[GZG] From GZG - important stuff re SALUTE, orders, store etc....

Hi all, news updates below on a lot of stuff - this will be posted to
the website shortly, but I'm having some technical issues right now
due to the changeover between old and new sites - I hope to get that
resolved before the end of this weekend so that I can post stuff there again!

To all those of you reading this, please feel free to re-post this
anywhere you think that it may be helpful - I'm afraid I've NOT been
following the forums (fora?) at all for a while now, as I've just been so busy
and as we all know they can be huge devourers of time, I just couldn't spare
the time to get involved in online discussions right now.

Thanks!

Jon (GZG)

...............

GZG APRIL UPDATE: WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT NOW:

In the words of the late, great Douglas Adams: "I love the sound that
deadlines make as they whoosh past you..."  :-/
OK, so we're a week into April now, SALUTE is just a week away, and the new
store is still not done. Being realistic about it, by late March I had figured
out that even if I could put the necessary time in (which, with all the stock
I had to make, was unlikely) there was really NO point in opening the new
store just before SALUTE and then
having orders start to pile up again - all that would mean is that I
was behind again before I'd even started!

So, the current plan is that as soon as Salute is over, I'll be able to do the
necessary stuff to finish off the new store, as well as
dispatch the remaining outstanding orders - that way we can hopefully
get it up and running before the end of April with reasonable stock levels,
the new releases all fully available and we can start as we mean to go on.

.............

The current situation on ORDERS already placed:

I worked as fast as possible throughout March in an attempt to clear the huge
pile of orders that were received in February, and succeeded
in getting the bulk of them dispatched - however the sheer volume of
last-minute ones (some of them very large!) that came in during the
final days of Feb was quite overwhelming, and I simply didn't manage to get
them all done before having to move on to making stock for Salute.

Virtually all the orders placed up to around the 21st of Feb have now been
shipped (with the exception of a few people who haven't made
Paypal payments, or whose cards bounced, and/or who haven't been
responding to emails). Some of those from around the 22nd-25th have
also been done (in particular those already paid via Paypal), but I
still have a pile of 50+ orders from then until the end of Feb which
did not get cast, packed and mailed before I had to switch over to casting
Salute stock.

I've been in touch by direct email with (almost) all the customers with orders
still outstanding, to explain that their orders will not now ship until LATE
APRIL, once Salute is over and done. Everyone I contacted was given the
opportunity to cancel their order if they didn't want to wait, and the
assurance that NO payments would be taken on the outstanding orders until they
are actually ready to ship
-  card payments will be processed and Paypal invoices sent ONLY
after the orders have been cast and packed.

If anyone has not had their order yet and also has not heard from me, or if
you are concerned about anything else, do PLEASE get in touch
by email to the usual direct address of jon[at]gzg[dot]com - some may
have already been dispatched but be stuck in the US Customs backlog, some
emails may have bounced or gone unread, etc.

Jon (GZG), Friday April 8th.
.................

SALUTE NEWS AND INFO:

The most important thing is that we WILL be at SALUTE! We're on stand TJ15,
our usual spot on the central aisle not far from the Bring and Buy area. When
you come in the main entrance, go straight ahead to the Warlords info stand in
the middle of the hall, then turn RIGHT. After all the changes and upheavals
we've gone through in the last few months, preparations for this year's show
have been terribly
rushed and last-minute; at this point I am still casting frantically
to get enough stock done, and I'm prioritising the lines that I know are the
most popular. IF there is time next week I will get onto the
other stuff, but I can't guarantee it - so my apologies in advance if
we don't have every single thing in our range.

Important stuff to note for SALUTE this year:

1)SORRY, BUT NO CARDS! We will NOT be able to process credit/debit
card payments at the show; we have been able to take cards in previous years,
but due to being in the middle of the changeover to online processing for our
new webstore, we won't be able to take them
at the show this year. So it is CASH ONLY this time I'm afraid - the
good thing is that it will speed up the serving of customers, because
processing cards at the show takes ages and slows everything down! While on
the subject of serving customers, please remember that GZG
is a one-man business (me!) and therefore the helpers I will have on
the stand are friends who have volunteered for that day only, they will do
their best under pressure but please be patient and polite.

2) As the new store isn't going to be online until AFTER Salute, we
have no facility to take pre-orders this year; I do hope to have
reasonable stocks of most of our regular items, but everything is
strictly on a first-come, first-served basis, and once stocks are
gone then they're gone! This will especially apply to any NEW items I
can get done in time (see below), which may be in limited supply - so
please make us one of your first stops once you get in to the hall.

3) All our PRICES at SALUTE are being held at our old pre-increase
levels, as promised earlier - most prices have got to go up when the
new site goes live, so don't miss this chance to get stuff at the old prices!

4) NEW STUFF: well, I still hope there will be some - but I can't
tell you what, as they are still waiting to be cast! I'm hoping that in the
last few days before the show, once as much of the regular stock as possible
has been replenished, I can get at least a couple of moulds' worth of new
items made and some stock spun out of them. It'll be right down to the wire,
some of it may still be hot from the casting machine when it gets packed in
the van..... What I can tell you is that anything I manage to get done will be
in
the 15mm range - sorry to all the FT fans, I do promise to get back
to you before too much longer! Exactly what gets made is in the lap of the
Gods, and there certainly won't be any time to preview or announce it here or
anywhere else, so you'll just have to come along and see what we have on the
day.

Best regards, and thanks again to everyone for your patience - I
sincerely hope that everything will be back to normal soon!