My Luddite Software

The software system - Merchant Miva - leaves a bit to be desired.  Slowly it keeps taking away things, if I had them in the first place.  In my low budget, semi-Luddite manner, I'm trying to work around it since I don't have the capital or interest to invest in a more refined system.  My latest way of working around the system in my Luddite, Quaker manner. (see my phone number policy comments here) I hope is working.

So, little Miva has taken away the ability for customers to select First Class as a shipping option (the method most often used for my lightweight products) and the third party software developers recently stopped providing a fix.

So, now:

 If you chose Priority Mail, I ship Priority Mail.  If you choose Parcel Post, I ship First Class and refund you the difference.

Orders over $50.00 are shipped free - US, Canada and Britain only.

These aren't quite discounts, but..I hope these help make up with a kind of personal interest and service for what technology isn't offering. 


My Miva software is a much older version- I think I've had it for nearly 10 years, having updated only once since I started this business in 2000. And though I realize it would probably increase business to invest in a better system, I don't have a lot of money or time to invest in a better system.  This is a tiny home based business, I'm not (at 64) hoping to grow this puppy into something huge and profitable.

That can't sound good to my customers.

(read also the post on how my system works with giving customers their discount)

The holidaze are upon us...

About last week, it seemed everyone (myself included) began to realize that Christmas is upon us... orders started flowing in right as I got this feeling that I wanted... or needed.. (whatever!) to get out and do some serious shopping!

Is the economy picking up? I don't know... I'm not entirely shopping with coupons and sales on my mind -- my youngest son and oldest grandson have things they want on their Wish List -- they seem to be like many others in their age groups (9 - 18) so the things they want aren't deep discounted.

And my dear customers stun me by somehow ignoring or not noticing the 10% discount I've offered through Twitter. My guess is most are my age or older and relatively clueless as to what Twitter is, let alone how to use it. I'm also a bit shocked at how many are a few cents (and I mean cents, not dollars) away from the free shipping, but ignore it.

Of course, I've done the same myself many times -- my own attitude has been something along the lines of "daggone it, you aren't gonna manipulate me into buying another bookplate I don't want or need, just to get your free shipping!"

I'd love to know, aside from good service and good products, what do customers want?