April Fools!

This ain't no April Fools joke. We are going to PAUSE sales on CropChocolate.com for a few days - April Fools to Easter. Why? Over the past few months we have had some shipping errors so we have decided to make some changes to our fulfillment services. Part of the changes is moving. After the first two days of the la Carte check out, we are going to move our inventory. As part of the move--and why we need a break--we are going to recount all our inventory.

Part of the shipping errors have included duplicate shipments, triple shipments, etc. We have an idea of what is in stock but we were shocked to find out that we grossly oversold a few items. When you look at your la Cart, please make note of these items and if they are in your order please remove them as we have sold out and the manufactures no longer have inventory to buy. If you want to negotiate the purchase of partial items in the two items below, we will drastically reduce the price and you can still get the items that we do have. Here are the two items that are the most concerning:

Jar Sets with Blossoms by Making Memories

Paint 1.0 by Making Memories

*Red Wagon and Manila are sold out!

By next week we will have some new fulfillment processes set up which will speed up shipping and streamline systems so we don't have any more errors. What's more, the USPS tracking numbers will start going out again AND we are adding a SWEET new feature to the site! This may take an extra week but it'll be worth the wait!

You will still get your la Carte email to check out tomorrow and we will still be boxing those up and sending them out. We will just have some fun pics and sayings on the site temporally and you can still talk back and forth on the comment section.

Thank you again for being such SWEET customers! We work tirelessly to make your time spent on CropChocolate.com delish by adding new products, brands, ideas and more.

We are SWEET on YOU!

Jon N.

CropChocolate.com
One sweet deal at a time

PayPal Update

If you look at the bottom of CropChocolate.com we now have the PayPal Verified seal. We will be adding the express that allows you to pay without credit card as we test it. We are now clearing all funds through PayPal so that's a step in the right direction. Right?

Just an FYI.

We are SWEET on YOU!

CropChocolate.com

Chocolate a la Carte

One of the SWEETEST things we've done at CropChocolate.com is offering combined shipping. Then to add a little more sugar, we offered free shipping in the US shipments on transactions over $60; and $100 for Canadian customers. We have been working with a few international customers to see if we could come up with a number where we could ship to them for free and not lose our shirts. We have found the sweet spot for our international customers - $300 la Carte.

Last month we had an Australian customer order about $1,000 of product and it cost us about $600 to ship it but we still made a little bit of money after our cost of goods. We're happy with that. Our customer received great product and we made some money--we didn't get rich on the transaction by any means. Pretty good deal for both CropChocolate.com and our Australian customer.

With some other testing data from German customers, British customers and a customer in Singapore, we have found a way to share the SWEETNESS globally.

We realize that $300 is a lot of product to accumulate in a 2 week period so we're coming up with a new plan. Traditionally we would empty the la Carte after the two weeks were up, but with a growing international base--we ship 100s of international orders per month-- the 2 weeks doesn't seem to suit their needs. So we're going to empty the la Carte every 2 months. We will empty the la Cartes at the end of April and go from there.

This should give the US, Canadian, Australian, French, South African, German, Swede, etc., customers time to hit the SWEET spot for their country. We are totally SWEET on YOU and we want you to be sweet on us too!

CropChocolate.com

PS - If there are unwanted items in your la Carte please be sweet and take it out so other customers can get it.

Development Resources

When you're a small business, managing your money and resources are key. At CropChocolate.com we have successfully started a company without any debt. Our goal is to continue operating with a pay-as-you-go philosophy, not acquiring debt.

So our challenge is to allocate our resources to best serve our customers. Here's what we want to do:

- Offer PayPal as a way of transacting business

- Add an internal email system and forum where customers can continue dialog once a product changes

- Allow customers to change quantities of items in their la Carte before they check out

- Allow customers to view larger pictures of the product in their la Carte with descriptions

- Start sending confirmation emails with USPS tracking numbers. We did it with UPS and now we're integrating with USPS

We will be adding PayPal first. Our developer has been working tirelessly since we are transacting all business in the CropChocolate.com shopping cart and not leaving CropChocolate.com to transact through PayPal. You will still have all the features of PayPal just within the CropChocolate.com site. We will be doing our final testing late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning with the goal of offering PayPal as a permanent option from then on.

Thank YOU for allowing us to do this and for growing with us!

CropChocolate.com

A Few Weekends to Relax

Last weekend I surprised my wife and took Saturday off. We stuffed ourselves, our dog Beamer and some backcountry ski gear in the car and headed to a mountain range just outside of Evanston, Wyoming. We skied back to some yurts, had lunch, relaxed a bit and made it back home in time for a RedBox. We needed it! And we thank YOU all for shopping at CropChocolate.com so we can take a day or two here-and-there to enjoy each other.

This weekend I will be headed back into the mountains as I have volunteered to help with a local Boy Scout troop. We have leadership training courses on Friday night and all day Saturday so I will be away from the computer again. We will still offer the same great Customer Service as our weekend employees will be here to help you. We have caught up on all back ordered orders and all the shipments are en route to YOU!

Thank you again for helping CropChocolate.com became a success! The employees at CropChocolate.com have good lives because of YOU!

Jon N.

PS - Our dog Beamer is named after Todd Beamer, a passenger aboard United 93 for his heroic actions on 9/11. His last audible words, "Are you guys ready? Let's roll." has become the battle cry for the troops fighting for our freedom post 9/11.

Not Just SWEET but AHHH-SUMMM!

Wow. No. Really. WOW!

It has been so exciting to see the pictures from the Chocolatiers design team. We had a hunch that this would be the result so we're not surprised... just really, really impressed.

Here are a few sneak previews of the talented Chocolatiers using upcoming CropChocolate.com product:

Before (notebook not included)

After

Before (using Stamp by BasicGrey)

After It's been a month since we announced the Chocolatier design team and we're extremely excited about the results. Since we want to see several designs from each member of the team, we are going to freeze email applications to the team.

CropChocolate.com

One sweet deal at a time