Too Good For Kids Blog

Apparently, I’m one of 15,000 people who have started a new blog today, and you’re one of probably half a dozen people who will actually read this. We’re currently flat out getting www.toogoodforkids.com up and running - we’ve got some cool stuff up there and we spend a fair bit of time scouring both cyberspace and meatspace looking for new stuff. One of the lines I like most is the Authentic Models range; we’ve only got their “Jenny” barnstorming bi-plane on the site at the moment but we’ll be putting more up soon. They have a neat range of aeronautical models, everything from eindeckers and triplanes through to zeppelins and huge clipper floatplanes. They also do a lot of nice homeware things with a nautical theme as well.

We have a good range of some of the rudest greeting cards you’ll ever see as well, which we’ll have on the site in the next few days, and some rude wrapping paper as well, so you can really offend granny this Christmas.

The site is built on some software called zencart, which seems fairly powerful and tuneable to what we need. Our web guy Fraser has been doing a wee bit of work behind the scenes to get it to the stage that me and the boss can put all the stock on it without cocking things up too much. Apparently there’s quite a good support forum as well.

Outside the site, I’m excited about the All Blacks being over here in the UK at the moment. They cleaned up Wales fairly convincingly, and will face a fired up Ireland in Dublin this weekend, which should be a great game to watch. I should get along to see Scotland v Argentina this weekend as well.
The days are quite short now, and we’ve just had a week or so of rainy days but today was a big clear sky and crispy cold.
That’s about it from me – I’ll try and keep this blog updated every couple of days to keep a record of how the new site is going and what new goodies we have in stock.

So it does, so it does, a new thing to blab about our new thing….which is really an old thing, getting fresh legs and new energy to bring it through the birth canal, and into the light of day.

our new website www.toogoodforkids.com is growing and changing and being groomed for it’s awakening, but has been a long time in the womb - longer than an elephant even. Enough of the baby metaphors though - I nearly started a diatribe on stillbirth…..

I don’t know the rules for blogging, haven’t blogged before and have only once or twice stumbled over them whilst searching, so I’m gonna have to feel my way along, carefully minding my language, and trying not to insult too many people.

We’ll try and tell the story of our new website, which is an extension of our shop, which in turn has evolved from a Paragliding School and gradually filled up with toys, clothes, and stuff we like having around. To be honest, it’s probably not to be recommended as a business strategy, to stock only what you would buy yourself, but it does have it’s advantages. No more Christmas shopping, or for birthdays which I inevitably forget - our large family has at least one birthday for every month of the year.

We started stocking greetings cards too, a couple of years ago, simply because we were fed up choosing from the dreadful selection of granny oriented stuff at the stationers next door. They’ve since closed up, so I guess the rest of their customers shared our view. Or should I say the majority, cos we do get occasional customers who refuse to buy a blank - leave your own message - card, wanting instead “Happy 51st Wedding Anniversary Great Aunt” or “Congratulations on the Birth of your 3rd Child - a Girl at last!” printed on the outside. They mutter their way around our selection, reading them all carefully, in fervent hope of finding JUST the right message. Engaging in dialogue is always a mistake, so we cower behind the counter until they give up with “och ye havenae got what ah want” and rock the door on it’s hinges as they huffily depart.

We’ll explain more about our card selection later, as it’s taken an unusual direction recently, but it needs a whole session I reckon.

So, it continues, our new website - not our 1st - and certainly not our last, but it is the flagship - which will represent our real shop, and it’s diversity of products. We also hope it will represent our personalities to some degree and allow us to give free reign to our imaginations.

So it continues