I have this love/hate relationship with blogging. I know it’s something I need to do at least once per week, but I’ve gotta tell you, sometimes it can really be a stretch finding things to write about. Because this is a company blog, there are certain things that, while they would make excellent blog fodder, I can’t always write about. I could write about event results, but there are people out there who are far better at that sort of thing than me (AZ Billiards, Billiards Digest, Pool and Billiards magazine, etc). As a result, at times topics can get pretty dull and dry (see my last few posts about our catalog build as examples of this).
So then, what should I write about? I could write about the ever-growing collection of tchotchkes that is rapidly taking over my workspace, but I’m fairly sure no one wants to hear about the origins of my “Oy Vey” soap, Silent Bob or the bacon flavored toothpicks (not nearly as awesome as you might think, btw).
So that leaves me with a couple of choices. Either I can ask you all to make topic suggestions, or I’m going to have to resort to the Bloggable Questions list. Don’t get me wrong here, Lisa over at Outspoken Media has put together a list of 23 solid topics, but the problem is that over the years I’ve already tackled most of them.
So pretty please, with cherries on top, tell me what you want to hear about. Otherwise you’re gonna get stuck with hearing about how I came to have a talking Towlie on my shelf.
Come on, let’s print again, like we did last summer
Let’s print again, like we did last year
Do you remember when machines were hummin’
Yeah let’s print again, printin’ time is here!
Press checks make me a bit loopy, since for the most part they’re all about sitting in a tiny room and waiting for someone to get you, so you’ll have to excuse the ode to Chubby Checker. Once again, we’re here at Publication Printers, making sure all the colors are right (which is really what press checks are all about). Because I have no idea what I’m doing, I always bring our graphic designer along with us to explain what it means when they ask if we should add a little more yellow or pull out a little more red.
It all starts with the waiting game. We get told by our rep that we’ll be on the press Wednesday. Then we wait for the call to let us know approximately what time they’ll start printing. This time around, our time slot is 1:45PM.
Once we get the word, we head down say hello to our rep and prepare to camp. Because we print a 60 page catalog, it has to be done in chunks. Three chunks to be exact. So, we park it in the customer lounge where we can either do work on our respective laptops or watch Pete’s Dragon or Trading Places on VHS (ok, they have DirecTV too, but how funny is it to see VHS connected to a tube TV??).
After hanging out for a while, we get the call that our first batch is ready for review. We head over to the review station and that’s where the color negotiations begin.
See, the way it works is that if you add or remove color to make one page look better, it impacts all the rest of the pages on the sheet. We print 16 pages at a time, so when we make a color change to correct one page, we have to make sure it doesn’t disrupt the look of the other 15 pages. After we finish our color negotiations and sign off on the print, it’s back to the waiting room.
Assuming nothing goes wrong, the whole process should take about 4-6 hours, which means with any luck we’ll be done by 6-7PM. Oh, and the catalog will be mailing in October. If you aren’t on our mailing list (meaning you’ve never ordered from us before or requested a catalog before), head over to the catalog request page so you can get signed up for one.
Well, it looks like PoolDawg has a new toy. We’ve had so many requests over the years to do engraving that we finally decided to bite the bullet and buy an engraver.
Now before we start putting pool cues in this thing we do need to test it out and learn how it all works. Surprisingly, its pretty easy. The thing hooks up to a computer, so really its just a matter of setting it up on the screen, locking in whatever you want to engrave and hit the start button.
Our first test was on a metal luggage tag, so we did some engraving for Alexis:
Once we got the hang of it, we started testing some other things, wood dowels, tags, you get the idea. It’s sort of like when Bart gets a label maker for his birthday and puts labels on everything.
Needless to say, we’re quickly getting the hang of it and are hoping to have it ready for prime time next month.
So it seems that I’m not the only one who thinks that PoolDawg is the bee’s knees. The nice folks over at Billiards Digest bestowed upon us the title of “Best Online Retail Site” in their annual BD Web Awards!
Needless to say, when I saw this I was tickled all sorts of pink. When one of the top industry magazines says you’re the best, it really does mean a lot. We work extremely hard over here to create a shopping experience that is more than just a site that sells pool cues. We do what we can to inject some personality into our site with our silly mascot, team bios and my own weekly attempts at humor via the slightly absurd and snarky promotional emails we send out to our customers and we’re always looking for new ways to improve the overall shopping experience.
In addition to thanking Billiards Digest, I also wanted to thank all of our customers. It is the feedback we receive from you all that push us to continually improve our website experience, our branding efforts and our customer service.
Simply put, without our customers PoolDawg wouldn’t exist. So from all of us here at The Dawg, thank you for your continued support, patronage and feedback. Keep telling us what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong and we’ll do our best to live up to the title that’s been bestowed upon us!
Every now and again we get a call from a customer asking why their coupon code isn’t working. In pretty much every case, we have to give them the bad news that the coupon code they have isn’t a valid code after which, the customer asks why they’ve finding that code listed on coupon sites.
So here’s the skinny on coupon codes and coupon code websites. There are literally thousands of websites that list coupon code and in most cases, they are reliant on their visitors to tell them if the code is valid or not. Some of the codes are valid, but most are either expired or never existed in the first place. Most of these websites aren’t trying to overtly trick you. What often happens is that they see the code on another coupon site, scrape it and add it to their own site without bothering to check the validity.
Because there’s no way for us to police this (as there are too many sites and there’s no good way for us to get site owners to take down bogus or expired codes), I figured I’d list out a few key points to help you all sift through the coupon mess:
- PoolDawg almost never offers “% off” discount codes. There are some exceptions to this rule (as we typically do something special for Black Friday and sometimes let our player reps promote a % off code), but generally speaking, if you find a code that says %10 off your order, you can safely assume that its bogus. Some of the known bogus codes floating around are PDAWG, PDAWG10, PD10 and 10OFF. None of these work, nor will they ever work.
- If you see a code that says something along the lines of “xx% off orders of $yy or more”, just skip it. I personally do all the coupon codes and have not ever ran this style of offer. If I worked for Eddie Bauer or J. Crew it would be a different story, but we don’t get the margins that the folks in the clothing business do.
- For the most part, any coupon codes we do have will be distributed via our email list. Sometimes we also put them in our automated emails as well, so your best chance of getting a coupon code is by signing up to our email list (you can find the sign upin the lower right hand corner of our website).
- You don’t need a coupon code to take advantage of our standard special offers (free shipping @ $99+, free gifts with most pool cues, 20% off MSRP for most pool cues, etc)
- If you have a question, you can always call us. Just don’t be mad at us if the coupon code you have isn’t a real code. Be mad at whoever gave you that code.
In all seriousness, the vast majority of the coupons we do are along the lines of “spend $xx and get a free tchotchke with the PoolDawg logo on it”. For example, if you enter the code “comeonback” and your order is $25 or more, we’ll send you a free PoolDawg coin holder (seriously, we will. This is a real coupon code that doesn’t expire until the end of 2011).
Ok, that’s all for now. Hopefully this demystifies the coupon codes a bit.
Every year around this time our wonderful graphic designer delivers me the first build of our new catalog. Once again, the catalog looks completely awesome. This year we’re going with a little less Frank and a little more pool. It isn’t that we don’t love our mascot (because we do), we just want to remind everyone with our cover that while Frank is a rock star, our primary focus is selling billiard supplies.
You’ll have to wait on the cover, but here’s the first build of one of our inside spreads:
As per usual, we’ll be mailing the catalog in the late fall (typically right around the time we run out of 2011 catalogs). I’ve been asked several times why we don’t do quarterly catalogs instead of just an annual. There are a few reasons, but the biggest is that we simply don’t have the bandwidth to put together a catalog more than once per year. Sure, we could change the cover to give it a new look and re-mail, but it really seems like a waste of trees. Plus, I don’t have it in me to do all that copywriting more than once per year (which is what I’m currently knee deep in).
As to why we don’t put all the products in our catalog (we’ll be doing 60 pages again this year), that’s why we have a website. Our catalog is more of a “new releases and greatest hits”. At any rate, I just thought I’d share a glimpse of what the new book is going to look like. You’ll have to wait for the fall to see the cover though.
