Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday

Hi all,

Just a quick note to remind everyone that we will be closed Thursday-Sunday to enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend with family.

For those of you looking for a deal, don’t miss our Black Friday sale. You can save an additional 10% off our already low prices – even on clearance and sale-priced items! Just use the coupon code LEFTOVERS when you check out.

We hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Changes to our checkout

*** If you don’t see a comment box at the end of this post, CLICK ON THE ACORN at the top of this post to leave us a comment ***

We are implementing some improvements to our payment processing, and wanted to make you aware of it, so you’re not surprised when you get to the payment section of the checkout page! (vbg)

We’re changing over from running credit cards manually through a terminal in our office, with printed charge receipts, to a payment gateway that will pass the credit card info directly to our bank for processing. This will NOT automatically charge your card – we are setting it up to only hold the funds from your available credit, and we will actually approve charges to be made at the time your order is ready to ship.

Changes you’ll see will include:

1) No more thermal printed charge receipts to attach to orders, or that will fade over time. This saves labor on our end, and allows us to keep our prices low. It also saves paper, making it more environmentally responsible. The invoice in your box will be for your records, but will not mention the credit card payment. Rest assured that if you receive your order, your card has been charged. (g)

2) Credit cards that are declined will not submit a completed order to our cart, so if you accidentally type in the card number incorrectly, it will bounce it back to you and say that the charge could not be approved. It will ask you to check that your billing address and zip code are correct, and that you’ve typed in the three-digit card verification code from the back of your card correctly – it will not approve your transaction if these are not correct. This is a security measure designed to prevent against fraud. Therefore, it’s EXTREMELY important that you check your billing and shipping addresses at checkout, to make sure that they are correct and that your billing address is the one where you receive your credit card statements. If those are not correct, it’s possible that your credit card payment will not be approved.

3) The page asking you to verify that your information is correct, and asking you to submit the transaction for approval, will have our logo at the top. It is NOT, however, hosted on our servers. This is an additional security measure to protect your data even more than we already had been protecting it. (Our website and office network have been scanned by McAfee Secure, and passed with flying colors. We’re just waiting to get our actual PCI Compliance certificate.) It’s absolutely safe to submit your information through our gateway, which is called PayFlow Pro.

4) This new system will also allow us to run pre-sales and fast buys more easily. We can have you place your order, pulling the product from the inventory count of the items that were ordered and holding them for you. We’ll know immediately that your card is good for the amount that will be due, and you’ll know that you will not actually be charged until we ship the merchandise. That allows us to follow our bank’s requirements for processing – that we don’t actually charge you until within a day or two of the shipment date, and still be able to take orders ahead of receiving the product in-house.

5) Please be sure to click “Continue Shopping” when you get the confirmation screen showing that the payment transaction is approved. If you close the window, instead of clicking that button, the payment is sent, but our shopping cart may not be notified that the order has been completed. The order may go into “incomplete” status, and will still be processed, but the processing can be delayed by anywhere from several hours to a day. When we receive confirmation of the payment receipt, we will locate the incomplete order and change its status to “completed”.

Right now, we’re running final tests to make sure everything is working properly before we set it to go “live” to handle customer transactions. We’re anticipating on having it live no later than Friday, October 29th. In the meantime, there will be a form of payment in the list at checkout labeled “TEST – PLEASE DO NOT USE”. Please don’t use it. LOL If you do, it will not actually submit your order to us because it can’t authorize your credit card. Once we go live, that will be replaced by a single option for credit card payment, instead of the individual links for the different card types that we had been using.

There may be some kinks to iron out at the beginning, but we firmly believe that we’re investing our time, frustration getting the setup done, and money in this because it’s a big improvement over our current credit card processing method. We really appreciate your patience with us while we change over to the new system.

If you have any questions or problems using the new credit card payment gateway, please call me at 877-OAK-COURT (toll-free) or e-mail me at info@oakcourtcreations.com. Thanks!

Brenda

SFIC Soap Base – changes

Just when you think things are rolling along smoothly…. LOL

We love SFIC to death around here. Their melt and pour soap bases are excellent quality, affordable, and they offer a large selection of different varieties. They’re pleasant people to deal with, and ship quickly. BUT, we really do wish they’d make up their minds on how they want to package the bases! (vbg)

When we first started offering their products, they shipped them as two-pound shrinkwrapped logs. Then they switched to one-pound shrinkwrapped blocks. The best change yet (in our opinion, anyway) was when they changed to two-pound resealable, microwaveable, reusable, recyclable plastic tubs with snap-on lids.

We found out recently that they are switching yet again, back to one-pound shrinkwrapped blocks. Apparently plastic resin has gone way up in price, so the price of the tubs has, too. They had a choice – increase their wholesale prices slightly, to cover the cost of the labor to shrinkwrap the blocks, or increase them significantly, to cover the higher price of the tubs. They chose to increase their prices as little as possible, a decision which we respect, because it means we won’t have to raise OUR prices very much, either. We will miss the plastic tubs, as they are very handy – but the shrinkwrapped blocks also mean smaller case sizes, which are easier to handle, and are also easier to ship. They take up less room in the box, and also eliminate any chance of the tubs being damaged if UPS drops a 100-lb. box on top of them. LOL

So we apologize for the inconvenience, but while they are changing over, when you order two pounds of base from us, it may come in the form of either one two-pound tub or two one-pound blocks. Once everything is changed over, we will update the website and change the pricing accordingly. We’ll post again here on the blog to let everyone know about the change – we sure don’t want anyone to order their “usual” number of tubs, only to get half as many pounds of soap base as they were expecting to!

Also, just a reminder…. in case you haven’t looked at all of the varieties lately, we now also have the Organic Oil White and Organic Oil Clear in stock. If you are looking to purchase full case quantities (50 lbs.) of cut-ups of any of their bases, please let us know. At this time, we don’t stock them, but would be happy to special order them for you. With our next order, we will be adding the regular White and Clear soap bases to our product line, in response to customer requests. Our goal for 2011 is to have some custom varieties made exclusively for us…. so we also would like to hear your suggestions for what kinds you’d like to see us offer.

Thanks, as always, for your business and support!

Tags: melt and pour, SFIC, soap base

Trade show

I got a last-minute invitation to attend a trade show this past week, and things fell into place so I could get away for a day.  YAY!

It was a very interesting show…. and it was really nice to be able to say hello to representatives from two of the fragrance houses we do business with and sniff some of their new offerings.  (And yes, they are sending samples for me to test!  LOL)  Would you believe one of the perfumers saw my name badge and remembered having done some custom formulating for me when we were first getting started selling supplies – 7 or 8 years ago??  I was really impressed that he not only remembered our company, but also exactly what fragrances he had created for me.

I walked the show floor for about 5 hours, at which time I’d visited all of the booths that were on my “must-see” list marked in my show program.   Much as I would have loved to browse a bit more and return to a couple of booths that looked interesting but were jammed with people when I approached them, by that point in time my bad back and bad ankle were protesting the abuse I’d been giving them, so it was time to call it a day.

I have a small rolling suitcase full of brochures, business cards, line cards, etc. to go through, and when we are ready, now have sources for a wide variety of items (many of which are warehoused locally in the Chicago area, so we can pick up orders and save on freight!).  These include, but are not limited to, botanical extracts, pigments and micas, exotic oils and butters, silicone derivatives like cyclomethicone and dimethicone, and additives like exfoliants and herbs.   Let’s just say I won’t have ANY problems at all spending our buying budget for the rest of the year….. LOL

I’m eager to hear from all of you as to what you’d like us to purchase first.  Please add comments to this post and share your “wish list” with us!  We always welcome your feedback, but especially in terms of what you want us to add to our product line.

Computer crash

As some of you may already know from reading the note on our home page, we experienced the sudden death of our main computer recently. It’s the one that held all of our accounting software, as well as many other important things like our web design program. Luckily, we’re sticklers for doing backups, and the system had a RAID 1 array that saved everything to TWO hard drives (so there’s always a good one with all of the data!).

Parts are hard to come by for computers once their warranty runs out, so we were advised to simply get a new one. The good hard drive from the old computer is being made into an external USB drive, so we can connect it and copy all of our data files and records to the new machine. We built a system to order with Dell yesterday, and it’s supposed to be here on or before March 1st. We’ve been so spoiled during its extended warranty period, because when any problems have happened, Dell is out the next business day to take care of it and we’re back in action within a day or so. This wait already feels like an eternity!

A person really doesn’t realize how much they rely on a computer until it isn’t working, I guess. I’m posting this from a laptop, normally only used to check e-mails when I travel, but now it’s trying valiantly to function as my main computer, which is a HUGE task. I must just have big fingers, because I keep hitting the wrong keys, and I’m usually a very accurate typist. The keyboard is smaller and the keys are closer together – and the backspace and delete keys are in a different place due to the space restrictions. What was automatic before, I now have to think about! And I realllllly miss my big 24″ flat panel monitor – I’m scrolling constantly on this little bitty screen.

We appreciate your patience in bearing with us while we wait eagerly for the new computer to be delivered….. if you call, it may take me longer to look up pricing/inventory for you, and e-mails are being answered via webmail now instead of downloading them to the computer and having the filters sort them for me and weed out the junk mail. We also can’t put invoice copies in outbound packages as usual – we’ll be including a printed copy of the order, and e-mailing the actual invoice once we’re back up and running. I figure it’ll be about a 2 to 3 day project just to get all of the software re-installed (not counting the time spent to locate all of the right discs and installation instructions!), then we’ll get all of the invoices input and e-mailed.

If your computer is working properly as you read this, be sure to thank it and let it know how much you appreciate that!

Update on new products from the Synergy

Well, it looks like we’ll have a delay in getting the 99% Isopropyl Alcohol and Perfumer Base from Synergy. There was damage to the containers in shipment, and they were declared a total loss. Since Sheila doesn’t have any more, I’ll have to wait until I get sourcing info from her and order directly from her vendor.

I HAVE, however, located a LOCAL source for Cyclomethicone! It can also be used to make easy-peasy “dry oil”-type perfume misters. We’ll have to buy in drum quantity (about 500 lbs.), so I’m thinking we’ll probably be running a pre-buy on this in the not-too-distant future. (grin)

Product Packaging

As some of you may know, once before, we tried using a local sheltered workshop for the disabled to do some of our packaging. Unfortunately, they wanted us to sign a contract for a steady amount of work on a weekly basis, and we simply couldn’t do that. The flow of product coming in and going out is definitely not a steady thing here! We didn’t give up on the idea, because we know that the concept works – we just needed to find the right group for us.

We’ve now found another workshop for the developmentally disabled that is eager and willing to take whatever work we can bring to them. They just got started recently, and we’re among their first customers. One of my friends has an adult son who is autistic, and Randy will be among the people working on our products. We had them do a “trial run” recently, to see how it would work, having them package air freshener samples for us to send out in orders and send to gatherings to be included in their goodie bags – and they did a very nice job. In exchange for very reasonable pricing per-piece on packaging and labeling, many of the items they’ll be packaging will now include an extra sticker (or an extra line on the regular label) showing that the item was packaged by InFocus Adult Day Services.

This is a real win-win situation for us … we get more time to spend on expanding the business instead of packaging product, and the workers there make some pocket money. For many of them, there is a great deal of comfort in the structure and routine of working there, and pride in completing their assigned tasks to the best of their abilities. Many care and education programs for the developmentally and physically challenged are facing serious budget cuts due to the state of the economy, and workshops like this help them bring in some much-needed revenue. This move will also allow us to keep our prices the same, even though many of our vendors raised THEIR prices in the past few months.

Several of our customers have gone on to follow our example, locating workshops in their area and having them do some light duty jobs for them, like wicking and labeling candle jars, bagging and labeling wax tarts, and shrinkwrapping and labeling bars of soap. The idea was originally given to me by Casey Kellar (formerly of Rainshadow Labs), who many of you know from the Chicago-Area Soap and Candlemakers’ Conferences. For many years, Rainshadow has kept their local workshop in existence by providing them with a large volume of packaging and labeling work. I thought surely there would be some sort of national association for these workshops, or governmental umbrella that they all operated under, and had hoped to be able to provide a link to help customers find the workshop(s) in their area…. however, that does not seem to be the case. According to directors of several workshops in the Chicago area, you can check your local phone book, or contact your state or county’s social services agency to locate the workshops in your area.

So, don’t be surprised in the coming months to see more of our products sporting the label from the workshop! They’ll be doing things like weighing out and labeling bags of dry goods and filling sample jars with lip balm base at first, and eventually work up to pumping out fragrance oils and base oils into bottles and measuring and cutting 10-yard packs of elastic cording. If the label isn’t exactly straight, or your 10-yard packs of cord aren’t precisely spot-on, please bear in mind that these were packaged with pride by someone who faces many challenges every day, and that with your purchase, you’ve allowed someone to be gainfully employed who otherwise wouldn’t have a job.

Good news and bad news….

The bad news:
I found out recently that one of our fellow suppliers, Sheila Stewart from The Synergy, is closing down her supply business. Some of you may remember Sheila – she was a vendor at the Chicago-Area Soap and Candlemakers’ Conference in the past, and came all the way from Alabama to participate!

Good news part 1:
She’s closing because she is moving to Holland to live near her sister, and sounds very happy to be making the move.

Good news part 2:
She has been working on finding homes for all of her supplies, and was kind enough to e-mail to offer us some of them at closeout prices.  She’s assured me that she will share the source for any products we take off her hands, so we can offer them on a regular basis – so we’ve already placed one order, and we may order more if she still has things left after we take stock of what orders we’ll need to place the rest of the month.

Some of the things we’re purchasing from her to add to our product line include:

            Isopropyl Myristate
            Isopropyl Alcohol 99%
            Perfumer’s Base (I’m really excited about this one!)
            Exfoliating Beads
            Green Tea Extract
            Chamomile Extract
            Bath Bomb Molds (big ones – tennis ball sized!)
            A selection of some of her yummy fragrance oils
            Powdered Dead Sea Mud

We’re sad that she’s closing, but very happy to be able to provide you with some of the wonderful things she’s had in her product line.  I’m hoping to get some of the items that don’t need pictures up on the website in the next few weeks, and will test all of the FO’s before adding them to the site so I can give you first-hand knowledge of how they work in CP soap.  (Sheila says that they all work fine, but some do accelerate trace, so they need to be soaped cool and poured quickly). I already know that they are good and strong, and they are wonderful in toiletries and M&P, though – I’ve been the lucky recipient of a number of soaps and goodies made with her fragrances over the years, and have experienced several of them in products Sheila has made and demonstrated at gatherings.

Gatherings just aren’t going to be quite as much fun without Miss Sheila…….    

The Blog is Back!!

After an extended absence due to a hosting change in a hurry, the blog is finally back.

Our old hosting company was sold to a foreign entity, and their service really went downhill. When our site security certificate was up for renewal, they informed me that I had to click a link in an e-mail that was sent to me… but I did not get the e-mail and they would not re-send it. They refused to renew the SSL certificate, which is necessary in order for us to collect payments securely online. Even though we had many months left on our hosting contract, we quickly researched available hosting options and moved the Oak Court Creations website to a new host, Server Intellect. Our shopping cart requires that we host the site on a Windows server, and even though they don’t support WordPress (which is usually hosted on a Linux server), we went with them for several reasons.

1) Their technical support is top-notch – all of their techs are Microsoft Certified Technicians!

2) They offered to move the site, including complex databases used by the shopping cart and special coding strings that needed to be modified, for no charge

3) They promised to have us back up and running within 24 hours, and actually got done faster than that!

We’ve now established a separate hosting account on a Linux server and are using one of our alternate domain names to publish this blog. Somehow, during the hasty move, the backup file from the old blog was corrupted, so we lost the old posts, so we’re starting again from scratch.

Thanks for bearing with us during the downtime… we’re glad to be back!