The Countdown to Christmas Deadlines

 We are in the final push to get orders out in time for holiday gift giving. The post office has been doing a dismal job with deliveries. Once a package leaves our studio, who knows how long or what route it will take to get to it's destination. I keep my finger crossed and keep an eye on tracking. I can't even begin to count how many missing package inquiries I have made in the last few weeks.

While I haven't had any piggy banks or salt pigs in stock for months, there are still lots of nice pots in our gallery.

We have been open by appointment only since the end of November. It has been working out well. Shoppers have the gallery to themselves, everyone is wearing a mask, and we have contactless payment through Square.

I decided to run a report on the Square app and compared sales from the first weekend in December of 2019 to the first weekend in December, 2020. We sold more in 2020 than 2019! The people who called and made appointments were either past customers or people who saw our work online and were very interested in making a purchase. It felt so much safer than dealing with people in and out all day, sanitizing the door handle, if the door couldn't be left open, and reminding people that our emergency occupancy was only three.

Jeff and I have been very thankful that our online sales have sustained us over the last nine months. We are hopeful it will continue and that we can all get through this winter safe and healthy.

Turn Down The Volume

Yesterday was the final trip to the post office before the holiday, to ship a few last minute Etsy sales. Jeff and I like to give a little gift of pottery to our very nice mail clerk and our rural route driver. They both go above and beyond their USPS job description. We are extra appreciative because when we lived in NH our local postal office left much to be desired. It was so bad that I tried to avoid going there. Instead I went to the next little town, with a post office in a general store, where the post master was very pleasant and helpful.

When I returned from my errands, Jeff had a rather amusing story to tell me. We live across the street from a church, I think almost everyone in the south lives across the street from a church. Yesterday there was a funeral at said church. Two big guys came over from the funeral and into the shop. They stood in the door and told Jeff they came over because they heard music when they were at the church and thought it was coming from the pottery. Jeff said, "No music playing here." One of them said, "Can't you hear that?". To which Jeff replied, "Oh, yeah... sounds like music playing on a phone." The man reached in his pocket for his cell phone and found that an app had turned on and was playing electronic sounding music! They seemed a little embarrassed, asked a couple of questions about the log cabin, and made a hasty retreat.
The lesson of the day is, before heading over to your neighbor's and asking them to turn down their music... check your smart phone.

Wishing you and your's a very merry Christmas.