WHOOP!!

TLDR: opening a new store at 5509 Magazine Street.

Further down, how to get on our VIP list (and it doesn’t cost anything). Then blah blah about the loyalty program, and if you will read to the end, something nice.

Skimmer? Catch the boldface stuff.

It’s official!

I just got notified of my OCCUPATION PERMIT at our ***NEW LOCATION***

Unfortunately we were not able to resolve the situation mentioned in the previous post (and I’m not going to discuss it here, it’s still an ongoing legal situation).

To put it simply, we moved. Are moving. Still prepping and painting but will be moving in the showcases this weekend, coz it’s way past time to be getting this stuff DONE!!!

Our new location is at 5509 Magazine Street.

We will be soft-open on or around Labor Day, and will have a Grand Opening with ribbon cutting, cake, adult beverages, and stuff like that sometime around Talk Like A Pirate Day, which is September 19th.

The new (awesome) landlord has a couple things to do to before we can hard schedule the opening date, so when I have info from him I can plan around those things and WHOOOOOOO have the Grand Opening I’ve been dreaming of since this time last year!

Stay abreast of our adventures in three ways (you’ll want all of them): one, join the mailing list at the top of this page – click, throw your email on there, respond to the opt-in email. Boom. Done. Two, “Like” my FB page StarwindGifts. Three, join the FB group Starwind Community and Friends.

Here’s how the VIP stuff works: the mailing list ONLY will get priority treatment, so if you want any kind of sale or coupon or special treat that’s the good stuff right there. Why? Because Facebook EATS PEOPLE and dumps pages and locks up accounts seemingly at random, but if you’re on the mailing list, you are SAFE from that. Being on my mailing list means when I get around to using the Big Computer I might send out an email. They are kind of rare. Like, once a month maybe, I’m pretty lax about sending out emails.

In a couple weeks when I do my Six Spot loyalty program, you have to be on the VIP list to participate. WtF is Six Spot? An index card kept in a recipe file with your name and email on it (ANY name you like, so if you want to be Voldemort on your card, I don’t care, just as long as you remember it). But the email has to work. What do I do for you in exchange for your precious contact information? Well, visit us six times, and we write down the pre-tax merch purchase amounts on the little lines. At the seventh visit you get 10% (of whatever you spent on those previous six visits) store credit toward your purchase.

So, basically we are bribing you with a retroactive 10% discount on your purchases for us to be able to send you the occasional email which will probably have additional discounts, possibly even a freebie, VIP sales prices, pre-order specials. Nobody else will get these specials, just the mailing list, because it is our special arrangement, yours and mine. I alone will own your information from this list, not Facebook or any of those guys. Keeping our loyalty program on a frickin’ index card in house means you never have to give us your phone number or have robots snooping out your buying habits. You won’t even get a fake birthday card because who really pays attention to that stuff? Your privacy is respected here!

I do roll out new products and minor announcements, as well as event stuff, on Facebook. They are really good for events and ticketing. So please “Like” the StarwindGifts facebook page. It’s public, so all those posts are on Good Behavior. 😛

There’s also a FB group called Starwind Community and Friends, which will have class announcements put there first. I occasionally do a Thing like I’ll make a special oil for some holiday and give it out to the first 10 customers, or we’ll have Talk Like A Pirate Day doubloons and swag (and discounts) if you come in and do piratey things. I’m seriously hoping that we can have our ribbon cutting that day because OMG wouldn’t that make AWESOME news candy for nola.com or the paper? Bunch of pirates showing up in garb for our ribbon cutting?!?! Who could resist that? Slash that ribbon with a sword! AYE!!

Er uh,*ahem* sorry, got all excited about that idea…

As I was saying, those sorts of things will go onto the FB group where they might not show up on the regular FB page. So get on the group and in the loop!

So to simplify that: email for discounts/coupons, regular FB page for general info, classes, and events, and FB group for a more relaxed atmosphere and casual giveaways like, for instance, letting people know about the big spread of munchies on 4/20, something that I might not really want to put on the public page but in the past has been pretty popular.

Finally, and thank you for reading this far, after I get settled in, we’ll also have a Happy Hour during the week. I’ll put an announcement out when it’s active, but the first month is the most expensive, so please don’t hold off coming in just for that. If you are really tight but also want to help us out, we get it, just ask (but it still has to be during happy hour hahaha).

Small businesses ALWAYS need regular customers, every small business, every single one of us, each and every month (that rent thing, it keeps coming up for some reason).  Buuuut I have this legal thing going on so it would be super helpful to have a strong first month. I kinda wiped out all my savings having to scrape up deposits and whatnot. So hey, please come in soon! Every customer is appreciated whether you are doing $3 or $30 or $300. All y’all are important to us. A person who spends a little more helps keep us open for those who are on a tight budget. I have personally experienced many flavors of pocket money myself. I don’t pressure anyone to buy anything they don’t need or want. But I will ask you to tell your friends about us, on a pretty regular basis, so that we can enjoy serving you for many years to come.

I’ve got this lease for two years, and then hopefully, will be able to buy a permanent home for the shop. In having to move from the other place, I had to downsize considerably. It’s half the size of my OKC shop, and space is going to be as tight as legally allowed. I’ve already outgrown it, so the next 24 months are really, really important for us. I pull 5% of every day’s gross toward a down payment on that future home. You spend $1, that’s a nickel toward our future. $20 gives us a buck. A “regular” customer who comes in maybe once every six weeks can really, really make a huge impact on our growth!

And you know, this applies to *any* small business, whether it’s your favorite restaurant, a family owned car wash, an independent fabric or bead shop – each of those businesses is an opportunity for you to keep your community stable and healthy because your tax dollars stay right here.

For myself, as a business owner, I sometimes finding myself overcome with gratitude when I’m doing the books at the end of the month, especially when there’s some money in the bank that isn’t already spent. It means being able to hire a part time employee or expand a product line or fill a shelf. It means having a little savings on the side so that in case of an emergency, we’re not wiped out. It means being able to sleep a little more soundly. When I visit another small business, I know that even a couple bucks for a coffee can help them grow, and if I bring a friend, that goes just a tad farther.

We NEVER forget, ever, no matter how big or strong a business seems, we NEVER forget what it’s like to scrounge for bill money. Even shops that have multiple locations can go totally under with just a couple of stupid mistakes. Hopefully Starwind will come to mean something special to you and you will want us to be around, but believe me – YOU always mean something special to us when you come in. On this eve of New Shop Opening, I am looking very forward to greeting you with genuine delight and gratitude.

Thank you for your support through this time. I cannot say how much it has meant to me over these past months. I am excited to birth another store, one that is not stillborn, one that has many many years ahead of us. This is it, I feel it.

I… after these months of numbness, I can feel again.

I feel… alive. I feel MAGIC. Come, come see!