No time to blog or write the newsletter this past week.

Sorry everyone,
I had no time for writing at all this week, I was too busy tracking down merchandise from manufacturers who can't seem to get their act together. It is so frustrating to order things MONTHS in advance of classes only to spend the week of class calling and emailing repeatedly to find out where the stuff is. We had major problems with two different companies in the past month where we either got the class materials on the day of the class or not at all. One of the orders was placed in August the other in September. That should have been plenty of time but no, we got the run around constantly. I would say I'll never order from them again but unfortunately, people really like their product - too bad their service stinks.

Anyway, if you have asked us to order something and it hasn't arrived, please know that I am doing everything in my power to get the stuff here. In fact most of my day is spent placing and tracking orders.

On the brighter side - some companies are very good at shipping. Those companies will definately be getting more business. So far the one that impressed me the most was a stamp company called Inkadinkado. They have been around forever and I never really paid much attention to them because some of their older stuff in sold in the big box stores. But they started a program a few months ago that allows you to buy 2 get one free. If you buy 2 stamps from a particular collection you get the third free. They send us merchandise boards with all of the stamps in each collection and show very nice samples. The program has been quite successful for us. So successful in fact, that we have had to reorder several designs numerous times. This past week, Donna used one of the stamps in a class and everyone had to have it. Of course it sold out and we had several people ask to have it ordered. I faxed my order to them on Wednesday morning and the shipment ARRIVED on Friday!!! Can you believe that? After dealing with all of the other nonsense from the other companies I was astounded. I guess there are still some companies willing to go the extra mile.