Archive for the ‘Website/Business’ Category

Techniku, a leading motor supplier for the blinds market, is calling it quits. Probably to the floundering building market. A recent email sent to their vendors reads:

In an attempt to keep the business going we have talked with several
potential purchasers, but have not been able to reach satisfactory terms.
While we continue to have discussions with various parties potentially interested
in continuing certain products, nothing is certain at this time. Therefore
(+ at this moment) we see no other option than to prepare for winding down
the company effective as per December 15, 2009.
Customers with open orders, please advise us if you wish for your orders
to be filled. If so, they will be shipped only on a pre-paid basis,
following payment of any outstanding account balances. Additionally, such
purchases will not be covered by a Techniku warranty, while customer returns
will not be accepted after this date.

Vendors with open purchase orders should immediately cease any shipments,
unless specific contrary instructions from management of the company.
During the wind down period that is expected to last two months, several
employees will be responsible for liquidating the assets, consisting
primarily of Inventory and Receivables, and pay on a pro rata basis the Company
outstanding obligations. As the owner has funded all operating losses,
there is no outstanding bank debt. The lease on our facility has a sixty day
termination clause, which matches the expected wind down period, and
therefore there is no extended lease liability. Employees, other than those
that will be responsible for the liquidation process, will be terminated on
December 15, 2009, and will be paid their accrued PTO.

While discussions with various parties continue, it is our intention to
provide you by January 30, 2010 with an update on either our discussions with
parties interested in various assets of the company, or on the liquidation
process.

We thank you for your business and support over the past, and are deeply
sorry that our relationship might end this way.

Thanks for your patience. Everything is working fine except the 1-800 number. We posted our local number up and expect the 1-800 number to work today (hopefully). Thanks again.

Please use our standard support e-mail address or our other contact methods.

We are updating our phone lines today so we may be down a few hours or possibly all day (thanks Quest). Worse case we will forward our phones to our cells. For the internet (we are going to a T1 line), I can remotely check it.

Please put your prayers for the people of the Houston area. I am a native Texan, have friends there, family there, our Hunter Douglas supplier is there. It is a great city and the people couldn’t be better. God bless America.

The CVS Code is that 3 digit number on the back of your credit card. Although not full proof, it is another form of security because technically, you need to have the card in possession in order to have that number. Shades Shutters Blinds hasn’t used this feature frankly because we only had one “incident” in eight years. But, two days ago, we got another one and this was a doozy. So, you will now need to have that code starting today or tomorrow in order to place an order. Also, we are going to be using Google checkout soon and it is required there as well. This will help people from ordering stuff off of your card.

We will be closed Sat, Sun and Monday for Labor Day and hope you do as well. We will be back Tuesday morning. However we will be checking emails. Have a good one guys!

Sorry it has been a while for posting but we have been very busy here at Shades Shutters Blinds. We just redesigned the entire back end to make ordering, order look up, status, orders to and from our factories, shipping etc. much more convenient for us and you.

Always Free Color Samples

We have been designing our colors to run dynamically to make it much easier to manage. I still love the static system we still use but with over 8000 product images, it is getting very difficult to manage. Plus, our web pages load simply too slow and we want to speed that up for you. Since the housing market is not what it used to be, we are also going to start doing some aggressive marketing and no, we will not bug you with emails. Mainly more advertising in the search engines and in local resources such as the Denver Post newspaper, yellow pages other sources. We have also been rebuilding our sample room to pull samples and mail them the actual day you order them. This will get the samples in your hands much quicker than in the past. Looks like we should be wrapped up with all these “side” projects by the end of the month. If you got caught with bugs with your order during the back end switch, thank you for your patience. We test and test before going live but sometimes the only way to tell is for us or worse, a customer to discover this during the actual order process. Everything we sell is blinds but there are tons of different options that we can and have missed a few.

Oh, one more thing, on every product page where it says more options, I added a link for parts and it will pull up a web page or a pdf to show you all the parts for that particular product so, if something breaks or comes missing, looking up the part will be a snap for both of us:)

Louis

Hi. If you are ordering samples, a PO box address is OK. However, if you are placing a blinds order, we need a physical address. No PO Boxes. This can turn a simple order into a total nightmare. Trust us. Just got through with one of these and it was not fun. Secondly, if you are going to not be perminately at your ship to location, please, please order a month or more in advance. You never know what can happen such as back orders, damaged freight etc. and turning the order around after it has shipped can cause the same issues. Thanks.

Friendly reminder. I haven’t needed to post any policies and warranties since I started this blog over two years ago but, as stated in our policies and warranty pages, blinds that we offer are meant for actual windows that are on the inside of your location. Projection screens, room dividers, shutters used as door or room separators, outdoor applications etc are just a few examples of no warranty situations. The applications sound great and are doable in most cases but remember, No warranty. Sorry about that. Our manufacturers will not warrant this and neither can we so purchase with caution.

Many bugs have been worked out. Main one was lack of estimated ship dates and tracking info. All orders have been placed but some customers will not get tracking info. I will try to get the back ones caught up today but am sure some will slip through. Do not worry. They are coming and thanks for your patience.

We just totally redesigned our shopping cart to make it much, much easier to track, place and organize orders. The look is much different than the old shopping cart. If you have suggestions to make it easier, better looking or find any bugs (hopefully not), really anything to improve it, let us know. I will take 3% off your order if you do find something and we change it. Just let me know(Louis)by email at support@shadesshuttersblinds.com. The suggestion has to be something we implement and I will need to know what order to apply the discount to. Thanks for your help.

Yep, finally a Friday fourth. We will be closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I will be checking emails throughout the weekend. Have fun everyone!

Sorry its been a while since the last post but I finally got a vacation (since my 3 year old was born)! Went on a “Windows to the World” cruise that was given by the awesome Hunter Douglas team. My wife and I went on the Caribbean Cruise that took us around Cuba with stops in Jamaica and Grand Cayman.

 Hunter Douglas is coming out with some new and exciting (maybe not so exciting)projects for 2008 and 2009. The Hunter Douglas Pirouette window shadings will be available nation wide in the next few months. This is a roman shade and regular blind combo that has won tons of awards. It is supposed to be revolutionary like the Silhouette. They are also coming out with a totally new line of vertical blinds. One other thing they were talking about is a 90 days same as cash that they will be offering to their dealers to make it easier for you to pay.

This site is run by Kevin and is loaded with information on Designing, Building, Financing, Furnishing & Landscaping your Corridor Home. It provides tons of links, books and other information. Check out Corridor Homes today.

First off, the picture to the left that says “Hacker Safe” is trademarked by Scan Alert.

I just read an interesting article today on the Webmaster World forums about a site being hacked with the “Hacker Safe (trademarked)” logo on their site. Go to: Webmaster World to read the article and the posts about it.

Goes to prove that no site is safe from attack. The most important way to protect your information is to look for the “HTTPS:” on the URL address on your check out page (the page where you are typing in your CC number). That means that the information you put in is going to a secure server (even those are not fool proof) but it gives you a measure of security.

Shades Shutters Blinds stores no credit card information. We are even unable to look up your credit card information. We use a reputable company called Authorize.net that processes your card. They are one of the top three processing companies out there. They take extreme measures to stop hacking and the good thing is, they will warrant it. The Thawte Secured label we post online shows that we are certified and all the transactions are going over a secure server.

This is a first of a three part series on how we started. I guess you can call this the start up stage.

How long have you been in the Window Covering industry?

Since around 1994 but did do some blind installation in college. I got into the industry full time in around 1995 and have been doing it since. I started off with a partner and did in-home sales of blinds until around 1998. Then, I started working as a sales rep for a blinds manufacture.

What made you decide to start selling your blinds online?

As a sales rep, some of our clients were doing it online and it seemed like the easy thing to do. They were successful at it and the headaches that I seemed to encounter as a rep and as an in-home retailer, seemed minimal on their end. I kept it in the back of my head for a couple of years and tried it (unsuccessfully) for a short time on my free time.

When did you decide to do this full time and why?

As a sale rep for the manufacture, I was eventually transferred to a different state in which the company I worked for was not well known (Colorado). It was much harder than expected and I soon wanted to do something else in the blinds business besides manufacturer sales. When the opportunity and the finances became available, I chose to give it a full time shot for two years. After that, I would pack it in but it fortunately worked out.

What were your goals when you first started?

Simply to make a living on the internet (or over the computer). We started in my basement just doing research of how to do basic web design and learned any info we could on webmaster forums on how to be successful in the search engines. I learned very quickly that we did not have the funds to do a pay-per-click advertising campaign like the competitors that I knew. I tried it for short time but the small budget we had got sucked up in a matter of days with little results. I quickly realized that the natural search results were the way to go and that is still the path we use today.

Did anyone help you get started? If so, how?

My partner (who I met as a sales rep) knew this was the way to go. He helped me financially. As it grew, it became a full time job for both of us.

How did you get the connections for your business? Who did you use and why?

I new everybody (pretty much) on the manufacturing side for most of our suppliers so negotiating was not a problem. We wanted to emphasize the Hunter Douglas name brand so that was a goal also.

What were the first steps you took on having an internet site?

That is funny you asked. I checked into a friend of mine in Dallas that has a web design company. First, you have to have a server or a host. I did not even know that! I signed up with a small local hosting company and came up with the name Shades Shutters Blinds. The name was not taken and I figured the keywords in the title would eventually help on my rankings in the search engines. If I could change it now, I would have a much shorter name with branding. Anyways, I wanted to do the design myself since I had all the time to do it and felt better working than waiting for someone else to do the design of the website. I actually read the entire Microsoft FrontPage book and bought the program! For the original logo, I had my buddy in Dallas design for around $50. I put the rest in myself. I did not know what sub pages were or even hyperlinks but I soon learned.

What was the hardest part about designing the website?

It was by far the data on the back end. Our industry works on a grid system for pricing based on size. There can also be up to 20 different styles and options per product so the back end had to be industry specific. At the time, most of my competitors where working off that grid system and the end user (customer) had to figure out the rest from that grid that was posted on that particular web site. I new fast that if we could come up with an easier solution and get it to work, that we would be unique. That became our moto “Easy ordering of affordable blinds”. We were one of the first to create the “Quick Quote” in which the customer could select the product, put the sizes in, and get a price and order. We used a Microsoft Access application to do this with much improvising. No special options were available. Just the product, size and price could be done.

How did that work?

It was fine at first. I even tried to copy write our “Quick Quote”. I didn’t have luck because the program already existed and the name was too generic. Now everyone uses it. We soon discovered that whatever you put online people would eventually order. So the options, color selections and product mix had to be increased and fast. At this stage, it was over me and my partners ability to create ourselves so we used outside sources to re-do the quick quote to make it even more user friendly.

Lets go to marketing. How did you promote your company?

At first, yellow page ads, mailers and fliers to the local new home subdivisions. That really got our foot in the door by heavily promoting the do-it-yourself and save concept that was lacking in our market. We found that if we advertised, “Shop online and save big money”, we had a conversion rate of over 150% verses the free home estimates that other companies were doing. It started to balloon from there as word got out. I guess your average person does not like salespeople in their homes. Funny. Also, we stressed buy just one or the whole house. It doesn’t matter. People liked that too because there was no pressure to make a large, single purchase. Our average home (to do it completely) can be over $1000 or much more. Doing a few at a time without being pressured really helped out this concept. This worked especially well for customers that just bought a new home. We all know what kind of expense that is.

End of part one. Part two will be internet marketing strategies.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The day after I was still stuffed. My family pulled the blinds down and turn the big screen on for some football. I was eating leftover turkey and enjoying the nice day. Football was not as exciting this year as in the past. After closing the shutters and contemplating if I should even get up at all, my wife told me I had to baby sit. My 2 1/2 year old daughter was not interested in football so I was forced to watch Little Einsteins which proptly put me to sleep. At least I had good food.

I just redesigned this blog from scratch. Please let me know what you think of the layout. It took all day and I am still learning about blog design. It isn’t as easy as regular HTML. Check out the new blogger Page Elements. It made adding new stuff like pictures and titles much easier than the old way. I used an original free template and tweaked it. I haven’t used Photoshop in around four years so it took me half the day just to refresh my memory.

I also added some new Sanibel Roman Shade fabrics today. 54 new colors to choose from. Some of the fabrics are really nice. The suede collection looks and feels just like suede but is actually made of polyester. The Sienna Silk is true 100% silk and looks gorgous. Good luck on cleaning off stains though.

I will be working on end of the month all day tomorrow and will have the new sales for November posted in the next day or two.

We are going to add Comfortex cellular shades with all the prints and blackout materials they have to offer. That should close the gap on products that people request but we do not have. I also posted some new pages to the site that you can check out.

We are going to be pushing Solar Shades or sunscreens. This is the fabric you can see through. You often see this in banks and restaurants. Pricng will be very competitive and the fabrics come from Hunter Douglas and Phifer screen shades.

Applause honeycomb shades by Hunter Douglas are becoming more and more popular as the cost of the Duette continues to rise. Check out the Applause cell shades online or you can check them out at the Depot or Lowes.

The Hunter Douglas Brilliance Pleated shades have come with the new motorization feature that is both radio remote and infared remote combined into one. Hunter Douglas Brilliance also has several new fabric lines such as the Haberdasher and Rain Forest. Please be aware that the Brilliance motorized blinds cannot be made with the backing. It must be the original fabric only.

First snow as of yesterday (10-14-07) for our city (Denver). Nothing sticked. Shopping cart is having slight troubles and the webmaster guru should be in this week to fix. Looks like Rockies will be going to the World Series and we will be closed on some of those days. Will keep you posted.

We finally got settled into the new office as of Monday Oct. 1st. It took three days to complete the movew and the phones were cut off for that amount of time. Thank you for your patience. We are still working on getting the new office set up. Computers and phones are up and running but the samples still have much work to do. Be patient on your samples. They should be caught up by the end of the week. New hours will be from 8-6 monday through Friday and by appointment only on Sat. and Sundays. Numbers and faxes.

We will be moving to our new offices on October first. The new address is:

Shades Shutters Blinds
405 South Wilcox #103
Castle Rock, Colorado 80109

Numbers will be the same.

Sorry its been a couple of months since the last post but many things have changed since the last post. The website is finally done. Check out Blinds. We have a totally modern and new layout and ordering is much much easier than before. You can now order multiple options off of one page instead having to go to separate pages to view the options. Check out Plantation Shutters to see this new feature.

We also added many new information pages allowing you to get much more information than before: Window Blinds, Venetian Blinds, Discount Window Blinds, Bamboo Blinds, Roller Blinds, Shades, Window Shades, Blinds, Shutters, Window Shutters, Vinyl Shutters, Interior Shutters, Custom Blinds, Sun Shade, Wooden Shutters, Fabric Shade, Aluminum Blinds, and Horizontal Blinds off tons of information to make ordering and blind selection much easier.

We know update your blinds order status daily and send multiple shipments so you blinds will not be slowed down in production. Our Hunter Douglas has been increade to include all the Duette Honeycomb shades.

Still working on the site design the new layout should be done by the end of the first week in April. The backend stuff is slow go but we are almost there. Changes to be made are: easier navigation, new fresh look, easyier sample requests, easier viewing of pages.