A Midsummer Night's Scheme

Ok, we have decided that today, being Midsummers Day would symbolically be a great day to get the website online and working. So our web design department (i.e. me) is going to be working flat out to get all the shopping cart links working for each item we currently sell.

It's quite a time consuming task so it may turn out to be a vain attempt, but if we can possibly do it, then the website will be up and running tonight.

Then the business of marketing and advertising really takes centre stage.

So in the absence of any meaningful blogging today, instead we post some examples of the type of items we will be selling....

Happy Midsummers

The Silver Bough

With a little help from our friends

We are discovering that by simple enquiries we have developed excellent contacts (including friends) and cooperation from various suppliers.

The Silver Bough will include a prominent link to our friend Joanne's magnificent book, Runemarks (a great inspiration to us) and the sequel which fingers crossed shall be out very very soon! Joanne has offered to link The Silver Bough site to her website.

The publisher of Helrunar (by Jan Fries), a comprehensive reference book to the history, mythology, meaning and use of runes from prehistory to present has also said he will post a link to The Silver Bough on the Mandrake Publishing website along with the very kind offer of an online discount to our 'visitors'.

When enquiring about sundries (bags, cords, etc) we have found the cooperation of suppliers very enheartening. It proves that there is pride in quality and in customer service. The last offer of a sample of a velvet bag has been gratefully received. As our goal is top quality and prime customer service, we are sourcing only the best packaging and findings/cords we can.

Still waiting for a sample of goat suede which is currently out of stock. This is a very fine and soft suede which we hope will be ideal for the adjustable cords which we are including with our rune pendants. Unfortunately it seems that goats are extinct as weeks later they have not been able to restock. Maybe men have been staring at them too much.

We press on...

Planes, trains and shopping cart pains

So today is all about getting the shipping options right for deliveries.

We have decided to use PayPal shopping cart for our shop, but that has thrown up a small problem.

Because we are selling items that cost various amounts and have various weights, we obviously need different postage amounts as well...

Which is fine, until you get to the fact that we will need different postage rates for the UK, Europe and the USA (Yes, we are going to be international ;o) ).

Rather bizarrely in my view, PayPal doesn't give you an option with its shopping cart to charge different shipping rates depending on the location of the customer. Sigh...

I found this hard to believe, so I e-mailed them and sure enough, they confirmed this sorry state of affairs.

Still, all is not yet lost. I think I have found a way around this problem by utilising a third party piece of shopping cart software as a go between.

So today's task is simply to try this out and input the necessary shipping options we want and see if I can generate the magical html code needed for our "add to cart" buttons...

Then it's just a small matter of doing this individually for every item we currently sell. Gulp...

Where's that coffee?

The Silver Bough

A tough job

It's proving to be a longer process than we thought (starting a business). The majority of the setting up is done, but the fine tuning takes an age.

Still, we are getting closer to getting the site launched. We just need to set up the correct shipping options, then it's just a case of ordering in some velvet bags of high quality, and some leather cord to hang the pendants from. (We are thinking "goat").

Other than that, a few more photographs need to be taken and then we'll be ready to roll.

More soon!

The Silver Bough

The Silver Bough is a small business run as a partnership by two close friends.
The business will primarily be an online store selling fine silver jewelery based on runic and Ogham symbols and systems.

We are currently in the set-up stages, which means, designing the website, sorting the web hosting, perfecting our creative techniques, and basically getting all the legal and background details in place.

We should be up and running fairly soon though and are getting quite excited by the prospect of getting our creations "out there" in the market place.

Watch this space for more news on our progress and our initial launch date.

The Silver Bough