An urgent plea
Dear friends,
This is so hard to write, but I have exhausted every other avenue I can think of and I am at my wits end. Sales have been considerably slower lately than they should be in what should be one of our busiest times of year. I have borrowed from Peter to pay Paul and tomorrow, my Paypal account is going to be drafted for funds it does not contain.
I need $700 in sales today to avoid some catastrophic repercussions tomorrow. I am so ashamed and embarrassed to be posting this. I always try to stay positive and I would much prefer to tell you now that business is great and only improving even in this grim hour. But I can’t avoid the reality of the situation any longer.
PLEASE, consider buying some tea from me, for yourself or as a gift. We have many great products, and there are gift certificates available that are delivered instantly via email.
Every little bit helps. Please visit www.zoomdweebies.com and consider making a purchase today. If nothing else, please share the link with your friends.
Thank you.
Your Humbled Friend,
Frank
I really wish I wasn’t so short on money right now, I would definitely consider it.
Good luck, Frank! I am trying to scrounge up some money to buy some teas, also spread the word on Facebook so hopefully you get lots of sales!
I wish I had some money for an order now but I don’t. I’d help if I could!
Thank you all so much! As of this writing we are less than $100 short of my goal for the day. I really appreciate it. Some days I get so frustrated and wonder why I haven’t given up, and then I get an outpouring like this and I wonder why I would ever quit. This was just really an issue of bad timing and bad money management on my part. I’m confident that once I get out of this particular sticky situation, the future is going to look bright. I hope to continue providing you with awesome and unique teas for many years to come. Thanks for understanding and for your support.
Hey Frank, I’m trying to order but the system doesn’t recognize my email address could you look for my email from about two hours ago?
I’d be happy to help. Forgive me, but I can’t remember your real name. Can you PM me?
Okay, I should have put this together right away, but it looks like you haven’t created an account on our new platform. You’ll have to sign up again. We switched ecommerce software platforms back in September. If you sign up, I can transfer your reward points from the old system.
We made our goal for the day and then a little more. Thanks to everyone who helped out. I appreciate it so much!
Just a suggestion… I know that there are many of us here on Steepster that have noticed a significant decline in your tea quality lately – particularly in terms of re-blends, which rarely if ever taste like the original. That (among other things) is contributing to a lack of faith in your business, and in turn, a lack of desire to purchase your teas, when so many other more reliable options are available. Perhaps increased attention to the quality of your product, even if that perhaps means fewer offerings (why not alternate hot/iced each week, instead of both? Or keep SBT out of the 52teas weekly model? Maybe cut back to one tea every two weeks?) would help. The switch to 0.5 oz packages was a great idea, as is offering the volume discount when multiples are purchased, and I think charging for shipping was an excellent idea. But I think you’re trying to be ambitious beyond your means (I know this isn’t your full-time job), and it’s only resulting in hurting your business.
It is not my intention to be hurtful, nor to attack, just to bring your awareness to one of the reasons your sales may be declining.
I do appreciate you being frank with me (get it? Frank?) and I am very much aware that some of our teas have not been as well received as I hoped lately. This is actually my full-time job now and with the change in packaging/sizes/etc, I actually renewed my commitment to create teas that are not just good, but awesome. I can only hope that the reviews for our latest teas will bear this out. I was particularly happy with the teas we created for December (November’s teas were admittedly a bit rushed). And I’m excited about our new program which will allow our customers to become the tea blenders (http://www.zoomdweebies.com/you-be-the-tea-blender). I think this little mess was just a result of a combination of bad luck and poor money management. I do appreciate the feedback, and I look forward to impressing you with new teas in the future.
Frank, I’ll chime in here too on the subject of the reblends. As Kittenna said, this is not to offend, but to offer hopefully constructive feedback. I stopped purchasing your teas a while ago due bad experiences with reblends that were disappointing (eg. coconut cheesecake honeybush which I absolutely fell in love with during the first run, would have purchased a pound of it, had it been available. I was overjoyed when it was reblended, but sadly the reblend was not even close, just tasted like straight up honeybush). The cost of international shipping was increased, a step I completely understand the need for, but that now made it not feasible to order teas I had lost the belief that I would enjoy.
Truth be told, I greatly enjoyed almost all the teas I had tried from you before this point (I still fondly remember the date-nut rooibos that got me through a winter a few years ago). I know it sounds fickle that a couple of bad experiences changed my outlook in spite of many positive experiences, but that’s the truth. There are just so many other vendors with high quality blends, that I just didn’t want to risk it.
However, this new tea blending option has me interested. I have been yearning for a blend that I cannot find, so maybe I’ll give this a try when I have the cash. You should maybe consider making a trial run with the customer’s blend idea, send them a sample (even just 1-2 cup amount in an envelope – to minimize shipping), get customer feedback, make tweaks and only then make a full-size run? That would minimize the risk of them not liking the blend they have created.
Good luck Frank.
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