came out to check things over, and the turkey was frozen solid!!
She was bound and determined to make this dinner for us and her boyfriend. I suggested she try to cut the pieces off, and put them in the pressure cooker. I was under so much stress with the website that my fibromyalgia was flaring up like crazy, so I couldn’t do much to help her, so she wrestled in the hot sink with the turkey. She got the skin off, and then the wings. At this point I started taking pictures, it was too funny. She called down her stepfather to help her get the legs apart, a jigsaw was discussed and I went back to the living room. Later on She started layering things in the pressure cooker, and the breast meat was sliced off, and there was a ravaged carcass in my sink. She did spice it perfectly, and then when it got going she started the potatoes (fresh), veggies, rolls. and pies from scratch– including one made of Splenda since I can’t eat sugar!!
We ate before 10 pm… It was a miracle, and we got the funniest pictures.
So back to my website, and I found out that not only can I not do anything about it, but I have to re-do the entire site!!! REALLY!!! I have 1100 products!
I was able to move some things, but worked for 2.5 weeks 15 hour days in my ill state re-doing this all, while losing revenue. My hsuband was so angry, but what could I do? I had some problems, but I did find some techs that knew what they were doing to help me.
I had to open a new store technically, move everything over (mostly by hand and use the old store for reference) and then change the URL to point to the new store.
SO- the big day comes. I know the credit card program works, cause that has a terminal I can test without the store. I get it all put together the way I want it, and I call in telling yet ANOTHER person the whole story (they say they keep records, but only about a third of the info ever makes it in there) and explain what we need to do. Just point the URL from the old name to the new one. No big deal.
So about 4 hours go by. I still can’t bring up the store online, and it seems fishy to me. I call back, and talk to… can we say it all together? SOMEONE NEW… I explain what was done earlier, and he says… (this is good)
“oh, that was Julian, and he deleted the stores.”
Crying and swearing ensued mixed with yelling, sleep deprivation as well and I had no idea what day it was anymore. I don’t know if I have ever been so angry, certainly not as a customer.
The person I talked to actually got it straightened out, found everything, got things online and I actually processed a test order within 2 hours. He was my hero! I called my daughter over to show her the new store, and no site was found!!
I called (again… do you see a pattern?) and that person saw a problem with the URL issue, and said it would take about 36 hours to be sure it was fixed. It took about 30.
So I was out of commission about 3 weeks, and crazy that whole time. I came out of my fog around the 12th, and that is when we started the baking center… I haven’t been so busy in my life in ages!
glassglitterandbeads.com is back online, and has taken all but 1 order in credit cards. The dumped carts are much less, and I am thrilled! Orders are way down like they tend to be in December, but who is thinking of crafting this time of year??
It’s Christmas now, and we are going up to my husband’s family’s farm for the day. If he isn’t still sick. He is a bah-humbug, won’t do anything for the holiday. I get him a few presents but he won’t get me anything, he feels it’s hypocritical. I just feel in the spirit. Plus my daughter and her boyfriend are living here and I’m more in the spirit that usual.
Spose I should go to bed if I intend to get up and find a store open to get salad stuff to take up there.
Happy Holidays to you all!
Now my daughter wants to make plans for making New Year’s cookies…
Yikes….
Vanessa