That's right. We're going to Disneyland! It's nearly time for our annual vacation and as in the past 3 years, we're heading to the magical kingdom - the happiest place on earth.

We'll be thinking of each and every one of you as we sail through the coves of the Pirates of the Caribbean. And from the rooftops of Peter Pan. And the factory of Monsters Inc.

M.I.C.K.E.Y. M.O.U.S.E.!!

Wow. It's 2009 already. Where did the last year go?

I really like the first of the year. It's fresh and anything is possible. Well, most anything. We still haven't figured out how to get your website to do your housework... but we're working on it!

With the new year come a few resolutions. Things like being more diligent in writing articles for this blog. Working more normal business hours (2am coding sessions are getting quite tiresome.). And taking weekends off. (she states as she works on a Saturday...)

Something new that we'll be doing is including a press release with every site we complete in 2009. This will be posted on our blog and will also be available to our clients for their own press pages. Just another way that we hope will help with sales and traffic.

We have a few cool mods for x-cart that we'll be finishing up and releasing soon. One will revolutionize gift ordering - that's all I can say for the moment. It's pretty rad though!

So we're looking forward to what this year has to offer and we're especially looking forward to January 25. More on this later...

Ahhh, shipping. Or more correctly, accurate and problem-free shipping. The elusive holy grail of many a frustrated and enraged etailer.

In my experience, shipping is the number one cause for angst and aggravation among etailers. We've talked more than a few clients off the ledge after dealing with a particularly odious shipping issue. Is there another issue that can reduce so many normally rational people to completely irrational and crazed behavior? I think not.

I hope that my own experiences in this area might help you come to some sort of peace with the hideous Shipping Beast.

There are several ways you can handle shipping.
• Free Shipping for all orders or after a particular dollar amount is reached.
• Incremental shipping that increases as the value of the order grows larger.
• Shipping by weight, ties in with above.
• Flat rate shipping - one rate regardless of amount spent.
• Real-time shipping via one or more of the major carriers. UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.

There are pros/cons to each of the methods above. This could turn into a very l-o-n-g article if I were to discuss each of these at length. So let's skip that and go right to the heart of the matter.

After using all methods at one time or another I've realized that flat rate shipping is the way to go. My own stress level has dropped greatly since I instituted the flat rate charge and customer service issues relating to shipping have completely vanished. No more queries or complaints, no more fretting over the shipping being off by $.05 or the much-loved refund as a result of the customer being overcharged by more than $1.00. No, now everyone pays the same. Regardless of how much they purchase.

One needs to consider the human psychology behind shipping costs and the consumer's purchase. When I offered free shipping, I found that order sizes dropped. I quickly realized that without a shipping cost to determine order size (oh, if I spend just $X amount more, the shipping is worth it) customers were spending less because they could order again later at no extra expense to themselves. This was actually costing me far more than I would have anticipated - I had counted on the free shipping drawing customers in and ordering copious quantities. Not so.

With the flat rate, orders are larger as the customer is encouraged to purchase more to make the shipping charge worth their while. My single unit orders have dropped dramatically as a result of this.

But leaving profit and order sizes out of the equation, consider this. What is your time worth? How many hours per day/week do you spend fretting and agonizing over shipping? Multiply that by your hourly rate and see what you come up with. I think you might be surprised. Be sure to count all the emails and phone calls you've had to send/make/receive in regards to shipping. How many times did you have to refund someone? How many times was the cart off by more than $.50? All this adds to your angst bank and can fester there before erupting one day when confronted by an irate customer who was overcharged for shipping.

You have a business to run, products to make and market, orders to ship. Fiddling with shipping shouldn't be something that is on your daily list of things to do.

If possible, I recommend a flat rate shipping module. Your life will be easier and customers will be happier. And you just might find that your order sizes increase and sales improve. But you'll definitely appreciate the drop in blood pressure that you're sure to experience...

Oh, and in case you didn't know, you can get FREE boxes from the USPS. Of course this requires using the USPS to ship your packages, but they are the fastest when it comes to getting your packages to where they need to go.
order USPS Priority Mail boxes

The savings in box purchasing will offset money lost from instituting the flat rate shipping. It all works together to create shipping nirvana...

Times are changing and we needed a fresh, new look to our site. So out with the stale and in with the new!

We've completely overhauled our website so serve you better. Content has been merged and some pages eliminated entirely to make it easier for you to browse the site and get the information you need more quickly. I think you'll find the change quite refreshing!

In addition, I promised back in June to be publishing a weekly article and well, I obviously failed miserably on that count. But with the new design comes a promise to be on top of things and actually take a bit of time off each day to get side projects completed. One of these being my weekly article. As stated before, the first article will be on shipping. Look for that tomorrow!

As a reminder for those who have forgotten and for those who are unaware - Cherie is not only a web designer/developer, she also owns and operates an ecommerce website based on a line of gluten-free foods that she creates and then sell. This business, Glutenada, is run on the x-cart platform and is a prime example of multiple custom hacks and programming we've done to a basic x-cart site.

So not only do we live and breath web development, we also exactly where our clients are coming from since we too are etailers. This makes us unique in the development world and gives us a unique perspective on designing and developing sites.

Until tomorrow...

Cherie here. I've decided to write a weekly article on subjects that consistently come up in conversations with our clients and other retailers. These will be written not only from my perspective as a web designer/developer, but from a retailer viewpoint as well. I have knowledge from both sides of the fence which allows me an advantage in the web design element as I actually know how the retail world operates.

First up will be my thoughts on shipping. Oooo... so exciting! I promise to keep it short and to the point so you don't lose the will to live after reading a few sentences. I've been selling my fudge for 2 years now and I've tried everything for shipping - it was truly the bane of my existence for quite some time - and after mucking about with different methods and pricing, I've finally hit on the one truly successful way of doing shipping.

Interest piqued now? Well, check back Friday for my first in a series of articles designed to help the small business/indie shop owner!

RedLime has moved from beautifully sunny (and painfully hot) Tucson, AZ to wet and verdant Port Angeles, WA. Where is Port Angeles? This link here will help you out. (gotta love Google maps...)

Why are we here? Well, I'm sure everyone knows about the mortgage crisis by now. Unfortunately, we lost our home.... haha. Just kidding! Seriously, we left our comfy home to move back to the town of our youth so Cherie can grow her food business, Glutenada. Cherie's family is from the area and WA state is friendlier to small food businesses than AZ is. So, it was a logical decision to make. Back home we came...


So a few days before the end of February, we packed up our house and a moving truck (in 3 days.. we do not recommend the patented Joe and Cherie method of moving unless you'd like to totally lose it. Not a great idea. Especially when you then have to drive nearly 2000 miles in 3 days...) and hit the road. We decided at the last minute to head up through CA instead of our usual route through UT because the idea of driving through snow in a 26' rental truck just wasn't Joe's idea of a grand time.

All in all, it was a very uneventful (and somewhat boring) trip. Driving the full length of California is a l-o-n-g and b-o-r-i-n-g drive that just never ends. And staring at the back end of a Penske truck for hundreds of miles is enough to drive even a saint to contemplate unspeakable things. An award should be granted to whomever came up with the rest stop. That's a definite sanity saver!


Our dog, Joey, was the lucky one. He just camped out for the entire journey with brief runs about the rest areas. A few Scooby Snacks tossed his way and he was a happy mutt!

So here we are in Port Angeles. Obviously we're working on PST time now. We got a bit behind due to the move, but we're finally starting to get on top of things. Thanks for your patience during this process... moving a house and 2 businesses is no easy feat!

Back in early December, we launched twenty|nine & co., a "nature inspired bath & body boutique." Founded by the husband and wife team of Jaime and Amanda, this yummy B&B co offers a nice lineup of deliciously decadent and pampering products.

Amanda wanted a site that was soothing and calm and invoked a sense of nature and spa. Using their logo, we were able to come up with a design that provided all this as well as being easy to shop and that allows the product photos to take center stage.

Products like their Whipped Shea Exfoliating Scrub...


The site will allow Jaime and Amanda to grow their business and natural, paraben-free product line. One can never have too much good and natural so if you're in the market for quality, natural b&b products - give twenty|nine & co. a whirl.

Has it been 2 months?

Hmm... I guess that time has been flying much faster than we'd thought. I went to our blog today and realized it's been since mid-November that we've posted anything. Whoops! Blame it on Thanksgiving. Christmas. New Year's. Etc! I'm sure there's a valid excuse in there. Somewhere.

Oh, we've been very very busy working on sites. That's it. Yeah.

It's a new year for RedLime and there are some changes afoot! We'll be detailing those as time goes by.

In the meantime, we've launched a few more sites and I think it's time to update the blog to reflect that.

...stay tuned...