1 month and counting

Well the title says it all - it is now one month until my target opening date of 1st October for JKToys. Apparently my goods are now in the country; after failing to get a response to my e-mails I finally resorted to calling the intermediary company in China to find out what is going on. Re-assuringly I managed to get through to my account manager (although I get the feeling she may be the one account manager!) and she reported that my container had been unloaded at Felixstowe and I should soon be hearing from their logistics partner to discuss delivery.

I have received my heat sealer and the necessary consumables and have to say I am happy witht the end results of the sample items that I have packaged up - I now need to spend a bit of time to develop the process so as to reduce the turn-around time for each order.

Development of the website has been continuing apace - helped by the fact that my e-commerce provider has set up a new forum for bug reporting, feature requests etc. and they are taking all the comments on board and turning things around pretty quickly, so fair play to them - for reference they can be found at http://www.hbecommerce.com/ (if you use them to set up a shop please let them know I sent you!).

The thing I am really missing is the product - I need this to do the necessary photo work and to work out what track layout options I can build and hence market with the track I have ordered. I have sent a request to China for prices of additional items I want to stock (surely it can't take as long for the second order), I am looking to expand the range with some of the more expensive items such as train sheds, turntables etc so as to be able to offer more of a one stop shop for Brio and wooden train set accessories. One of my concerns at the moment is that because I will not have a stock of the full range of items people may go elsewhere, the plan therefore is to expand the range of items stocked as quickly as possible.