This has been the best month on record for us in the past year! It’s so hard to believe!
Especially considering that some months recently we were in a fight for the site’s survival.
I was within 2 or 3 days on several occasions of having to take a part time job to keep the site going.
As you may know, this is the most time consuming job i’ve EVER had.
So taking a part time job was not something I could do.
My entire life is dedicated to this site and that’s all I do. Eat, sleep, work! I’m sure many others feel the same way. My goal though is to eventully just work 9-5. Some day it will happen, but not likely.
A few have given up on the site and that’s understandable, but most have stuck with us through all the hard times.
Over the past year i’ve tried coming up with ways to get orders out at lightning speed. None of them have worked despite trying my best. I have now come up with a new one that I am almost certain will work once and for all!!
I had to face reality. As the only employee, I was just not capable of offering 20,000 DVDs. I did some research and only like 20% of our entire 20K collection has sold at least once. I also remember that when I had half as many DVDs I rarely had any delays in shipping DVDs. I even had some free time after work!
Some won’t like this, but I have a new rule in place. Any DVD that doesn’t sell at least one copy in a full year will be removed. There are probably some that never sold in 5+ years! You may now notice out catalog is way smaller.
I also realized that one type of DVD that probably doesn’t sell well are the old “square box” format DVDs they had when the DVD format was new. Back then any still had 4X3 format only DVDs. Widescreen in DVDs wasn’t all that common at first! It’s hard to believe.
Of course this is my only idea.
As much as i’d love to be an Archive site for old videos, it’s just no longer possible as one employee.
So right now my goal is to spent 95% of my time on order processing. If you’ve got an open order, please do not worry. You’ll 1000% get it guaranteed. Any updates will be done will I multi-task!
My plan is to do marathon order processing sessions! As many hours in the day as I can without getting burned out. Goal is 12-16.
This might be hard to believe, but most of the time spent in order process is on finding discs! This is because of having over 20,000 of them!
Every few weeks, order processing will slowly get faster and faster!
BTW this will be the first full year with our new site and Ecommerce software! If you recall, I had to start the site over from scratch mostly in November of 2023. This is because my old shopping card provider had issues with their shopping cart and refused to fix it!
I had to learn how to use a CMS (Content Management System) and the new software. I learned it all from Youtube videos! At first I had to google how to do every little thing, but now it’s so easy! The Ecommerce software i’m using now I really love!
I also started using a new caching software in November too that made the site super fast! It’s called Flying Press and is pretty great! It’s one that I am 100% certain will never interfere with the check-out page etc.
With this setup we get a Google Pagespeed score of 99/100 for Mobile! It didn’t even require a lot of work.
As if you couldn’t tell, I love what I do and also what I sell!
Yesterday was Thanksgiving and I realized this job is probably one of the things i’m most grateful for. I never want to ever take it for granted!
Starting in January we will be on year 23 of being in business! I still remember the days of selling VHS/Video Tapes only. Some of you may have never used those before! I don’t miss them at all.