Thanks!
If really brave, would give all our inventory away and start again-but don’t have heart or the energy!!
An old friend, same age as husband and myself(If only as old as one feels, I’m about 150) and always a gee-tar strummer w/ a pleasant baritone voice, decided when he retired, to become a C& W singer. Now has 2-3 gigs every weekend..
Proves it’s never too late! We’re taking him as our role-model!!
Congrats on the move back to back!
I moved a lot when I was younger, but vowed decades ago that this house would be my last because packing, moving — and worst of all, unpacking — is more stress than I ever want to go through again.
I must have been half asleep when I wrote this. It’s supposed to say, “back to your roots.”
Seems like a great idea to live where you want to. As for clearing your inventory, I have a similar problem. Got about 5k down in Portsmouth and several times that inventory in Maine. We are not using the house in Maine, and need to empty all of the inventory before we can put it on the market.
It will not be a fast sell. Zillow, Trulia and the other real estate sites have no estimated value on our house, and there are no comps.
The likely buyer will be someone who has money and thinks they can retire to Maine. Foolish people. The winter weather is not really getting any warmer, just more volatile.
We have several friends who after retirement became musicians, not making a lot of money but living out a dream. Also c/w.
Just to get this thread back on track again…
In preparation for a slow day on the 28th ( This Friday, BTW ) I am bringing out more boxes of unpriced books.
I plan to pet cats more on the 28th too.
We had no sales today for the first time this year!! The boycotters might be trying it out a few days early!!
Amazon: “60% of sales on Amazon come from independent sellers. The good news is that we’ve already screwed them over so that you don’t have to! At Amazon, we take customer service to a whole new level.”
Just saw a heavy commercial for Amazon in the last 24 hours pushing the fact that they were made up of small sellers. Local small businesses, prime time and I think about a 30 second clip.
I would think they may be a bit concerned about this so-called “Blackout” and boycott.
Friday is a slower day for us so… so what.
I see that same commercial nightly prime time hours on a popular network.
Seems to run multiple times.
I believe they are - thus the reason for that commercial. I’m not a fan of facebook but have been viewing several political sites lately - lots of discussion about boycotting Amazon, WaPo and discontinuing prime memberships overall. Like a dog with a bone, some of these folks just wont’ let it go. Even if the discussion turns to the fact that not purchasing is hurting small businesses - always takes a turn to “well they should move onto a different way to sell” conversation. Not good.
Lots of discussion yesterday in our local “support the community” meeting about WaPo . At least 20 said subscriptions were cancelled yesterday.
I don’t think Amazon cares much about this particular day of boycott as much as they are concerned it may pick up momentum and (more importantly) cause a drop in their stock price.
With as much notice about this that Amazon had, I’m kinda surprised they didn’t set up some sort of event (like a coupon party), to try and offset any possible loss.
It will be interesting to see how sales go tomorrow. Yesterday was unusually slow and off the previous 2 days / recent daily trend by 15%. Today seems normal or perhaps a little above normal. Imagine those that want to participate in the blackout tomorrow know they need stuff and order it today instead of tomorrow? 
Kind of defeats the purpose.
The last day of the month is always tricky everywhere in retail, and particularly at Walmart.
Buyers wait for a fresh month to find new deals. Buyers on fixed incomes / social security are tapped out by the last day of the month. I’ve noted this before but we see a stark drop off in our Walmart marketplace rev from the 17th of every month on. First 2 weeks are great and then sales drop back 35% for the rest of the month. Thought I was crazy but our Ad firm sees the same with others they work with.
With all that said, it’s going to be hard to pin any minor change in sales tomorrow (+/- 10-15%) to this 2/28 “blackout”.
Was watching a piece on CNN this AM and it seems Target (stores) is the main “target”…
I have an Amazon order arriving here today, and I have put off a order which I can wait for until tomorrow.
Sharing just a few things found across the interwebs today so that you can think about messaging for your small business. (And one graphic for a “day of sharing” that might also work for some of your businesses.)
One thing I have seen is the message evolving in these few weeks, to raise awareness about the differences between the targeted businesses and small/local businesses.
We’ve still had no sales. So about 36 hours without an order. Wow! This hasn’t occurred to us since AMZ started tracking the handling gap back in the fall. Aways had 6-12 books waiting…waiting…
We cleared all our orders this morning, took 'em to the P.O- I had a 3 hour nap!! I can recommend relaxation/meditation/utter collapse during this boycott-and in the future.
In the last two months, had several rooms repainted prior to the move, a upstairs toilet in the middle of the bathroom floor as we redo that flooring- you know what contractors are. A job that should have taken a week…
Forced to carefully move 3K books ourselves (my private collection) though contractor offered to have “professionals” move them. Oh, yeah-are there professional book movers?? Books scattered over both floors- on collapsible tables, any flat surface, been that way for weeks. Told stalwart husband as we reshelved most last night-if you think this is fun, think about moving TEXAS EXILE’s volumes----the reason I’m culling half!!
Looking forward to not getting any orders but I have to remember not everyone lives on the internet so I probably will still get orders tomorrow lol. A break would be good because trying to manage my business and manage girl scout cookie season has left me exhausted 
.
… and the rest of the world reads it like this …
As an ex-Cookie Mom, I salute you!! One for years as daughter progressed to her Silver Award! At 15, she went on to other things and frankly, I was relieved. No more piles of cookies (which called to me-love Samoas- and piles of cash/checks that required balancing).
Good experience though, for both of us. Wonder if the boycott/freeze includes that American institution Girl Scout Cookies??
One could be put in time out for even thinking such things.
The right to have Thin Mints is in the Constitution (somewhere … we swear … it was added with permanent magic marker).
I am sorry for your loss of sales. Just another data point, not to rub it in. Each day in the last 7 days we have been increasing in sales. Up 31% over the prior 7 days, 7% over the same time last year.
Friday will be interesting it is typically a slower day for us every week. I am not concerned.
However, we have a mix of family items and business items we manufacture. One of the business items we make is targeted at local businesses, trying to draw people off the street and into the store or venue.
I have found in the last 35 years, having multiple vertical markets, blends the cashflow and keeps us ticking.
