www.World-Shoppe.com featured in Cottage Living!

Check out http://www.world-shoppe.com/ in the last page of Cottage Living's holiday issue on Gifts that Give Back! Our Pistachio Green Baby Tagine Salt & Pepper Sets make an appearance and as we suspected, they are already selling quickly! We have plenty in stock but if you've been eyeing this bold and colorful set for yourself of friends for the holidays, I'd recommend acting sooner than later to place your order!

Also, on the NEW Web site front, I'm thrilled to say that we're so on target for an early November launch. I seriously can't wait. One of our categories (Personal Accessories) is being uploaded this week. Our "non-product" pages (such as our About Us, Press Page, FAQ, etc) have all been uploaded and look awesome. We still have to add in some of our images and proofread everything but I have to say, it's looking really great! Our Web designer is a true rock star. Not only does she understand Web design, but she understands fair trade - which is absolutely wonderful!

In any event, we'll be sending out our next e-newsletter this week so please be on the lookout for it. We've also been having several people forward on the email newsletter to friends and family - feel free to do so! The more supporters we have, the better for our artisan partners!

Thank you again for your amazing support. I hope you're enjoying this experience as much as I am!

Until next time,

-Megy Karydes, Founder

http://www.world-shoppe.com/

www.World-Shoppe.com Web site Refresh on-target

Last month I posted that http://www.world-shoppe.com/ was going to get "refreshed". My goal is that after four years in business (I can't believe it's been four wonderful years!), it was time to let http://www.world-shoppe.com/ grow up from its baby stage.

When we first launched http://www.world-shoppe.com/, it was my first e-boutique venture and while I knew a bit about retail from my volunteering at various non-profit retail shops, this was a whole new ball game. To make our experience launching the site as easy as possible, my Web designers and I decided to use a Yahoo platform to make http://www.world-shoppe.com/ a reality. And while I know my Web designers were less than thrilled with the opportunity to really customize the site as I wanted it, we made it work because there were other things we needed to focus on which included getting the best selection of fair trade gifts, home accessories, kitchen accents and stationery to you (and I think we've done a pretty good job of that based on our increasing sales figures every year since we launched!).

We now have a good, solid groups of fair trade partners all over the world and we continue to source more on a regular basis while keeping our commitment true to our existing partners.

But, as we look to the horizon, we knew that we needed to make our site more effective and functional. Constructive criticism was noted (yes, we listened!) and things that we personally wanted to improve was added to our "wish list". We searched for a web designer that understood our need to be thoughtful to the mission of fair trade while still giving us some wonderful concepts from which to choose.

Well, today we received our first phase mocks up since our site map was approved - and I'm thrilled. While we still need to make some minor tweaks, I'm seriously amazed at how our Web designer took our "wish list" and translated them into a true reflection of easy-to-navigate and visually appealing pages.

I wish I could post some of the pages but that would spoil the "reveal" we're planning to share in just a couple of months. So you'll have to wait and see!

In the meantime, thank you again for your support - and let us know what you think we could do better with our site. Our Blog allows comments - send them to us!

Thanks again!

-Megy Karydes, Founder
http://www.world-shoppe.com/