Calling all people with outstanding orders!

[Rich Z]

I have just sent out emails to several people concerning their outstanding orders from my 50% sale. Previous emails have gone unanswered. I believe this is because of the virus programs playing hell on a lot of email servers. AOL seems to be the worst at the moment.

So if any of you are logged in here and have not received my email, please contact me. I will be at the Raleigh show this weekend, but I would like to schedule as many of these outstanding shipments as possible next week, Tuesday thru Thursday. Just pick a day and let me know which day you want me to ship.

Thanks!

[Rich Z]

I believe I have now sent out ALL orders for the people whom took part in my pre hatching sale this year. If for some reason I have overlooked someone, PLEASE contact me immediately.

I am now setting up shipments for this upcoming Monday so I can try to pretty much clear the slate before we head on up to the Mid Atlantic Show the following weekend. If you have an outstanding order with me and I have not yet contacted you, please see if you can arrange to be at home on Tuesday and contact me about putting you down on the shipping calendar.

BTW, thanks everyone for this gang buster season I am having. We have done great at both the Daytona and the Raleigh shows, and am hoping it will continue through the rest of the shows we have scheduled this season.

Orders have been rather brisk, and I have been able to move a LOT of babies out very quickly. The bulk orders I got helped out tremendously in that regard.

I still have about 20 clutches due to hatch, but basically the hatching season is over with. I threw a bunch of second clutch eggs into sweater boxes, so I guess some of those will show up sooner or later. That is certainly going to be a grab bag of animals hatching out!

Now the question is, will I do this sale again next year?

[CornCrazy]

Now the question is, will I do this sale again next year?
WE ALL HOPE SO!!!

[Rich Z]

I'll have to think about it.

It was incredibly stressful trying to get all of those orders out in such a short time period. I had to get those babies out as quickly as possible after they hatched out. And MANY of the orders were held up waiting for that one last animal that was needed to fill the order.

Heck, I had to scrounge up some Valiums (from the time I had kidney stone problems) I have had in the refrigerator for nearly 10 years to keep from having a nervous breakdown at a couple of points.

On some orders, I lost my shirt on shipping. Large orders are nice, but in some instances those big boxes I needed to use cost me $60 in UPS fees alone.

Just yesterday I shipped out a large box to Arizona and had to put in THREE cold packs hoping that will keep them cool enough.

So if I do hold that sale again, I may have to make some changes in the terms and conditions.

[CornCrazy]

Well, you could definitely charge extra on shipping large orders. I'm sure everyone would understand that, and not mind paying the extra.

Of course, that doesn't help with the stress levels during that sale, but it sounds as if you are going to wind up quite a bit earlier. You'll have plenty of time to relax then, right? At least I hope so...

[Susan]

Rich...I sure hope you're not paying anything for the cold packs. If you are, I would suggest you go to all your local vets and ask them to save any they don't plan on keeping...and I guarantee that will be alot! I work for a vet, we have 2 freezers full of ice packs and I throw out anywhere from 4 to 24 a week. The really good ones are from Merial...more of a cloth feel than the regular plastic and they seem to hold up better. And I'm sure your local vets can save the styrofoam containers for you as well, if you need those too! They come in all sizes! Probably will even save the cardboard box it came in as well!

[Rich Z]

Susan,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm kind of odd about that kind of stuff. Any animal I have ever taken to the vet's office went into quarantine when it came back home. I just would not feel comfortable using materials that came from a vet's office for anything, because I don't know what they might have been exposed to.

I look at hospitals and doctor's offices the same way. Those places are where likely the highest concentration of pathogens live. Because that's where people that are sick go to.

Same with a vet's office. That's where people take their sick animals.

Yeah I know, kind of weird (how come that word looks wrong spelled that way as well as 'wierd'?), and probably baseless, but that's the way I think about it.