[John]

Arlla wrote:

Is there a way for us to see how many of a thing have been sold in the store? For instance, I’m curious as to how many dragons were in this last batch of old green curlies, and I’m curious as to how many total pearl white griffin chicks were sold. If that’s something that someone keeps track of, would it be possible to have it posted in the store as well?

Lets keep this question alive. I think it is worth looking into, but I don’t think the software has an obvious way to display prior sales.

[John]

Bella wrote:

As a retailer and e-tailer, I think I know what Art means. Here in Omaha, NE, I carry almost the full line in my brick and mortar store. I sell almost none though. It disappoints me that we don’t sell them in the store. I wish you folks lived in Omaha!

I do sell several online in my webstore and I was very happy that they were doing well and I could provide these gorgeous statues to folks all over the world. I panicked too when I saw that Windstone was selling online. I saw a very good source of income leaving. I called Susie and she was very sweet and assured me that most folks were buying from online retailers or local stores, not the Windstone website. Our brick and mortar would be hurting if not for our website, we do more online business now than in our physical store, it is very hard to keep the doors open without a website nowdays.

I know that I have gotten some great referrals and met some wonderful folks through this forum and I am very appreciative of that and how easy Windstone is to work with and how gorgeous their statues are.

I am thrilled that Windstone is making the Sunset Griffins available to the retailers. My family arrived yesterday and I will have them online in about an hour.

I agree that layaway if very helpful. we offer layaway too, we have for a decade! It has helped a lot of nice folks get the Windstones they dream of!

Blessings,
Cindy

We for years put off going direct on-line because we didn’t want to compete with our dealers but what ended up happening is that a couple of dealers selling on-line were under-cutting the brick and mortar store prices and none of them were really reaching the customer base that we need to develop. We know the volume of sales of our on-line dealers and it doesn’t amount to as much as you would think. Under-cutting store prices certainly damages everybody’s chance of success. And it was also certain that no dealer could really establish our lines’ web sales in Europe and the rest of the world. It is much easier for a manufacturer selling direct to win the confidence of international buyers and it is also much easier for us to get publicity and search engine position then a dealer.

Every bit of web exposure we get helps create new collectors and local shoppers and, whether we like it or not, this is the direction commerce is headed. We do get a lot of traffic on our dealer referral pages and many calls to the factory from people looking for a dealer. We never try to sell to these callers without first directing them to a store but often they are a hundred miles or more from the nearest dealer.

[John]

foxfeather wrote:

I know that story very well. I’ll start haunting stores again in the new year. The economy here is insane 😯

Insane bad or insane good?

[John]

dragonmedley wrote:

Quote:

I don’t honestly know if there is one store in Ontario that still carries Windstones.

In Ottawa, there’s a few – Rideau Center, Place D’Orléans and St-Laurent Center – if you’re ever there.

In the GTA, the Green Earth in Burlington had some, but since the wholesaler went out of the picture, even if I encouraged her to do so, I’m not sure she’s ordered from Windstone.

We’re gonna have to march in there one day!
We are still getting new old customers from Canada as they discover that we sell direct to them now, but a kind word from the collectors sure helps. Some thought we went out of business or something.

[John]

safyre_dream wrote:

I went into a local book store that also had other dragon, fairy, pagan, etc themed gift item around the store. I asked them if they ever heard of Windstone. The lady behind the desk said “Yes, they’re great. We put an inquiry in, but they didn’t seem interested in doing business with us. I think they want more artsy places”. Is that true? Does Windstone have a preferance who sells their sculpts?

If not, any of the Windstone Staff hear from Ann’s Books in Atascadero, California?

~Safyre
The only reason we wouldn’t sell to a book store is if they are too close to another dealer. If they have bad credit we would still sell to them on a prepay or COD basis. We really like to support book stores so I’m not sure what may have transpired. Send the store name and we will look into it.

[John]

wolflodge100 wrote:

I know ebay is factoring into keeping Windstone around. That is why I don’t begrudge them one bit for putting up these wonderful pieces and getting large amounts of money for them. I love the fact that they offer some limited editions of the pieces that can’t be production. It gives most people a chance to have something special. My biggest fear is that they will stop selling to stores and be direct sales only. That would be a tradgedy! So, I hope the ebay pieces continue to make good money even though I would LOVE to get one at a deal! 😆

This is correct. We are struggling to replace the sales from the hundreds of stores that have closed over the last four years and preserve enough cash flow to continue. The eBay auctions add value to our new products and also to every old collectable piece that is out there while it provides great advertising to new collectors. Do I snipe auctions on eBay when I am after a piece of equipment we need for the shop? You bet I do, but I have set a limit to what I am willing to spend and I am often out bid. Do I put in early high bids and let them ride? Yes, I do that too if it seems like a better strategy for that particular auction.

[John]

Nambroth wrote:

Part of the reason (NOT the only reason) Windstone makes bidder names anonymous on their auctions is to encourage bidding because you DON’T know who you are bidding against.

eBay now hides the bidder IDs on most auctions so we have no choice in this.

[John]

dark_zorse wrote:

Just out of curiosity, what are you cooking for thanksgiving?

Happy Turkey Day!

I can answer this one for Melody.

We had a 21 pound turkey stuffed with crusty sourdough and some other fancy bread that I don’t remember the name of mixed with apples, pears, a banana, dates, pecans, raisins, browned onion, a little celery root, spices like basil, marjoram, cinnamon, dried cilantro, parsley, maybe a pinch of sage and about a fourth of a bottle of some nice Armenian brandy. Wild rice casserole made with some shredded carrots, browned onion, finely chopped sautéed leeks, bacon, eggs and a little cream. Potatoes, carrots, pearl onions and leeks cooked with some turkey grease. Sweet potatoes steamed whole then stuffed with caramelized sweet onion, dates cooked down with more of the brandy, and chopped pecans and then finished in the oven. We also had some good bread to pass around and green salad. For desert we had homemade apple pies made with a wheat/almond meal crust and some chopped candied walnuts on top, and pies made from a combination of pumpkin, some kind of green skinned squash that I don’t recall, and some cooked yam to give it body. A guest brought homemade fudge and made pomegranate “martinis”.

[John]

Art Slinger wrote:

I guess feeling like I had any handle on dealing Windstone, was erroneous. I have so many customers that can’t wait to gather enough information on an item to find the website, and buy there. I spend the bread to rent,light,insure a store and work 60 hrs/week, so it can be show room for Web shoppers. Oh goody;..now I’ve lost Windstone too. This happens to be my FAVE. I had arguments with my wife because of my overspending on Windstone, when sales didn’t support that action.
I really love so much of this great work by Melody.
Recently I’ve had to move some of our inventory on e-bay;…so I completely understand what has gone on.
Yes the WOLVES at the door are very large, hungry, and many. I’m right there with y’all.
BUT, this hurts.
I’ve been able to do business with companies that sell on line, usually they had slightly higher prices. We’ll see what time has to say.
Thank you for reading my Rant.

I am going to post my thoughts, and then I will read the rest of this thread. We have lost so many dealers due to the deterioration in the general condition of retailing over the past five years that we either had to sell on line to reach our established collector base or lose those collectors who are under serviced. We also need the cash flow to even survive.

Although our whole line has been available for years on line from a variety of dealers at keystone, the same as our pricing, many collectors who are now without local dealers lack the confidence to buy on line from anybody but the factory. Some of our dealers who have sold on line have even offered special pricing from time to time that undercuts retail. By selling direct we can, and do, encourage collectors to buy locally and we can, hopefully, influence the on line commerce of our product.

Most brick and mortar stores realize that the more awareness of Windstone we create the better. We are running Google ads and starting other campaigns at huge expense in order to create more collectors and our direct sales help offset this cost. We also try to drive them to our dealers. Does any other on line seller of Windstone do that? And while we are promoting and revaluing the line up with our eBay auctions and higher priced limited production pieces you are dumping stock on eBay to help take it down?

[John]

We were not able to get even the high bidder’s name this time but on the other auction it was two different, supposedly stolen, eBay user’s accounts and I would guess that we would have seen a third one this time. EBay has not yet given us any information from the pulled auctions, so we will closely watch future auctions to collect what we can.

I hate to even think it but this started happening just after we hired and let go someone who was to work on marketing and eBay auctions. I will follow through as dots become available to connect and I am pressuring eBay to cooperate and find whoever is doing this. They do have an investigative division and we will see how well they follow through. Should they be working with the FBI on this sort of problem I’m sure they will not disclose what course of action they take there either. It sure does seem to be a motive of harassment involved because there doesn’t seem to be any way that anyone can materially profit from doing this.

[John]

Nambroth wrote:

Congrats Arlla!! I’m glad you got to see him in person before bidding- I’m always worried that the new owners will be disappointed that their windstones don’t look as nice as the photos!!

My theory is that John’s photos capture the detail better, but don’t show the color as accurately (the color on his photos is subdued- intentionally I think so that the piece seems more vibrant in person), while mine are brighter and may show the color more vibrantly but don’t show the detail as nicely. It’s a tradeoff!
Actually, looking at the griffin in my office with florescent lighting and viewing your pictures and the eBay pictures on my old 20” NEC monitor, here is what I see:
Your pictures have much more contrast and saturation, and a red shift so the pics are whiter in the feathers and redder in the markings and beak than the piece really is. My pictures are much truer in contrast and the color of the markings and beak are very accurate (less red). The feathers have a greenish cast but are about the right density of color. This will be different of course on each and every monitor but consumer digital cameras are programmed toward more intense reds and greens, as are most popular films, to insure vibrant skin tones and lush greenery.

When I shot this I did have to desaturate the color a bit because, even though we have a expensive professional digital camera and I set it for faithful color reproduction, the color interpolation algorithm is not perfect and sees many of these paints as too intense, or just a bit too red. Making an overall correction to the image gave the wings the slight green cast. I fight this constantly, but the worst problem for viewers is still the difference in their monitors.

A note for those who don’t know: To get anything close to right you must also white balance the camera with an accurate gray card each time you change the type of lighting.

[John]

And how many virgins per year must be sacrficed to the earthquake gods to keep them appeased?

[John]

Jasmine wrote:

I’m on Firefox and there seems to be a small problem with the placement of the text and buttons. Your logo is overlapping your email addy and the top button is overlapping the “Find a Windstone brick and mortar dealer and view our”…plus the text isn’t a complete sentence (as shown in the quote).

We will take a look at that tomorrow. Thanks.

[John]

Onyxt wrote:

Ok, if I were to save get a couple of these for Christmas but don’t like anything till I dunno April, will they still work? Or even in a year if I just save a lot of them? Just curious. Thanks!

Yeah, that’s fine. They won’t expire and any balance left will carry over to later purchases if you buy something for less than the certificate values total.

[John]

Did anyone get the buyers name from the auction?

[Author]

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