TheWarStoreNews

So anyway.... :-)

2007-01-17T17:59:00.000-05:00

Well here I am, nearly a year later.
Im all married now, frankly the last year has been a bit of a blur.

March to June was jam packed with wedding prep, then the wedding, then the honeymoon :-), then the visitis to relatives, then the catching up with work just in time for the Christmas crush. A lot of stress in the fall paying for the wedding too, Im glad that is nearly done. Financially, we are doing good now.

But like I said, a blur.

I have been thinking about this blog a bit, and I am going to change the format a bit. Less planned and a bit more spontaneous and a lot more free association. Maybe exactly what it is like running this store might be of interest to someone. Or maybe one of my descendents generations in the future will actually access this in some electronic archive to see what great grandpa Neal was all about. Eh, myabe not :-)

Today went well, we have Rick in the store working with the rest of the staff until March when his business comes back into season. Primarily Rick and Don are to get the orders done faster and then work on inventory issues.

Inventory, oh my - than bane of my existence. The staff has been doing great at bringing mispicks down to the bare minimum -'I work with humans, it happens' level. Very proud of them. But the inventory is not right and it needs to be under control.

First, everything gets physically checked in now, no more - 'we are in a rush so just check it in by the bill of lading'. That is already helping. We are also going thru and counting sections and getting them right. They have until march, and we should be singing along by then.

Far too much to write about today, so I will share more over the course of events. Big news today was foundry. I have to say, I love this historical stuff. Foundry was reinventoried, restock arrived, backorders filled - it was a good day. Unfortunately I forgot to put in my Alliance PO, so now about 10 orders will be stuck another day. Sigh.

I think I am getting going after just plain taking too many days after Christmas to recover from it all. December was just nuts, I mean really crazy nuts numbers. I am glad to say we only had three screwed up packages due to Christmases rush this year, and 2 were because of the Denver blizzard. Not too bad for how much shipped. Using UPS as the backbone in DEC was a big advantage. Except for the 2 in Denver ("I TOLD YOU TO USE USPS!" - as if Priority Mail were really 2-3 days in DEC) it really helped.

Im off to play Freelancer, which is Privateer revamped. Someone should turn this into a mmorpg.

Neal

Spring Is Here???

2006-03-22T12:48:00.000-05:00

Well, it's supposed to be spring -- the calendar says it is, but the snow on the ground tells me otherwise. This is Neal's Sweetie again. I like to keep you guys updated on what's happening at The WarStore.

I am sorting through a HUGE stack of paper from the GW Quartermasters. SIGH!!! Just when I get a handle on things, something else rears it's ugly head -- kind of like those rat swarms that never go away. So we can continue to keep those of you in GW land very happy, we are taking a hard look at our supply sources. After a long hard process, we have come to the sad realization that it will be best for our loving, loyal customers to acquire our GW stock from sources other than GW directly. Please be assured that this decision will NOT affect the price you pay now. What it will allow us to do is to fill your order on a more timely basis, so you can start kicking your opponent off the table with that great looking army that you have been toiling over.

For our WarMachine fans, we are gearing up for the release of Hordes!!!! The March releases are on their way and will be out on the street date. Then we are on to the much anticpated release of Hordes. There has been a lot of interest in this "Feral Twin to WarMachine", so I would encourage you to get your pre-orders in right away. That way we know that you will have what you want when it releases. If you want to start playing now, you can download the PDF Quick Start rules from The WarStore web site. Remember, Neal is inserting a $50 gift certificate to The War Store randomly into one soft cover rule book and one hard cover rule book. That means more stuff to play with.

For our Reaper fans, we are constantly evaluating our stock and lines. If you want to see us add a line, just drop Neal a note. We will do the best we can.

We are looking into expanding into some other areas -- more board games, different lines and some other great surprises. I am even looking into the possibility of having painted miniatures available for those of you that just don't have the time or inclincation to create your own army. Keep those suggestions coming. We take them very seriously and give each one thorough consideration.

The on-line campaign will begin later this summer and Neal tells me the first game will be Flames of War. Dust off the rule books and get ready. We will have more details available as they become firmed up.

One thing that I am working on is an e-mail newsletter for our customers. It will be a way to give you "secret" coupons and deals, keep you up on the latest news at The WarStore, tell you when you might be able to see Neal at the conventions and all kinds of interesting tidbits. If you want to be included, please make sure that we have your current e-mail address. I plan to start doing this after the wedding.

Finally, Neal's and my wedding is June 10. We will then take a vacation to an exotic beach somewhere. Don't worry, Michelle, Don and the rest of the crew will be here to handle your orders just like always. We will be sharing this grand event with our customers -- just watch the blog and the board for further details. Since the wedding is so close, these will be out very very soon.

Happy Gaming!!!

Neal is SWAMPED

2006-03-08T14:57:00.000-05:00

This is Neal's Sweetie. He has been so busy with a number of things, so I thought I would write to all of you and let you know what has been happening.

First, I have been keeping him distracted with wedding details. At least that will end June 10, when we get married in Louisville, KY. Don't worry -- The War Store is staying right where it is. You may just get me on the phone when you call, instead of Neal or Michelle. Please be gentle with me -- I'm still learning the gaming world, so I may ask lots of silly questions, so I can give you the right answer.

We have been working like crazy to get a handle on Games Workshop. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, GW used to have Neal on different terms. THEN -- the GW land morphed into the GW monster and all things GW changed. As a result, some invoices got all messed up, which has messed up our shipments from GW. I am now wading through a huge stack of invoices supplied by the quartermasters at GW so I can go through them and try to figure out what is happening in the deep black hole of GW land. The reason that I am doing this is because Neal was ready to close The War Store and go be a beach bum on some island with lots of beautiful ladies. Neal told me that I would get no where with the GW Quartermasters, but the grace of the gaming gods smiled upon me and The War Store and I now have all of the invoices to wade through and make the GW Quartermasters all happy again. It will cost some dough I am sure. However, Neal is all happy again and thinking about expanding.

I have noticed that our paints are running low. I paint Neal's stuff for him. I am currently working on a 1500 point FOW US Army for him. We are getting ready to place a HUGE Vallejo order, so if you need it, let us know as soon as possible.

After the wedding, we are looking at making some changes to The War Store. I think that you will like them. We are talking about adding some gaming nites here at the store. We will have booths at several cons -- Historicon and Fall-In. We are also looking at attending GenCon. The cons will be a new adventure for me. We are also looking at offering some painted figures. I am looking at different services and options to see what is available and will give our customers the best service for the money. We shall see what happens.

And the best for last -- we are going to be doing an online campaign!!!! and Neal says that I will be the general in charge. Is that scarey or what? Seriously, we are looking at doing this in the fall, so get your armies ready and bone up on the rules.

Neal will be back in the saddle soon. Keep letting us know how we can serve you better and what you would like to see.

Feeling upbeat :-)

2006-01-26T11:02:00.000-05:00

After half a month of grinding gears and fixing problems things are starting to hum along here at the store with the new cart. I have things working more or less like I want them to, and am norrowing down parameters that I want to tighten up, fix and change. It is refreshing to be out from under the gun.

One thing that makes me glad is that the GW order from monday just arrived, which is a victory of sorts. I do have some unhappy customers at the moment because their GW orders are late. I am a victim of circumstance! Well, not quite as it is all part of the struggle to get going with the new system.

All thru DEC Alliance was carrying us pretty well on extra GW stuff. Allinace is faster than GW (the east warehouse is one day ship) and the speed made for fast Christmas shipments. Worth is despite the higher cost. In Jan as I worked on my new system and was setting up GW, we figured that we would still be ok ordering from Alliance so I put setting the Gw PO system on the back burner. That proved to be a horrible mistake as we were hit with the double whammy of sudden, large GW orders and Alliance basically running out of nearly everything. I was able to finally get a GW PO in monday, and it arrived today. Ton of stuff in, nearly a ton going back out. Should bill some nice coin. No more 'Where's my order?" emails. Phew. Happy Neal

LOTR inventory work is done -- thank you Bob and Thomas, our honorary TheWarStore employees. Stellar work. LOTR continues to sell well, I think I am seeing the results of stores selling out of the line as I am getting some big orders. Accurate inventory, Alliance forewarned we are ordering heavy, should be good to go.

Kneadatite and Vallejo brush restock in, that helps me breathe easier too. We sell both all day long and I had quite a few orders holding for restock. Now we are good to go.

So all in all inventory problems caused by the switchover to the new backoffice software are easing now, and it makes me feel very glad. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Some new updates - Mongoose is all updated, changed pricing on Mega City One and updated Starship toopers. Battlefront is updated with FEB releases which should ship in a few days. Awaiting more info on the new Rackham releases, some price updating done there. Major updating in the Warmachine section, FEB preorders up now and we are building the Hordes section. Hordes preorders should be up next week. I am looking to get Shadowforge done properly late this week or early next, so that will be long running problem fixed.

Cool new stuff added -- pretty much all of the RPG company Green Ronin's product line is up for order, as well as a bunch of the mongoose RPG stuff. Great companies both. Perry Bros order is in to Perry now as well as some Zap a Gap restocks to FTE.

Progress, I do love it so.
Going to see my sweetie this weekend. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Neal

Things are moving...

2006-01-22T06:54:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhhhhh continual progress.

Well the past week has indeed been stimulating. We are finally getting the hang of the new software and the wrinkles are ironing out. If you called during the past week you will have found numerous instances of us sounding a bit haggard, as learning new software can be daunting and stressful. I hate not knowing what I am doing, forming new habits as I go thru the ordering process. Everyone on the phone has been sooooooooooooo patient with us - thanks very much to all!

GW has been a problem lately, not entirely their fault tho. Partially it is their rather onerous ordering system which frankly is a bit too GW friendly and not very retailer friendly. Basically you have to order a minimum of two of everything you buy from GW. That creates a huge inventory problem for smaller stores I am sure. But my problem is in a PO system you have to set each product not sold by the piece entirely by hand. So I have to go thru and mark every GW box to be ordered with a minimum of two. That takes about 4 clicks per product. But wait there is more! Every GW blister is ordered in cartons of 2 (or 6 in case of paints). To set that up takes 9 clicks/actions per product!

Scroll to product
Click edit
Click 'sold in lots' radio button to open lots screen
Type 1 under 'minimum lots'
Click 'lots'
Type 2 under 'pieces per lot'
Calculate and type price for lot
Hit drop down menu and choose 'carton' for lot name.
Click save
Scroll to next product

So you can see why we werent ready to put in a GW PO last Monday. After a Herculean effort, combined with wimping out and making my sister finish most of the fantasy stuff (secretarial school wired her brain to her fingers, - she types without thinking) has made it so we are ready to send in a PO tomorrow.

Alliance mostly covered us in early Jan for GW stuff but they have been running low and we are stuck now. But next week should alleviate some of that stress. GW has been shipping a lot more consistently and on time lately and they dont seem to have much of a backorder problem.

I have most of the PO problems fixed after talking to tech support late last week, so we should get even more flexibility in the coming weeks. As the backoffice becomes more streamlined it will mean better product availability and more accurate inventory control. That means faster shipping for you :-) and better pricing for me :-).

I myself am keeping my nose to the grindstone with sweeping website updates. We are adding new products, adding pictures, adding text, making changes pretty much all over the place. The site is UP and functioning, that is mission one accomplished. Now it has to be up, functioning, and looking right - that is mission two. I have site projects going on with the programmer, the developer, and massive updates by yours truly as well. I like this sort of work better and things are progressing along by increments. The updating will probably take months to work out, all things in time. The goal? To be functioning like a well oiled machine so I can take my honeymoon in peace :-) June 12-25, Tahiti. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh baby.

Coming this week or early next -- a new project I call 'Neal Saver Shipping'. Shipping costs ate my lunch last year -- this year the goal is to cut them by 1/4. UPS should be live on the site early in the week, that is step one in the cunning plan.

Progress!
Neal

Im Back!

2006-01-11T10:02:00.000-05:00

Wow a whole month since I last wrote. I do apologize faithful readers, I have indeed been remiss. Busy too.

Okay first of all - Christmas. Fantastic -thank you very much! Great sales, relatively few problems, pretty much everything that was supposed to arrive before Christmas actually did. Christmas did expose a shipping problem tho, one I will have to address.

Priority Mail scanning is a problem at the Post Office. They dont seem to be scanning in the packages anymore. Which means now that I have my spiffy new shopping cart with its spiffy order tracking system all people are getting when they look up the delivery confirmation number is a not so spiffy message. Something along the lines of

"Although we were told by the shipper to expect a package we disavow any and all knowledge of said package, and since the shipper is probably a disreptuable internet selling scumbag we doubt you will ever see the package anyway. To be honest, we figure this package is still sitting on his loading dock, or fell off his truck on the way here or only exists in the shippers febrile imagination. The shipper is about to ruin your Christmas, and since we take absolutely no responsibility for any packages left in our care please stop asking us about it."

Or something to that effect. Which of course set up the wonderful scenario of irate and/or panic stricken moms/wives calling us up to inform us "the USPS says you never even shipped my package - YOURE GOING TO RUIN CHRISTMAS!!!". To which my response would be - "How the Hell would they know"? And of course the package that USPS says was never mailed would then show up on their doorstep the next day, to the satisfaction of all. But in between, not fun.

UPS is coming here in the next few days and we are setting up some shipping options with them. First of all, customers like choices, and I like giving them choices. Some people will enjoy the trackability of UPS Ground and I will emphasize it as a choice around holidays. If you need to know whee your package is, UPS can tell you. If you dont mind the package slipping into the ether until it suddenly arrives at your house then we still do offer Priority Mail :-)

Yep shipping. Free Shipping has sadly gone the way of the dodo here at TheWarStore. I am being flip, those who know me know how I have really agonized over this decision. The problem is last year we gave the USPS enough money to feed a small army of Sally Struther's kids. The amount was obscene and it needs to be fixed. I have a number of ways we are attacking this problem, from stronger inventory control (to reduce split shipments), to changes in receiving and shipping itself. But in the end we had to bring in more shipping revenue.

We wanted to stick with USPS Priority as our default shipping method as I dig the free boxes and as long as you arent too concerned about tracking (or have a holiday looming) it works pretty well. Some people have PO Boxes, others dont like UPS for various reasons. I understand. And while we would never admit it to the Post Office, but we actually like Priority Mail. When it works as it should it really works very well. It's speed, even to the left coast always seemed to be a key to our success. Going to UPS Ground as default to save money didnt seem like the best option. The UPS fuel surcharges and the Jan USPS price hikes were the straws that broke the camel's back.

I really did agonize over it. Lots of pain. Tons of late night meetings. Asking opinions of people I wounldnt trust with my pet rattlesnake, let alone with the future of my business. Acid in my stomach. You have no idea. Sigh.

Anyway $3.95 flat rate shipping to the US is now in effect. If it makes you feel any better, it does help me sleep at night.

Thanks for being there :-)
Neal

Wow I am wiped out

2005-12-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

Working late tonite, coping with the huge influx of orders we have been receiving.

For the most part in year's past Christmas was always just a bump, sort of an easy to handle increase in sales. It was always nice, but never crazy. So far this year, we are going crazy. It is midnight, and I just got off the scanning gun. The last packer went home at 10pm and I finished out the packages, including the 'problem orders'. All are packed, and we have at least triple to quadruple a normal Saturday's picking tickets already printed up here at midnight Friday. That is without what will print up tomorrow morning.

Im glad to say we arent behind at all, this evening's efforts have kept us abreast. Even GW is in the holiday spirit -- my GW packages have started arriving in a very timely manner again. THAT helps. I hope it will keep up thru Christmas.

I already called in the kids for a Sat morning order picking session. It is fun to hear them moaning and groaning about it, just like I did when my father used to grab me for work. Great memories of forced child labor passed down thru the generations. I certainly can be proud of my legacy. I told them if they didnt work then all the internet people wouldnt get their orders, and then the internet people would hate me. And if the internet people hate me you children dont get to eat or sleep in your beds. Deep psychological trauma is another family legacy :-) I dont plan to retire, I plan to have my children kill and eat me before I am 46.

What is selling? Good sales across the board really, all categories are experiencing similar percentage increases. However tis the season for the GW moms to come a calling. I do love the GW moms. They are so relieved to find an adult who is fluent in both GWspeak and English they cant help but spend money. I think my biggest contribution this time of year is my skilz as a translator. So GW is bringing home the bacon in a remarkable way this month. They better enjoy it, I think WarMachine Hordes is going to eat Warhammer Fantasy for lunch come spring. Yes, it is that good.

Personally I am excited by Babylon 5, if deep space ship to ship combat is your thing at all you should take a look at it. I like it - fun, it moves fast and lots of stuff blows up spectacularly. And what else can you ask for really? I did come up with a new idea for Mongoose -- Epic scale land combat in the Bab 5 universe. Are you listening Andy Chambers??? THAT would be cool, and no one is doing it. Well except GW, but dealing with Specialist Games and GW Mail Order is no picnic.

Well next week is the big week, somebody get me some coffee.
Ciao
Neal

Entering Christmas Season :-) Save an extra 5% !

2005-12-04T22:36:00.000-05:00

Hey
We are now entering the Christmas season, on track for an incredible, record breaking year :-)
Thanks to all of my wonderful customers who continue to make it possible for me to make a living selling toys!

Well the new shopping cart is rolling now, were ate basically in stage 2 beta testing. At the end of November we invited people from our Bulletin Board to place their Christmas orders on the new cart, and the invitation is also extended here to the readers of my blog.

Why the new cart? Well first of all it works a LOT better. I am very excited about that. The Html is humming now and the pages are loading very quickly. No more quirks in shipping address emails. A lot better paypal inteface. One of the biggest changes is in tracking. The system automatically sends emails upon order receipt and shipping just like before, but we now alos have an order status system that is hooked up live to the home page. Every time we do anything with your order here, from approval to picking to packing to shipping it gets updated live in the order status screen. Just sign in with your order number and zip code and you can check your order out at any stage of the process!

Plus we are fully integrated with our shipping software so orders are now being emailed live tracking numbers. True with USPS it is only a Delivery Confirmation number which doesnt tell you very much while the package is in transit, but if it is late it will inform you of delivery attempts or problem addresses.

The new cart also has a bunch of added, 'Special Order' products. Products we dont normally stock but can get on request. If your local store isnt very local, or isnt very good at special orders, perhaps we can do it for you!

But finally the main reason you should use the new cart is that it will get you an extra 5% off in December! The cart itself wont do it, but we will credit your card or paypal account an extra 5% discount from your order total after the order is downloaded here. At first we were telling people they might experience a slight delay as we get the hang of running new orders thru, but we are doing ok now -- feel free to use the new cart and save!

A couple of issues. First is inventory. The new cart is not yet inventory live, and it wont be until January. If something is not instock on the old cart, it isnt in stock on the new one either :-)

Finally on Shipping. Shipping is a problem that we are addressing, we are jus tpaying out too much money in shipping costs. If you read the new cart the short answer is free shipping will be going away. The long answer is filled with various choices and options, all of which we are looking at. The new cart has the ability to incorporate Fed Ex and UPS options, we are checking them out also. Free Shipping will extend thru the month of DEC, so dont panic yet.

As always, love to hear any feedback you might have.
Neal

Well, we're getting there...

2005-11-15T02:35:00.000-05:00

Well, we're getting there.

The shopping cart is coming along, products are pretty well loaded in and things are shaping up. Most of it depends now on the designer, who is behind due to being flooded out by the recent hurricane in Florida. Sigh. I am hoping to see more improvements over the next few days - it was a bit of a struggle to get the navigation bar working right but at least we are over that hurdle.

The fun lies in the fact that I am right now updating TWO shopping carts (old and new) and therefore have double work plus all of the uploading work I am doing. It is tough and can be confusing. I am really looking forward to getting this all behind me and moving forward.

Took a break over the weekend - went to Fall In and basically fell in. I was pretty exhausted and didnt game at all - mostly spent time with my sweetie, ate room service, and slept late. We toured the battlefield quite a bit - I love Gettysburg and the place my great great grandfather fought is well marked with regimental and divisional makers. It always gets me choked up to stand where he stood - not a good position either. Life and death then, today it is next to the McDonalds... Ahhhhhh progress. At least we arent shooting at Georgia boys anymore. Im glad that's over.

Came back from Fall In engaged to be married :-) June 10, 2006 in Louisville. Hee hee :-)

The staff had so much trouble with the current cart while I was gone. Frankly I give up - there is no sense training them to overcome all of its failings. And everytime I walk out the door something gives them a problem. I guess I didnt realize how much I was carrying this cart over the finish line - so many tricks and fixes and work arounds that are second nature to me but are completely foreign to the staff. We billed about 1/3 normal while I was away (and made it all up today- yikes!). That has to be fixed, hopefully the new system will address most if not all of the problems.

Warmachine availability continues to give us some trouble, tho things have eased a bit. Hopefully we are in recovery now, and we wont see recurring difficulty as Privateer gets their production geared up. A few holes at the moment, hopefully filled by week's end. Im glad.

If we can get the shopping cart fully operational we are intending to re-launch our Black Friday once a year sale Thanksgiving weekend. I am hopeful, but not holding my breath. Double sigh...

Neal

Shopping cart is coming along....

2005-10-25T12:11:00.000-04:00

Ok feedback is now very welcome :-)

http://69.94.78.107/index.html

Please go thru the cart and let me know what you think on all but navigation, colors and layout. Navigation colors and layout will be improved over the next few weeks. My designer is down right now due the the florida hurricane, but should be back up soon.

I am looking for feedback on products first of all. Anything in the wrong place? Any products that have the wrong picture? Any products have a broken pic link (box with red x)? I know some products have missing pics and the Foundry ones are a bit of a mess. Working on that.

Anyone know Reaper products well enough to use excel to create the 'sort reaper by product type' pages? A volunteer to populate those pages plus the Warlord by Faction pages would be welcome and rewarded with product. I can send you an excel file with names and sku numbers, you just add the column putting them in the right pages. Email me.

No test orders yet, but we will get there soon.

Inventory on Privateer Press products contiue to be a problem, despite our rather aggressive buying. Each order goes out containing all we have instock and we will reship as soon as more product comes in. When? Frankly I dont know. I know Privateer is working like crazy to produce the stuff, I know I have orders and contacts at 7 different US warehouses ready to jump on stuff as soon as it arrives. So the answer is 'as soon as possible'. Which is simultaneously a good answer and a bad answer - I know.

The cart is pretty up to date as to what is in stock, so order freely. It is just the things that are missing drive me crazy. Sigh.

I am very excited about how the new cart is working and the things I can do with it. A lot of things you wont see but will speed up my back office time considerably and make a better finished product. This way I will actually be able to go home at a decent hour, and my sweetie will remain happy with me.

One of the things we are able to do now is load products in via excel/access. Definite learning curve for me as I got to know the programs, and access is still foreign to me. I am rocking excel tho and I am able to go to a catalog like Alliance Distributors, download broad sections of it, plug in discount pricing and assign it to pages. Not much work, work that I actually like to do and it is up on the site. No pics tho, pics take a bit of time. but they are up. Problem however -- these sections contain products I will not usually stock. I dont mind that, but I want it to be clear to the customer there will be a wait involved, and some things might not ship.

How do I do that? I thought of putting it all into a 'Vik's Basement' category, with a clear message that these are basement products, not in stock, could take a few days etc... Problem here is there might be stigma associated with being in a separate section, or people will miss it if they cant see it in that section.
I could put it in the regular sections, but then people might miss the stock/wait warnings. What to do? Feedback helpful. Look at IWM, Warzone and Chronopia to see examples of what the sections will look like - lists with no pics. These are all great games, we just cant afford to stock it all right away.

Anyway, let me know what you think on this stuff, here or by email.
thanks!
Neal

Toiling....

2005-10-13T14:50:00.000-04:00

Okay now that I am in the middle of it, maybe this new shopping cart thing wasnt such a good idea. Well no, I know it is a good idea it is just a colossal pain in the neck to get set up right. Sigh.

First off, I have close to 10,000 products. I cleaned them up in excel and access and have them uploaded into the back office. Back office created a csv file and we uploaded that into the shopping cart. Not quite that easy really - what I said in just a few sentences was a colossal job all by itself, getting things cleaned up, set up right, and working. Im proud of the results, but the hours were definitely there.

I tried to automate the pages part, but I just couldnt get it done. I love excel, but access is new to me and still tricky. And since everything I do I do it wrong the first time (see marriage 1.0 c1988-1998) I am still having trouble. It is wrapping my mind around it all - I know excel but it when you are working with mostly text it does things like drop off empty columns, leaves in equations, and surrounds text with yucky quotation marks. So the "Access for Dummies" book is on the way to me now.

So at the moment I have the product pages typed in and am simultaneously uploading images (probably 30,000 of them) by ftp and hand assigning products to pages. I like how it is coming out.

First off, the pages are cleaner, much cleaner. Since they are html they load a lot faster (and will be indexed better by search engines). I can do more with html, tho I am by no means a programmer. I like the features of the cart, and it seems to do what I want (once I figure out how it wants to do it). I will give you a page link in a minute but first a disclaimer.

The page is absolutely NOT DONE AT ALL in terms of color, layout, or navigation. I have a designer working on that right now. When finished the look will be similar to my current cart with its ridiculous (but customer loved) navigation and the important 'one click' order buttons. I am building the pages but not yet done filling them all in. Most of the pics are still missing. However go ahead and take a look and let me know how it loads and see what I mean about how crisp it looks.

http://69.94.78.107/index.html
Ummm - DONT order anything there yet!

I will be looking for more feedback next week on the pages, products and pics. Give me some time on that now. :-)

Neal

I got the shopping cart blues....

2005-10-07T00:05:00.000-04:00

Okay so we get a 'credit master' on the site.

A credit master is a guy who uses the shopping cart to place order after order, trolling thru his list of stolen credit cards to see which work and for how much. Not more than a nuisance really but crooks in general bug me so I figure I will lay the smackdown of the long hand of the law upon them.

I call the ISP people, the credit card people, the software people. Of course everyone figures it is the other guys job to fix the problem and no one wants to help. I have been thru this before so I stamp my feet and yell loudly enough to get thru to the level 2 and 3 techies who:

Understand English
Have heard of the problem
Can fix problems not found in their scripts.

But now a new wrinkle emerges - everyone can help, but only if I subscribe to their anti-hacker super dooper new security feature for only $179.99/month. The good news is this month is free installation. Color me less than thrilled.

Why? Because besides ssl 128bit data encription all of the other security features on websites are all entirely unmitigated CRAP. Ladies and gentlemen, it is all smoke and mirrors, little seals to put on your website that only cost retailers money to get but the PERCEPTION from the general public is that the little seal makes things safer. "Look how shiny the seal is honey, they must be honest..." "Oh look, it is the 'Brand X' Seal of Approval - this must be safe..."

Sigh

Frankly, I myself am my own seal of approval. I approve. My mom, a retired Baptist Sunday School teacher also approves. She doesnt approve of the nearly nekkid figures you all buy, but is it close enough.

No I dont want to spend $180/month on your crap. No, your intriguingly written marketing script is not going to change my mind. No your level two marketing script - 'make the customer afraid' is not going to work either. I want two things - I want to know the IP from the logs, and I want the crooks IP blocked. Period. No I will not pay for it, I have plenty of other software (bulletin boards, chat, blogs) that do not try to enclose garbage in a shiny wrapper to trick the foolish. Amazingly enough the FREE software allows me the wonderful ability to look in the logs and block IP's all by my lonesome. Yes I know your logs are the 21st century Holy of Holies. No, I wont get lost in there. Yes I will pay for it if I make the server magically explode.

In the end I did get my way, but I had to use too many threats and be castigated too many times to get there. But all in all they made a mistake, because I am not going to take the crap anymore. Before the end of the month, they are all fired. They are all fired and will get a letter telling them why I fired them. They will lose a good customer too - the lot of them have been overcharging me for years but since I thought they would be there to help me I let the high prices go by. I have no problem paying for good service, but I will not pay gold rates to get copper service.

So how does this affect you, my long sufferring reader and wonderful TheWarStore customer? A brand spanking new 2005 shopping cart with 'state of the art' back end features and convenience is coming soon to TheWarStore. I already bought it. Signed up with a new host and servers, no more asp pages - all html (read 'clean, simple, fast'). It will be implemented in the next month (the pre-Christmas sales lull), and we should be able reaping the benefits before Christmas.

So I will be busy this month. Have mercy :-)
Neal

Holy Smokes!

2005-10-01T03:06:00.000-04:00

Well a BIG set of shipments arrived late this week to really put September over the top.

First of all the Chemical Plants finally arrived, along with Syberclicks. This is more great stuff from Imex and Technolog -- Im sure you guys will enjoy it. Shipping that stuff out made Thursday rather busy :-)

Privateer stuff has been trickling in all week, and today the huge restock finally arrived. I haven't checked, but I think I am the only retailer in the country with stock of the Wave 24 Mercenaries - including the Ogrun Bokur! Most distributors put in restock orders with Privateer just before that wave came out, and thinking they had ordered enough Mercs in their new release orders they just let that sit instead of adding more to restock. Well the mercs were an unevpected smash hit, and stocks have been bone dry for a while. We ordered our restock just after Gen Con, and we added a serious number of mercs to our order. Still not enought tho - these will go quick so if you need mercs now is the time.

I have a bit more Privateer on the way that should arrive by Tuesday, and I think by then all the inventory holes will be closed. Well, unless orders open up a new one in the meantime. I wouldnt object too strongly to that :-) Trying to fill all the holes this week wasnt easy. All in all a tough week, but very good sales wise.

I am also working behind the scenes (when I am not streetfighting for inventory) on a pet project of mine, one that might not be as sucessful financially for the store but some things that I enjoy. Eh, there is more to life than money. I like how it is coming out, and we should be able to unveil it in October.

Good news for November, the return of an old TheWarStore tradition - more on this later :-)

Roll high!
Neal

Staff....

2005-09-28T15:15:00.000-04:00

Like an infection, the amount of staff keeps increasing here at TheWarStore. Somebody around here had better start earning me some money instead of just increasing the overhead.

The increase in staff is necessary I suppose and it is good for me to be taken altogether out of the routine workings of the store. For a long time now I have wandered back into the shipping area and sat down and scanned orders, or gone and picked up picking tickets when things were busy. I mostly do it for Nostalgia's sake - it has taken me a while to understand that I am not really useful doing that, nor am I doing my 'job'. When I do it I am mostly greeted by the American staff with "What the hell you doing back here?" while the Latino staff tries to maintian operational efficiency while moving around me. Sigh.

I sometimes get upset when a particularlystupid mistake has been made by the staff and go back there like I can correct it if I wasworking back there. But then I go and make other mistakes, and it isnt as if when I ran the back my mistake percentage was any better (it wasn't). It hurts less to fix mistakes you make yourself, but the money lost is the same either way.

I just have to say, I wouldnt have sent 15 packs of the wrong dice to England. But then, I did send 35 dice instead of 350 to Nevada. Sigh...

So I am letting go of the routine and doing my 'job'. So what is my job?

First off, ordering. I have really tightened up ordering here, with all these small manufacturers you need to have a disciplined approach or things get very easily lost in the shuffle. Now certain things get ordered certain days etc... boring but it works. Keeping this place supplied is job one for me - and it is like feeding an elephant. I keep shoveling stuff into the gaping maw, pay the invoices, pay the staff and try to hold on to what's left :-) On ordering I have thrown some caution to the wind, which is not really normal for me but it is probably necessary. I am sick of Privateer shortages so I have (nearly literally) a ton of it on the way to me now, like a mighty avalanche of product that should crash into thewarstore over the next few days. That will be good.

Battlefront moving an office to the USA is helping on ordering and already saving me a ton of money on dual shipments. The wide variety of Battlefront product combined with the long waits on restock from New Zealand made it so that 70% or more of Battlefront orders had to ship in two shipments. Since I pay for shipping, that was making me sad. Now with weekly orders, 3-5 day turnaround and better stock management we are able to decrease wait times, increase fill rates, and drastically reduce the need for dual shipments. It still happens, because someone will always come along and wipe out a months supply of flammpanzers and nebelwerfers, but we are getting that to rock bottom levels. I do love improving customer service AND my bottom line at the same time.

What else do I do around here?
More later :-)

Neal

Privateer Press Supply

2005-09-23T04:22:00.000-04:00

In a word, dry.

Privateer Press supply is pretty well drying up everywhere and even my once mighty stock is thinning. It is rather worrisome actually.

Privateer is pretty much setting the standard for customer relations and communication in this industry. Their letter published on the miniatures page was very interesting. Basically they expected sales to double this summer, figured planning for that would keep them ahead. However, sales quadrupled instead!

Now they are running to catch up, buying new machines, hiring more staff. They are rebuilding their supply, and besides new releases I dont think any distributor has had a restock since before Gen Con. I myself have an order in since the Con and have seen nothing :-(

Fair warning to other retailers, Im going in today and buying Privateer inventory for the store and clearing out as much as I can. What is happening now reminds me most of the bad old days, when you could barely ever buy too much as it was moving too fast and was in too short supply. to my customers - if you place a Privateer order please understand that some things might be out of stock, we are working very hard to get them back into stock, and some things might actually be out for several more weeks :-( Mercenaries like Ashlynn, Hammershields, Ogryn Bokur etc are a special problem.

Hopefully we will see some of the problem ease next week.

Going to Historicon 06? Get ready for a return of the Catapano Farms Wargames Society, and our masthead game - Beachead.
That's right, Beachead is returning after at least 7 years of retirement. We are re-doing the game, actually painting the figures with brushes instead of a paint can, using terrain that isnt made of wood, and all in all giving it the treatment it really deserves.

In case you never played, Beachead is US Marines vs the Japanese defenders of a fictional island in the South Pacific. The players are all Marines, the Japanese are run by the game umpires. Pretty straightforward so far right?
The Japanese are not set up at the start of the game, but rather they are detailled on cards. Each player gets a 5 card hand filled with Japanese units, nasty suprises, and cunning defenses. The craziness begins as the players play Japanese troops, bunkers, suicide sappers, and Banzai charges on each other. We keep a running total of who is winning, and for some reason the top runner seems to attract a lot of enemy :-)
Other fun things include bidding victory points for air support missions, hiding victory points cards, and rolling for medals when your troops do something good (including dying valiantly).

7 years later and people still ask me about the game -- well, its coming back.

We might eventually get our Vietnam Helicopter game back up (The Ride of the Valkyrie!), and of course, the Stalingrad varient (Where the Streets Have no Name....).

I be a paintin!
Neal

The shipping area...

2005-09-11T23:24:00.000-04:00

The more I look at this picture the more I wonder how we could possibly run so much business from such a ridiculous shipping area? It is cramped, it is ugly, it is a mess. Bleech.

The shipping area is one of the last areas on our master plan to get fixed up right. To the right of the current shipping area is my office, and the official TheWarStore intercom is usually some wall pounding followed by a resounding NY style "Hey Yo!".
Of course in Philly they say"Yo" all the time. But here in NY, no self respecting person says "Yo" without putting the word "Hey" in front of it. Why? Well that is just the way it is my friends. You may as well ask "Why is the sky blue?'. Don't bother asking, the answer will bore you.

Seated at the desk is employee #1, my friend Don. Don has an uncanny knack for games, and is the kind of guy who can hold a sealed Chimera box in his hands and tell you what sprue is missing. Don is often on various forums, usually causing the sort of trouble that makes me glad his nickname doesnt mention our store. He hates power gamers, cheesemongers, and 'wise in their own eyes' malcontents. He likes fine whiskey, fine women, and of course, fine women who buy him fine whiskey. Since he believes photos take away a bit of his soul we usually have to sneak pictures, and then only from his back. He would like to point out that the mess is not his, except the ever present Ice Tea bottle. It is usually attached by a flap of skin to his hip.

So anyway, as soon as we can get wired in the new store area this old shipping area will be history. You now can understand why we are anxious. And since the shipping area is between me and the bathroom, it will be nice to not have to climb over your packages to get to the facilities.

All in due time I guess...
Neal

Ok, Im cranky....

2005-09-07T19:59:00.000-04:00

It is never good to come back from vacation. The end of idle bliss and the shock of returning to the realities of life, well it isnt pretty.

I expected the incredibly full inbox, and the 'order that needed Neal's attention' or two, so with shields up and guns hot I returned on the 6th. However, this time post vacation stress attacked from a new vector, taking our defenses completely by suprise.

The not so old adage goes: "To err is human, to fogive divine, but if you really want to screw things up on a grand scale you need the help of a computer". This is true. However I would like to add something I call 'TheWarStore corollary' to that time worn wisdom. Certainly to screw up royally you do need the help of a computer, but it also helps to have the additional assistance of human beings who think themselves smarter than the computer. Terminator be damned, Im all for signing up Skynet to run the place.

I left on Sept 1, and of course Sept 1 also happened to be the date of our Postage software update. This postage software update was announced to TheWarStore postage employee for two weeks - for two weeks the program dutifully warned him to upgrade the software before the 1st of September, and for two weeks the employee just as dutifully clicked off the warning message without informing anyone. And on the 1st, pretty much 5 minutes after I took off for parts relaxing who was complaining the loudest about non-working software? You guessed it - the postage employee.

So the staff finally figures out how to run the update. And of course what happens to every software update? It never works without calling tech support. So now thinking they have caused irreversible mayhem inside the mysterious box from Compaq, and fearing reprisal from the mysterious gods of microsoft the staff decides the only possible solution is to address everything by hand. Calling Tech support (a 5 minute call when I got back) was never even considered. Besides, - what can tech support do?

So the hand addressing marathon begins. After hours of hand addressing and cramped fingers they finally finish everything. What an accomplishment! How can we top it all off? Well let's entrust all our hard work to the vagaries of the homorne driven mind of a teenager. The staff hands off the packages to my 14 year old nephew John, and strongly admonish him to make sure he brings them to the front counter of the local post office to pay postage on them. He gravely nods 'Yes, no problem', and in the three minute ride to the post office he forgets his admonishments, drops the packages off in the back, and heads for 7-11 and a Big Gulp.

Of course the packages are all returned on Tuesday, undelivered, delayed an extra day by the holiday. The very worst part of working with family is you cant fire them. The consolation is you can flogg them. On Tuesday the staff roasted John over a slow fire.

However my favorite part of the return journey was Tuesday morning before I arrived my sister decided they hadnt made enough money in the past few days, and since she knew more than the computer she would charge all the 'pending' charges. Swell. We did clear a ton of money that day, but since it is against Visa/Master rules to charge without shipping the product I had to set everything to ship ahead, costing me a small fortune in shipping costs.

Of course the idea that maybe they didnt do too much money over the weekend was because they were busy hand addressing instead of packing orders never occured to them.

It is good to be back. Sigh
Neal :-)

I am vacating myself! Yay!

2005-09-02T02:31:00.000-04:00

Well my 'to do' list is done, one last thing to get done before I go on a little vacation :-)

Hope you guys dont miss me too much, I am off to Louisville to visit my sweetie for the long weekend. We are probably going to take in the Arms Museum on Sat, say Hi if you go too!

Don and Michele will be here to answer the phones and take orders, just dont give them anything too hard as they work cheap. They will be manning the phones Friday and Saturday, Sunday we are off and no one will be around Monday either. On Monday I will be in Lexington petting horses that probably live better than I do. I will be back Tuesday afternoon, probably to a mountain of email that I really dont want to think about at the moment.

Some cool things came in this week - Battlefield Accessories restock finally arrived which is very nice. Neat stuff if you are into 15mm WWII - I esp like the bases for Flames of War minis. http://www6.mailordercentral.com/thewarstore/products.asp?dept=1531
Also in for 15mm WWII is Resistant Roosters figures. I know, really stupid name but great figures. These guys are based offshore, you can tell by their enthusiastic 'Engrish' website. Basically someplace where labor is cheap enough to cut molds so often the figures have NO flash at all, AND someone there actually grinds down the base of each figure to be extra thin! That makes it easier to model terrain on the bases -- no thick figure bases to cover up with gobs of gunk. Great looking stuff, will add some variation to your Flames of War armies.
http://www6.mailordercentral.com/thewarstore/products.asp?dept=1160
Wonder Wash restock too -- these inks are great!

Of course we had some casualties this week - Perry is still backordering AW 79 and AW86 which is causing some consternation, Battlefield Accessories didnt send the barbed wire which is holding up some orders, Carnifexes continue to be zeroed out on my Games Workshop invoices, and the Wonder Wash black will arrive a bit late. Sigh. See the 'Deliveries' rant from a few days ago. It is always an adventure :-)

Hmmm, what else? Not much really. Construction continues and next week I will have to decide how to set up some areas of the store. Pretty exciting really. Gutshot rules are coming in next week, which should be fun too :-)

Eh, Im done -- Im off to vacationland and my sweetie
ciao baby
Neal

Wow!

2005-08-27T20:32:00.000-04:00

Well Apotheosis came in, and went right out. It was amazing how fast.

We started Thursday night, getting all the boxes ready and the orders picked. Everything was lying in wait, stored empty boxes all over the store.

Friday morning the moments ticked down until the arrival of the blessed UPS truck, and all those wonderful packages... tick tock tick tock

And then, pandemonium.

It was all hands on deck yesterday, various Catapano's, long lost friends and asstd hangers on struggled to get the orders packed and out. Basically we looked like a Boa that had just swallowed a rat :-) Massive bottleneck.

For the first time ever I had to open a second package check out lane, and since my computer program doesnt do that without an expensive upgrade I had to run the second lane myself in a rather primitive 'workaround' method. It was ok, as long as I got the easy orders :-) I can see that happening again at Christmas. Expensive upgrade coming soon I guess. Sigh.

All in all a wonderful release. Lots of sales, a great last week surge which we covered handily and the book and miniatures are just incredible. The book is so nice and the art so droo;ingly good it is hard to put it down. I tried not to drool on yours, honest!

Well I am exhausted now and am off for some well-earned rest. Thanks for a great release guys, enjoy your stuff!

Neal

Deliveries - even the best laid plans...

2005-08-23T19:11:00.000-04:00

Receiving deliveries is always an adventure

If you have read any of my posts you will know by now my aim to get a good receiving area up in TheWarStore. Honestly, a lot of hours of my day are spent arranging, checking up on, and sorting out deliveries.

Tons of stuff can go wrong. Small manufacturers can go on vacation, or miss/lose your emails. Large ones can screw up accounting (one didnt cash a check for three months!). And of course the wonderful adventures of ordering overseas.

My credit card company just decided to raise the 'transaction fee' on all orders done in foreign currency to 3% instead of 1%. Why? - because they can. The philosphy I learned from a wise old businessman at college - "success in business goes to those who are able to offer more for less" seems to not be shared by those in corporate finance. And here I sit, facing more charges with no increase in service. Because they can.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, one day they will pay. They will rue the day!

Then there are the customs fees. Woo Hoo! If they were ever the same amount twice I would figure someone at the border actually knew what the heck they were doing. But they never are the same, it can be low to reasonable to ridiculous, depending on whether or not they ran out of jelly donuts at the border commissary that day. It is almost as much fun as playing the lotto, but in reverse.

Not to mention my favorite, the old - "They sent it back to the UK, and we dont know why" manuever. Or the Canadian version -- "We sent it back to TheWarStore after holding it for 2 months due to the Homeland Security Act..." I wonder if customs worldwide isnt staffed by drunken monkeys. Retarded drunken monkeys. Is that nice to say? Is it wise to say it in a public forum?

My very favorite was when we received the golf trophy statue in the Flames of War shipment. It seems someone in US Customs was 'Closest to the Pin' at the Local 804 2nd Annual Golf Outing and they didnt want their golf trophy anymore. What do they do? Put it in the Flames of War shipment and send it to TheWarStore. At first we thought it belonged to the Battlefront people, but they laughed at our ransom demand and threats of statutory violence. So now we use him for airsoft target practice.

Right now my Perry Miniatures order is making the rounds back and forth to the UK. Ugh. Hopefully we will see it this week.

Sigh. Its hot. I think Ice Cream may be in order.

Neal

Woo Hoo!

2005-08-21T18:07:00.000-04:00

On the 'everything I try to do right I do wrong' front...

Sigh
So Privateer Press is excited about the No Quarter Magazine 2. They had a ton of naysayers that told them a magazine would be a loser idea but we blew the doors off sales of NQ 1. I think that holds true retailers all over the place.

The magazine comes directly from the printer and arrives here last thursday night. I know they are excited, and want the mag to sell. I figure I would help by posting it on the site asap. I look around the web for pics of the magazine but I cant find any. No problem, I take one myself and post it up. Little do I know that plastered across the front cover is the announcement of the upcoming Hordes game, which Privateer is holding as a deep, dark secret until Saturday. I was too exhausted to notice, and at 11:15pm pressed the 'publish' button.

Word of the magazine hits the Privateer forum in about 10 minutes. "What is Hordes?", everyone wants to know. Fortunately the Privateer guys are able to delete the posts, but it is a long night as the pic is up on my site all evening long. By 2AM I had an email from Duncan, followed soon after with a note of serious non-happiness from Sherry. I hit the emails at 8AM and see I have once again managed to cause a sh-tstorm. Sigh.

Needless to say I took it down in a hurry, the guys at Privateer kept a lid on things and the Privateer announcement on Saturday was still a resounding sucess. And I myself have learned a new lesson - if there isnt a pic on the web, there just MIGHT be a reason why.

Neal

Im Back! Yikes!

2005-08-16T23:30:00.000-04:00

You know you always get punished for going away on vacation...

Well return wasnt that bad really. Not too many things screwed up nor too many fires to fight. The crew are getting better at handling things with the big boss away.

Went to the city with my sweetie and nearly sweat to death touring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I do hate to be hot. Saw The Producers on Broadway which was fun and generally cast about looking like wide eyed tourists. Did I say it was hot? It was Africa hot.

Back now at TheWarStore and things are already swinging into gear. Don is away at Gen Con, Dave is away next week so construction in the new warstore is at a standstill as we will be shorthanded for the next two weeks. Some reorganization is being done, and a breather before we jump into the next phase of construction - remodeling the old store and setting up the receiving area. Right now most of the miniatures are finding a home in the new store but we are really short of racks and we have bought Home Depot out of pegs. Everything in time I guess, it is getting there.

Looking forward to Don's Gen Con report, seeing what new minis and etc... will be hot for Christmas and beyond :-)

Neal

From the "What a bunch of idiots dept..."

2005-08-12T11:15:00.000-04:00

I got a call from a customer the other day. Now this guy is pretty gutsy. Wearing a TheWarStore tee shirt to any convention is a gutsy move (and we dont recommend you wear it to your local store!) but wearing it to a Games Workshop Grand Tournament, that takes some moxie!:-)

Seems this customer actually then proceeded to do exactly what the shirt says - wipe the field with the opposing army. He did it over and over, with some well painted minis and good sportsmanship and won the 40K portion of the tourny! Yay! To the victor goes the spoils right? Come on over here for your picture in White Dwarf!

Yup you guessed it, they asked him to change his shirt before they would take the pic! Luckily he had another shirt in his bag and things proceeded.

A few comments.

First how many people have extra shirts with them on the con floor? What did they expect him to do, go back to the hotel first? Second, how offensive is the front of my shirt? It doesnt identify itself as a TheWarStore tee shirt, it doesnt even have Vic on the front! But my favorite comment was made by my sweetie, who says now she wants to win so she can see if they will DARE ask a girl to change her wardrobe. Woo Hoo! :-)

I guess the shirt just makes some people mad...

As always, promise to wear the shirt to ANY con and you can probably talk me into adding a free one to your latest order. But just to stir the pot - first person photographed in White Dwarf prominently wearing my T Shirt (not in the background!) gets a $50 gift certificate.

Hee hee
Neal

Flames of War!

2005-08-06T04:05:00.000-04:00

Flames of War shaping up too. I am looking forward to integrating the next order in here and taking some more pics. Space in the middle is for the Italians, back right side is US, the rest of the right side will be JR, MBA, and BAC 15mm Terrain pieces.

Once we get the store area finished we will be working on our new play space as well :-)

Neal

Got WarMachine?

2005-08-06T02:46:00.000-04:00

The new WarMachine area. We are still unpacking here. Left side is all WarMachine stuff, top and bottom will be stock storage. Not sure yet about right side - certainly WarMachine boxes but the pegboards are probably going to be miniatures from smaller manufacturers.

WarMachine is selling like crazy and we have the stock to back it up!

Neal

It's a big ad....

2005-08-05T20:05:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is cracking me up:
http://www.bigad.com.au/

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Friday. Well the week is winding down a bit although it is still very hot. Looking forward to next week as my sweetie is coming to visit and I will get a few days off. Yay!

Looking back over the week we got some important things done. Moving in to the new space is pretty well finished for the major stuff, now we need to move over the minors. Reaper re-set is half done, I am very pleased with bringing order to that chaos. Forge world came in, the missing Urban War arrived, Perry is on the way for sure and Battlefront should be on the way come monday.

Im going to take some pictures of the new area, as long as you realize it is yet a bit primitive in there. I am really proud of it. I will try to get some pics of Don and Dave too, tho Don swears photographs take away a bit of his soul.

A HUGE thunderstorm just pased thru and hopefully that will cool things off a bit. I dont pay Long Island taxes for this kind of weather.

Neal

The heat is killing me...

2005-08-04T14:34:00.000-04:00

I admit it, I am too fat for my own good. But beyond that, this heat wave is just killing me.

Daily I feel like a wringed out dish rag and thewarstore a/c is just not cutting it. Main problem is that the electrician is a family friend which come billing time is a good thing, but on job scheduling is a very bad thing. The new section has lights but no outlets for a/c, and the current a/c just cant keep both cool without reinforcements. I have no idea when he will come back to finish. Arrgh!

But my personal comfort aside, the past few days have been very productive. I was able to crank out some needed updates last night to the product pages - Rackham, Reaper, and a Dark Age makeover as someone at Dark Age switched prices without letting me know. For the most part, many Dark Age prices are lower than before!

Ambrosio is working on the Reaper section today, should have some inventory updates soon and even some old codes resurrected as we have 'found' some old (read 'cheap') inventory. Good news for Reaper fans. Good news for me too as now have the space for the incredible luxury of one reaper code per hook. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh organization.

Privateer Inventory done, mostly all put away too. We have been scouring all the local Home Depots for 10" hooks for the inventory. Don did a good job on the set up - will take some pics of it soon. Privateer mercs moving like crazy and basically the whole line is moving so fast I am moving inventory in and out with a coal shovel. Both wholesale and retail on this line doing well. I just sent Sherry a big restock order - the numbers now are officially scaring me but it had to be done. In the meantime we continue to pick Alliance clean.

Battlefront restock is ready to ship to me, my credit card declined but should be clear tomorrow. That puts that order here early next week :-) Gale Force Nine restock on the way, Epicast restock getting put away. Still working on Australia (shadowforge/BAC). Got distracted last night by the Dark Age makeover needs.

Besides me crying in the heat, we are otherwise good to go :-)

Neal

A new month

2005-08-01T11:23:00.000-04:00

Ok its monday which is bad enough, today it is also a new month. Bleech.

Today is check writing day, which is never very much fun. It is sad to see the mighty warstore bank account sucked to near nothing by bills, bills and more bills. Sigh. Today is going to be tough too, paying $5500 in construction costs out of last months cash is not going to be good for my bank account. Sigh :-(

Ah well, no reason to dwell on it as sales continue to be very strong. Our percentage increase over last year is still considerable and I was carefully watching to see if that would persist thru July. July '04 is when our current sales surge really began, before that TheWarStore was just in a good trendline. I figured this year in July would see a slowdown, that we wouldnt be able to keep sales at surge levels. Wrong! We just blew July '04's doors off.

So today will be spent writing checks, moving stuff over to the new warstore and trying to keep up with orders. We just received an epicast restock, along with a ton of new epicast items that fill out their catalog. Neat stuff. We are waiting on the Urban Mammoth restock, the one that was lost in customs for a while. That should arrive any day.

Later this week we should see a Forge World order coming in, maybe Battlefront late in the week, and Perry Bros somewhere soon too. The Australian orders need to go in this week - updates and orders on both Shadowforge (lots of range changes) and Battlefield Accessories (we are nearly out!). New releases include the long awaited Mongoose stuff for Starship Troopers. On updates, we need to do some work in the Reaper and Rackham sections.

Lots to keep me busy!
Neal

Neal@TheWarStore: July 2005

2005-07-30T17:55:00.000-04:00

Neal@TheWarStore: July 2005

Okay I am officially exhausted.

Taking a bit of a break here now as I have spent most of the day moving and setting up our new Games Workshop area. Ugh. Frankly I never do anything right the first time - esp when it comes to constructing anything. I think we now have a good configuration of hooks and racks, not perfect but certainly serviceable. As of right now I am still moving over the fantasy stuff, but at least the hooks and racks are all set up.

All the GW blisters have their own peg now and the boxes all have their own space. The old warstore is starting to look bare, and as we move to the new sections I wonder how the old section held all this crap. Don, the staff member of the order of insomniacs finished the Flames of War section at some ungodly hour last night and took a big chunk of the Rackham down. He is off happily shooting his friends at airsoft today, and after sleeping late and recuperating tomorrow will probably polish off Rackham and start WarMachine Sunday evening. By monday the major stuff will be done and new decisions will have to be made.

Im not looking forward to tearing apart the old warstore sections, but I probably wont be happy until we do it. It is not fun to be obsessive/compulsive about organization. If you call next week and hear hammering and sawing, at least you will know what is going on.

No orders picked today, that is backing up while we reorganize. Monday is going to be busy.
Neal

Well here goes!

2005-07-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

July 29th 2005 and I am entering the brave new world of blogging. If anyone out there is actually interested in what I am thinking, I guess this is the place to read about it.

Diving right in the big news is that TheWarStore has just finished building out our new space, which more than doubles our square footage. Woo Hoo! I spent a bunch of money outfitting this place right, so we have plenty of shelf and pegboard space to move into. Our first job is moving into the new space and clearing out the old space. Then the old space will get a facelift and refurbishing.

At the same time we will be building out our expanded shipping and receiving areas. Receiving is a new category for us and I think it will solve a lot of problems. Nothing upset me more than going to find something that supposedly is in inventory only to find it missing because either a supplier left it out of their shipment or shipped us something else by mistake. ARRGGHH! For the customer that means shipping delays, split shipments - costs and aggravation. By carefully checking what comes in and keeping track of problems it will save me a lot of headaches. And now in our expanded store everything will have a spot, it will be that much easier.

Shipping needs to be expanded since we are doing so much more business. Right now the shipping area is in the middle of everything, it is too small and generally a nuisance. I want shipping set up better, including a USPS interface and UPS options so that we can email customers tracking numbers automatically and I have more shipping options.

More space, more products, more staff and some interesting new ideas coming in the second half of '05. It is going to be an interesting year.

ciao for now!
Neal