holiday inventory soon to be out of stock on amazon
I know not many use this website yet, but the metrics do show some movement from here directly to Amazon. I will not be shipping any more Amazon Prime inventory to Amazon warehouses this year. What's there is all that will be there til late January or February. I'm working on updating all the pages now to give people a heads up on what products are about to be out of stock. A QUICK way to see what's still in stock is clicking this link and selecting the "Prime" checkbox in the upper left corner to filter only available Prime products.
That being said, I still will self ship all products. They are not unavailable, it's just that Amazon's inventory stystem during the holidays is very bad. Lol. And that's being kind. They have failed too many of my customers and lost too much of my inventory that I'm not dealing with it during the peak of the holiday season. I sent my last box of inventory to them in October and they're still trying to figure out where it is. Lol. (Bruh!)
Use the link and click the Prime checkbox to see the last of the Amazon Prime Inventory for CoH.
I'm doing my best over here. Hopefully in 2024 I can put up an actual website. This is just a placeholder for now.. but you can easily find available listings on Walmart.com, Amazon.com, Etsy.com and soon, TikTok shop.
Click on the pink links above or search "Vanilla Extract Label" and you'll see my stuff pull up on all the different platforms. :)
CAN'T STOP. WON'T STOP.
jUNE 2023
If you’ve decided to count these newsletters and hold me accountable for what I said previously, Q2 doesn’t exist. 2023 has flown by so fast I jumped from Q1 straight to Q3. Welcome to CoH and thanks for visiting!
Quick recap of Q1: Reflecting on 2022 results and feedback, I took action and updated my SKU system (again), created additional packaging inserts and instructions, streamlined photography, expanded package sizes (2, 4, 8, 12, 18, 26), transitioned to die cuts for new units, added alcohol wipes, and introduced glass bottles (2 oz and 4 oz Boston Rounds).
In Q1’s newsletter, I said I’d have the above list implemented by March; it’s June. I’m still working on it. :D
How’s your 2023 going so far? We recently had some good rain here in KS and the weather has been warm!
Keep an eye out for new listings with Labels + Bottles. I was hoping to get some really fun bottles, but since I’ve never sold them or experienced 3D shipping yet, I decided to start reasonably with a small investment.
Trust and believe my shopping cart was full of unique glass bottles for a few months before deciding to stick with classic Boston Rounds. IF these even sell, THEN I can worry about more sizes and shapes. Seems like a reasonable assessment. What bottle size or style would you like to see most? There’s even colored glass of blue, green, amber and more. Possibilities are endless. I could design and create for years!
MESSAGE RECEIVED - EVOLUTION OF THE CONQUEST
Celebrating my sister-in-law’s accomplishments in May, a few of us got together for food and drinks. While ordering my drink, I felt someone staring from the far side of the bar. I ignored it. I was with family and uninterested in what may be occurring at the end of the bar.
The gaze didn’t dissipate; after a few minutes, I turned my entire body to face the stranger, made eye contact, smiled sternly, and said, “Hello”.
Unfazed, they replied, “What do you do”?
I paused while maintaining eye contact, replying, “I make things”.
Inquiring, they said, “What kind of things”?
Unsure and wary of their intent, I replied vaguely but honestly, “I solve problems and make things that need to be made”. Without hesitation, they insisted, "Write a book”.
My metaphorical eyebrow raised, (maybe my physical one too); I studied them and asked, “What makes you say that”?
“I’m clairvoyant. I get messages. Write a book", they said.
Amused by their assertive advice, I probed, “Does your clairvoyance indicate what this book is about?”
“Start simple. You have a story; people need to hear it”, they stated definitively.
I grabbed my drink as the payment was completed, “Ok, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for the message.” Flashback to 2012, when my grandmother stopped by to give me a monetary contribution that she requested I put toward my first book. I told her I didn’t know what I would write about. She told me I’d figure it out.
Flashback to college when I contributed to the collegiate paper and studied advertising and public relations, but switched majors to graphic design because I didn’t enjoy writing on command and preferred art more.
Flashback to high school when I thought I’d be the editor-in-chief of Vogue or ESPN magazine in a corner office one day.
Flashback to elementary school when I’d written my first pick-your-own adventure book. I don’t remember what it was about. I think it was six pages long; I was confident it was award-winning.
Flash forward... What will my book be about? What is my story? Who needs to hear it? Does this type of scenario unfold naturally, or is it digging for buried treasure with no X marks the spot? I don't know, but I'm super happy for my sister-in-law and brother. I wish them the best, always! <3
I’ll add authoring a book to my list of future conquests.
art, architecture, laugher and food
march, 2023
I turned off my shops (Amazon Prime was still available since they ship it) while we were gone. We were away over the pond and it was an incredible experince... one that my daughter and I have day dreamed about since she was 6yrs old or so. She's 21 now.
Visiting Spain, Morocco and Portugal was a great opportunity to be inspired, experience other cultures and languages and appreciate the insane ability we have as humans to create the impossible. My brain couldn't comprehend the art/architecture. Brilliance.
Back to life as I know it now, but hope to bring a little spice of life and the inspiration of the impossible to those around me. That includes you too! <3
We're back!! temporary update: Mar 9-23
Only Amazon Prime items will ship. If you're someone who orders directly from me, Etsy and Amazon items will be turned off temporarily. Direct orders from Amazon and Etsy will resume March 23 :)
new year, new goals
jan 29, 2023
Hello hello. We (you and I) survived another year. :). 2023 will be dedicated to cleaning and streamlining.
I sell on Etsy, Amazon and now Walmart, but boy howdy... all three look like different companies. Well, I haven't even had time to load anything to Walmart yet (it's a different beast), but Etsy is the red headed step child, so she hasn't been updated in some time.
I'm taking all the feedback from 2022 and incorporating changes for 2023.
For any poor reviews received in 2022, overwhelmingly they were due to people who ordered based on looking at one photo and reading nothing in the listing.
If a listing had a photo with labels on a bottle, customers would be mad they didn't receive bottles with their labels.
Listings show a variety of different sized bottles as example of what labels look like on each. What size of bottle did they expect to receive?? I don't know, I just know they were mad they didn't receive any because the pictures showed bottles.
If a listing showed multiple labels in an image, although a customer ordered a "Pack of 01", they were upset when they did not receive an arbitrary quantity. They expected a "Pack of 01" to be "one pack of (insert arbitrary quantity)". Although a "Pack of 02", "Pack of 04", "Pack of 08", "Pack of 12" were interpreted properly as the quantity listed.
This was bizarre to me, but it happened often enough that it needed resolved or changed.
Another change implemented for one listing in 2021 will also be carried over to all listings this year. A couple years ago there was an issue with people not reading size information for a 1" x 1.5" label. Overwhelmingly people would assume it was a larger label. To resolve this, I mocked up the label next to a quarter. The poor size reviews stopped immediately and they have all been great reviews since.
Meeting expectations is KEY to leaving you or any customer happy. Even though I do my best to represent everything accurately, I cannot control individual interpretation. I see my labels every day, so my knowledge creates a bias. I have to account for that, I have to be better.
I also didn't realize how many people make purchases without reading anything... at all. All important info is in the title, short bullets, paragraph descriptions, and also in the graphic photos. It's wild to me how it's overlooked.
These are not complaints. These are lessons. Insights for how I have to adjust my communication. Experience that teaches me to be a better business owner. Keep it coming. The more kinks I can work out, the better I can provide consistently good service.
That said... It takes a very long time to rework all the graphics that go with each listing. Then it takes a long time to go through and adjust all the text that goes with each listing. And because I care about people getting the best version of the listing, it takes time to go through and recreate all the A+ content to enhance the listings.
Eventually I'd like to introduce new products, but not in 2023. 2023 will be redoing everything I already did the past few years. Lol. It's important though. Can't build anything off of a wobbly base. Stick with me.. I'll move forward eventually. :D
I'd love to start sewing again. I have wood working projects that need done after winter goes away. The SKU system will help with streamlining going forward. We'll see what kind of response the new packaging receives. I updated that toward the end of the year so that I could implement it for 2023. The first batch of FBA has just been received at the Memphis Amazon warehouse. We'll see!
Hopefully one day I'll also make an actual website that's helpful and able to be purchased from. Til then... this is what exists. :D <3 - Terri
(I just realized it sounds like I'm spending the whole year poking around on the computer and moving a few graphics around (ha, ya)... Well, I mean, if that's all I was doing, ya, it probably wouldn't take long. However, I still have to make the products for inventory, then pack product to fill my inventory, still have to fill orders that I ship, still work a full time job outside of CoH and still have to maintain my household as the only provider. I am a go getter. I believe anything is possible. I'm never doing just one thing. I might try to see my family sometime this year too.. you know.. like my kid. And my brothers, mom, grandma and other close family. They all live in the same town, but I see them a few times a year. I'm trying. I'd say I'll try to see friends, but lets be honest, lol, I've neglected them all so much that they don't even try anymore. I'm thankful for the ones who nolonger live near. Makes my guilt of neglect feel less. I do love them though, just never see them.)
As 2022 comes to a close
sept 22, 2022
Hello :) It's wild to think 2022 is coming to an end. My daughter is in her 3rd yr of college.. feels like she should still be in high school. I am severely behind on my goal to clean out my garage.. by about mmm.... 3 or 4 years now. And since my daughter moved out for college last year, her room has basically become a holding cell for all the laundry I haven't taken time to put away.
I don't know how people have enough time to maintain their lives, let alone set ambitious goals to improve it. Lol.. for me it seems to be one or the other... so maintenence falls on the back burner and all my effort is focused on what needs done next to accomplish business goals.
As a one woman band, I'm definitely always looking for ways to be more efficient, make better decisions and make choices that support future ambitions. I suppose future me will have to be the judge of whether I was successful with that or not.
Things on my to do list.
Keep Amazon FBA inventory full for the holiday. (However with each check-in they seemingly have lost large chunks of my inventory.. that's a nightmare on a regular basis.) I'm nowhere near this goal currently. The holiday will slaughter me.
Improve the www.conquestofhappiness.com website. This site is not shoppable as is, but I spent several hundred dollars and probably several hundred hours years ago on a website that was... and, well.. no one visited it and no one shopped it.. so it was pretty pointless at that time and is pretty pointless currently. I don't think anyone visits now either. Lol.
Create kits for boutiques and storefront vendors. I don't sell my product third party, or wholesale my inventory currently. Every item I sell comes directly from me and no vendors have access to resell. At some point I'd like to create fully developed kits with bottles, labels and accessories to package and ship to boutiques. I tried last year.. but it was too much of an undertaking for me to figure out quickly. It's still a goal though.
Expand beyond labels in product inventory. The whole point of "Conquest of Happiness" is to create. It's what I love to do. So eventually I'd like to have the current inventory streamlined enough that I actually have the ability to create new products. All the notepads from last year are still in my office unpackaged. I wasn't able to find a cost effective way to offer them, so I put them on pause for now. It would have been a waste of my time to provide a product that wasn't able to be competitive with similar items in it's market. It's hard to be a handmade seller and compete with manufacturer pricing. It's kind of impossible actually. I added up how much I get "paid" hourly.. and it's coming out to about $0.07 per hour. So.. hopefully this long game pans out.. cause short term... whew... at 7 cents an hour, it's not really an efficient operation if the definition of an efficient operation involves profit.
I shipped another box of product to Amazon this past Monday and I'm trying to figure out how to list my products on the google merchant platform. So much learning.. lol. My brain is tired. I am low on pretty much every label I have, so I will also be a cutting fool for the next 2 months. Such an insane amount of time spent cutting. But.. tiz what I do.. and I do it well. And I kinda love doing it. So.. here we go. Hold on to your britches.. 2023 will be here way too soon.
hope you have a great holiday weekend!
may 27, 2022
Updating Etsy, getting the rest of the new products listed, packaging new and old products for FBA... these are my goals for the weekend. (And mowing my yard... goodness gracious it needs it.)
Hope everyone has an amazing holiday weekend. Stay safe. Enjoy and appreciate your time.. whether it's spent with friends and family or spent doing things that maybe aren't fun or enjoyable.. lol. Find a silver lining and make the most of it.
Prepping more FBA PRODUCTS THIS WEEKEND :)
FINALLY GETTING SOME OF THE NEW LABELS LISTED, WHAT DO YOU THINK?!?!
new products - updating amazon and etsy
april 2022
I haven't been gone a full year, I promise. I've been prioritizing new designs and getting those print/cut/photographed/listed online.
There's at least 20 new products listed to date. (100+ to go still.. woah.)
I haven't updated Etsy in forever, but Amazon has been getting the majority of the updates. I will transfer the updates to Etsy when I have better organization on Amazon.
I'm finally updating the Conquest of Happiness storefront on Amazon, so check it out for the latest info.
I did hand out some goodie bags recently to the lovely ladies I see at my day job. I designed some volunteer gift packs in 2015... I have continued to use the "You are Wonderful" artwork for projects here and there. In return I was also gifted some cake and macaroons!!! Holy moly, they were sooo good. (Thank you Maria! <3 Shout out to Rosie too.. she's always letting me pick out a snack. <3)
Update on those notepads from last year. I still haven't put them on Amazon, because I'm not sure if I want them with fridge magnets or not. Amazon reviews for poor sticking fridge magnets are kinda brutal, so I was testing out different options.. and then life got busy again.
Also no one commented on the mini notepads I included with past orders as a fun little freebie, so.. maybe they're not as cool as I think they are? I use them all the time though. The "Ass LOL" one is shown on one of my TikTok videos.. lol. To be fair, this is one my daughter designed... I use her notepads daily!
have you made anything new?
May 2021
Yep. I'm currently in the process of making some notepads.
My recent orders have been filled with mini notepads that I made to test out a new project for larger pads.
They have little sticker kits with them to hang up your notes or post them in fun places. I really like them. They're fun, cute and make me happy... but I'm biased.
While working on my project, I also had my daughter create a few designs of her own, so we're currently printing, cutting and assembling all of the designs.
(Fun fact, we both do graphic design. She's currently in her first year of college and I'm always blown away at her abilities. It's not often she decides to get in on a new project, so this one is a special treat! I'm excited to get them done.)
I hope to have them ready at the end of this month :)