The End of An Era…..??

It was a early May morning in 2006 when SignSeen and I met.  We took awhile to get to know each other.  After I understood her better, I moved her around a few times and paid different “doctors” to look after her.  When necessary, I brought in experts to help her in areas she was week.  Unfortunately, I think I am falling out of love with the girl….

The internet just isn’t what it used to be.  She used to be more forgiving.  And, often just showing up was enough for her to take money with the promise of product being sent.  If money was spent to bring visitors to her door, she seemed to know just what to show them to make the sale be completed.  She knew what she needed to do, and she was not distracted as easily as she is now.

The older she has gotten, the more and more difficult it is to keep her as popular.  Once she was cute and had enough for most any visitor.  But, as she has aged and failed to get the necessary face lifts; she has lost her allure.

And, as poorly as I have tried to develop an analogy for my website, the bottom line is I am running out of steam for the old girl! Due to technical mistakes (some by me and some by my developer) and a refusal to continue to spend money on marketing that seems to have less than satisfactory results, I am trying to summon one last bit of energy to push the site into a healthy place.  If it makes it, YEAH!!  If not, then, I count on something else to come.  If maintaining a website and breaking even is a worthy goal, then I need to find other goals to try and attain.

I have been letting other parts of my past businesses stick around.  Many of these past businesses are just slightly annoying, but not really big time commitments.  This list includes:

  • My business selling to a large retail chain from Columbus, Ohio  Now, this business is just maintaining the customers existing products.
  • My purchase of an eBay business selling backyard pond supplies (lasted a little over a year, and then let it go to business partner)
  • Purchase of another eBay business. A website was set up to easily update ebay store, but the expense of the site eventually made it unattractive to pursue heavily.  Now, it is just a small eBay store with a sister website—minimum orders without much expense.  However, the eBay store has provided a venue to sell product from other businesses.
  • Purchased another sign site to try and take advantage of the SEO on the site for “sidewalk signs” and other keywords.
  •  I tried to create a variety of other sign sites from the VAST set of domain names I have.  The headache of maintaining became more than I could successfully handle.  I was stretched to thin.  I  am suspect the stretching done by the multiple sites was the push into the land of “no return”.  (Or, if not “no return”, it won’t be a clear path back…)
What business is next?  I don’t need one, and I am not writing off the one I already am working.  I will see where the sign site goes and what experiences I have between now and then.  I will do something. And, if I am lucky, the “something” will be clear.  If not, I will still do…

The Guy I Met At Jeff’s Physical Therapy

I met a very nice guy at Jeff’s physical therapy session today.  (Really his only session.  His wrist was doing fine, so they were just doing exercises to make sure it is gaining on the left hand.)  Definitely not an intimidating guy.  He used his wheeled walked and starting coming my direction, so I cleared the chair so he could sit down.  He had a pocket on his walker with a few papers in it.  It was cushioned to keep him from banging any of his aching appendages.

Our dialogue went something like this…

“What are you in for?”
“Bad knee.”
“The one God gave you or a replacement.”
“The original one.”
“That’s good”.  (Me)
“Yes, I have some water on my knee.  And, it needs to be trained and then some PT.”

He then goes on to tell me he has been married nearly 67 years.  That he has been retired since 1987, and he used to be a engineer on the Santa Fe railroad.  His great grand daughter (2 daughters, 6 grandkids, 8 great-grand kids) is a trainer for the Trinity football team–they are in the 3rd week of the football playoffs.  And, he is a WWII veteran of the South Pacific.  Before we are to far in the conversation, he handed me a  religious tract.  I was not offended that he handed me the tract, nor would I have been if I wasn’t a Christian.  If all members of our society could discretely make others aware of their values without worrying about offending them, life would be easier and we would start to be more tolerant as a society.  Right now, it seems the thin-skinned sissies are making the rest of us feel like we are horrible people because we have an opinion that differs from theirs!  I may be a horrible person, but it is not because of my opinions. 😉

College Visit and HPB Visit

You know you are a bit too much of a book lover when you are planning visits to Half Price Books stores after extended drives.

Jeff and I are visiting Oklahoma Christian University on Labor Day weekend 2013.  As we are making our plans for the 3+ hour drive, I am putting all of my important things in the car:

  1. My 54 oz QT cup.  It is ready to hold the vital “black mango” tea.  I try not to travel more than a few hours without.
  2. The address in Edmond for the HPB store.
  3. Address for Oklahoma Christian.
  4. Some Christian music CDs.  (Switchfoot is prominent in our selections.)
  5. And, a swim suit.  (The basic travel change of clothes and jammies is assumed. 😉  )
I am looking forward to spending a few hours with my son, Jeff. Since he was not early to get his permit, the drive to Edmond will allow him to log about 6 hours for the round trip.I would prefer to sleep like he generally does when we drive any distance, but I will likely have to settle for being a 2nd set of eyes to my 2nd born.

Dropping Off Tim At College

Mom & Tim making up his bed in his UTA dorm room.

Mom & Dad took the 30 minute drive on Monday morning (the 19th).  As parents, we are grateful UTA is only a few miles away.  From Tim’s perspective, we are sure he was glad the short drive kept him from having to listen to our “distilled wisdom” for too long. And, our dementia was not so noticeable that our wisdom snippets were not repeated more than 3-4 times each.

The Saga of the Dented Car

What has proceeded on Facebook…..

Andy Gruenbaum wonders if there is a nice way to ask your neighbor, “Did you back out of your driveway and hit our car and drive off?” He doesn’t have any good angles on this one…..
  • Ugh! Yea, good luck with that!
  • I would say; “Hey I don’t think you noticed but you hit my car on our way out the other day”
  • Andy Gruenbaum Unfortunately, he is of a different race than us. I try and be extra sensitive when being confrontational. It is just a little “ding” but we can see the white paint in the dent….
  • I wouldn’t worry about that, I wouldn’t be confrontational either, just mention it nicely and say something like “I wanted to talk to you about this instead of reporting it because I think neighbors can work things like this out since we live right next to each other, and its a small dent which you probably didn’t notice” this way you don’t sound like you’re accusing. They will probably respect that. Are they foreign?
    That’s a rough one. I had a patient’s neighbor hit my car. My concern was the man was elderly and did not realize it (I saw it happen, but he was too quick for me to stop him). I was concerned that his awareness was decreased and next time it could be a child. So I went to the door and spoke with the wife. She was very gracious and the man did call and offer to pay the repairs.
  • Andy Gruenbaum The problem was we noticed at 10:00 the night before we went on a 2.5 week vacation. When we came back, we still saw the dent, but the critical point of contact was past. And, the neighbor hasn’t answered the door when we tried him after returning. And, he is almost never out, so the “easy” answer is not so easy….
    Andy Gruenbaum The neighbor is a unemployed, black man from California who hates Texas. He has no kids, but his present wife has 4 daughters that visit way to much(in his opinion). AND, his mother-in-law lives with them and suffers from dementia. He is generally not a happy man, although, I have tried to befriend him. So, he may just be content to avoid us and not deal with the issue.
  • Isn’t your wife a lawyer?
  • Is the dent really a big enough deal to even worry about it? Maybe its better to forget if there is a posibility of a worse situation?
  • Many of California drivers don’t know how to drive…… not including me though It is good to notice them as to avoid the second chance…..
  • Judy Clausing Gruenbaum yes, the dent is pretty big.
  • Andy GruenbaumThe neighbor was out today, but the care wasn’t here. Maybe, we can find a way to casually mention it. If we keep our expectations really low, we will probably not be disappointed.
    JudysDamagedCar

  •  Wow, that’s a big dent! I don’t know what the answer is, but, I really think you’re neighbor owes you an explanation!

    Hey Andy. Start out with something like, “Can you believe what someone did to our car?” Then “I can’t believe they left the scene” “Good thing is we turned the video over to the police but they said it would be a couple days before they could review it…See More

  • Try this. Call the police, indicate when it happened for the record, file a report, and ask their advise. I know the answer will be avoid the incident. Call insurance, and note a hit and run. Should be comprehensive coverage and not your incident for your deductible. If you have to pay your deductible, say $500, find a way to distribute $500 worth of, I don’t know, pea gravel, in the neighbor’s yard.
  • Andy GruenbaumI don’t think I mentioned his house was for sale before. If possible, I believe this would make our car dent an even lesser priority than before….
  • AcrossStreetHouseForSale

     

    So, steal the sign tonight, and keep stealing it until he comes over and confesses. If he catches you, just tell him you are trying to “make sure the house does not sell before he gets a chance to tell you about the fender bender”.
  • July 26th:  I am working on cutting some carbon filter orders (sell them on my eBay store) when there is a pounding on the door.  It is the neighbor.  She wants me to move our car out of the street.  She has sold her “Skeedo” (snowmobile for water or whatever they are).  It is on a trailer and when it is picked up she does not want them to hit our car.  Ahhh…sweet of her.
    July 28th
    This is the moving van they were using Sunday morning.  It made the street pretty crowded and my wife didn’t want to park in the street for fear there would be some sort of deja vu experience.
    July 29th:  The last time I saw the neighbor with a U-haul it had a picture from Ohio with the serpent mounds.  (The one from Sunday was from Delaware)  I saw it parked near the boys school.  I thought maybe the neighbor was moving into some apartments a couple miles south of us.

    July 30th:  Spoke to the neighbor today.  (If he were wise he would have put his big pile of garbage/non-moving items out last night so the trolls could go through them)  They are moving out on Friday.  The new house is somewhere in Keller right next to a golf course.  And, he REALLY hates home owner associations.  (HOAs)  He said they are moving into a furnished long-term stay type place for a couple of weeks BEFORE they move into their new house.  I chose not to mention the dent in the car.  We were bonding so well, and I didn’t want to ruin it.  And, once you are beyond the 1 month window, it is hard to be in the mood to “nail” him.  The dent is there, and we will get it fixed eventually.  If I see the neighbor again around town again, we can wave at each other and be cordial….while I grit my teeth. 😉

    Winter 2014:  We got the dent fixed while getting some other winter damage fixed.

 

Summer Project

The Gruenbaum’s read before this summer, but I do take a little pride in laying a plan to keep the Gruenbaum adults and kids reading for a few years…..

My wife:  She has always loved John Grisham books.  Once she was all caught up with his books, her reading was largely reading the next Grisham book as it came out.  After looking on Amazon and seeing many Grisham readers also read Micheal Connelly.  Although she has complained about some of the stories being a little gruesome, she has read 10 or more of these books.  And, she is still going strong…until she needs another new author.

The girls:  Besides doing the reading program at the library, I wanted to give them some additional incentives. Since they have enjoyed my Ipad, I wanted to give them something they could play on AND something they could read on.  After reading madly the first half of the summer, they both were nearly at 100 hours each…their Kindle Fire was nearly in reach.  I let them know if they would agree to read 125 hours each, I would upgrade them to the Kindle Fire with greater memory.  They blew past that goal, and they have earned “kindle” dollars with all reading over 125.  I told them the “kindle bucks” were for books and games during the school year.

The boys:  This program was tailored to the boys individual reading levels.  One son reads quite lengthy books without much effort.  The other son enjoys reading, but does not commit to it as fully as my other son.  So, to take advantage of Amazon discounts over Father’s Day, I went ahead and bought their Kindles.  They need to reach their reading goals by the end of summer.  If they don’t, they owe me for their Kindles.  Thankfully, I feel confident they will both reach their goals.

In total, we are now a 5 Kindle family.  We buy some Kindle books and share them around.  But, if the library has it and the book is to expensive on Amazon, none of us our to proud to read something borrowed.
Not all leaders are readers, but I hope the readers of this family will be!

No Longer Taking American Express On Websites

I sure do seem to be a whiner lately!!

Today, I am ticked (again) .  This time it is regarding the policies of my recent nemesis, American Express.  Besides charging me back recently, they took a bit out of me when I refunded a customer for a Canadian sign order.

The purchase price (with shipping) was $674.  The credit card fees were over $23.  When realizing I would not be able to ship to this customer, I completed a refund yesterday.  Typically, when I do a refund, the credit card fees is added back in.  So, my portion of the refund would only have been a little over $650.  The rest would have been supplied by PayPal refunded their fee.  However, due to a change at AMEX (or PayPal), the credit card fees are no longer refunded.  So, my refund of $674 ended up costing me over $697.

Since I am a man of action, I decided to reduce any additional pain in this area.  I called PayPal and let them know that I want American Express turned off on my websites.  And, I had it done to both of my PayPal accounts.  So, I am sorry if you want to check out on my websites using American Express, but their (or PayPals) policies have started to make it a poor business decision.

Post Charge Back Thoughts and Decisions

I will admit that any hope a seller may hold onto of winning a charge back is pretty hopeless.  However, as a frequent optimist (all business owners better me mostly optimist), I was holding on and hopeful that American Express would decide in my favor.  I knew the sign had been delivered, and I had provided the bill of lading number for the AMEX review.  The check and loss had already been accepted, but I still gave myself a chance of “winning”.

About a week ago, the debit to my PayPal account took place.  I had already accepted the reality of it, but the finality made me crazy.  Not only was the the sign and shipping credited back to the customer, but PayPal charges $20 for the pleasure of taking your money.  And, as the pessimism snuck deeper into my head and heart, I added up the material cost and labor cost.  These cost with the shipping that won’t be refunded totaled more than $500 more than the charge back.  Bottom line:  I felt pretty beat upon.

[Aside:  My ebay store that had  100% feedback also took a hit last week.  A customer who bought a $5 item felt the need to refer to my customer service as “terrible” and to “question” how I could have 100% feedback.  Well, he took care of my perfect feedback. (I filed a complaint, so we will see if it sticks) He got a refund plus got to keep the product I shipped despite his late request for a refund.  One more customer incident last week and my “Why do I deal with customers and make so little?” would have have had me the “why” with a “no good reason”.  But, yet I hung on….]

One friend felt badly that I was dealt such a bad deal with the magnet sign, that he decided to help me recover a portion of the charge back.  He posed as an insurance claims adjuster.  The conversation went something like this:

************************

“Hello, Eddie”, said Claims.
“Yes.”
“We have paid SignsSeen off for the charge back you filed against them. We would like to pick up the sign.” stated Claims.
“What sign?”
Claims replied, ” The sign you purchased and filed a charge back over.  You claimed the sign was poorly made and of poor quality.”
“Oh, that sign.”
“Since the sign is damaged and you are unable to use it, we just want to pick it up to try and get some of our money back on it.  You also mentioned the letters were not working for you.  We will pick those up at the same time that we pick up the sign.” informed Claims.
“I did try and use the letters.  What will you shipping cost be?”
“Do you still have the box the sign shipped in?  If not, it would cost us about $250.” replied claims.
“If it is just $250, I could pay that and save you the trouble.”

************************

So, if my friend gets $250, he will give me the check.  But, this issue combined with the small ebay issue has left an extremely bad taste in my mouth in recent days.  Working nearly full-time for “hobby income” is stupid.  So, the net results of these events, my thoughts and other business & personal issues are I am turning my business of 7 years back into a hobby.  The phones will still ring, but we may not pick up as often.  The orders will still be processed, but they may not ship same day.  And, I am cutting expenses and likely selling less, but I figure I will still net more money.

I can’t think about that charge back without getting very angry.  But, if God needed to use the charge back to nudge my “job” back into a hobby, then I think it can still be a good investment!

 

Credit Card Chargebacks

I will be one of the first to admit that my products are not perfect.  And, not every customer will love the item they purchased right out of the box.  Since I want to try and keep customers happy, I will try and work with them when this happens.  As the seller, I usually think I get the worse end of the deal, but if the customer is mostly happy, then it hopefully all works out.

As I opened my email this morning, I received one of the worst type of emails I could receive. A customer had initiated a chargeback for the item he purchased.  Because I had no idea of the problem he had with his sign, this was very disturbing to me.  I immediately emailed the customer to try and find out what problem  he encountered.  I also logged into my credit card processor to provide the proof of shipping and receiving information that they required.  I then went about my day with a less than positive attitude.

When my email was checked a few hours later, the customer had responded.  He let me know he had emailed me 10 days ago and addressed his concerns.  (I never saw it until this morning.) After I did not respond, he told me he had no choice but to file the chargeback.  Did he have the right to file the chargeback?  Of course!  Did he have a choice?  Well, if his phone worked he did!  It is hard to try and resolve an issue if you don’t know the issue exists.  And, if you are about to make a decision that affects another persons ability to do business (my credit card company haq “frozen” funds for the total cost of his purchase until the issue is resolved–sometimes this takes 2-4 weeks), it seems like a phone call and voice mail is the minimum step any customer should go to before choosing to initiate a chargeback.

I have filed chargebacks in the past.  Before I have done it, I have sent numerous emails and left several messages.  If they don’t respond to voice mails, then the assumption is they don’t want to be reached.  Rarely (if ever), do I send one email to a person and automatically assume it goes through.  If they don’t respond, I send another or I call.  When you assume, neither one of us is completely innocent.  And, I believe customers need to take some responsibility…especially if the sale is over $1,000.

The additional irony with this sale was this:  After the customer placed the order, I called him (yes, with a phone) within 2 hours of the order being placed to confirm what he wanted with the sign.  I guess he didn’t remember my phone worked after the sign arrived….

Can I give you a tip…..??

I purchased a business a few years ago on eBay, and, for a few years,  the boys helped operate it.  I was preparing to hand it off to my daughters, but my experience of yesterday will probably prevent that from happening any time soon….
The day started with the train ruining my dropping off of my daughters at school.  After running slightly ahead of schedule, the “train” completely ruined any opportunity of being early.  After making a “U-ee”, we navigated to get around the stopped train.  Is a train really allowed to stop for over 5 minutes on a train as traffic continues to pile up?  Just FOUR more train cars!!!!  I still had to modify my “commute” after dropping them off–the train was still sitting there.
After having been gone for a long weekend visiting Harding University, my laptop was anxious to be fired up.  But, it did not want to be fired up to allow me to do any “work”.  It was excited to let Norton scan all of its necessary innards for a FEW hours.  I was not completely unproductive due to my “backup” computer, but it was much less productive than normal.  And, it was the need to fulfill the filter orders that have allowed me to “provide” my tip….
The business in question is providing carbon pre-filters to customer who use small home air filters.  The carbon filter is purchased in bulk, and the filter is cut using circular scissors.  Each filter size has a separate template to ensure the filter is cut correctly.  If the scissors attempt to cut the filter but are not able to make complete contact with the filter, often the template needs to have the scissors ran along its edge more than once.  (The surface we cut on is not completely even, so we generally kneel on the template while the scissors run along  the edge.)  As I was cutting one order yesterday and feeling a little frustrated about my morning, I was doing one of those “secondary” cuts.  Unfortunately, the middle fingertip of my left hand was slightly outside the protection of the template.  It happened pretty quick, but it will be hard to remove the view of my fingertip (very thin, but yet recently a connected part of my body) setting on the cutting mat.  Since the injury was not cauterized immediately, my immediate concern became stopping the bleeding.  And, it took awhile….
  • Paper towels:  These were a constant part of the process.  The fingers are full of blood vessels, and the contents of a few of them flowed out my fingertip.  A few paper towels were soaked on that day!
  • Pressure:  I tried pressure, but since a tourniquet was not going to be self-administered, I moved on to plan C.
  • Cold:  Since it was on the fingertip, I put ice in a cup of ice and made my finger dive-in.  This had some success, but besides fully numbing my finger, it did not adequately slow the flow…
  • Elevate:   Finally due to boredom with the entire bleeding process OR an actual outwitting of the individual blood cells, this solved the problem.

Thankfully, this allowed me to “sort of” get some work done.  Not smoothly or without hiccups, but progress was made on my swelling list…  Two bandaids were needed–one over the top and down the sides and one around the tip.

A bandaid change and a bit of hydrogen peroxide and the finger was put to bed for the night…only a little seepage.  Handwashing has do be done to prevent gravity from prematurely soaking the bandaids, but the temporary modification shouldn’t kill me.
And, why do I write this out?  As on many days when I hope to be productive, God proves he has a sense of humor.  He reigns in our ambition and forces us to accede control to Him!