A new but unintended blog layout.

I cried in my proverbial soup. But how does one deal when the original template was modified by accident with no opportunity of retrieval.

On the other hand, there's something to be said about a new "do" and I hope this layout works just as well for you. It seems a little more pleasing to the eye.

So onward and upward I go and accept this new layout with grace and a little more fine-tuning down the road.

I listed this under "Quick Updates" though by no means was the process a quick and painless change. It took me the last three hours just to clean up this new blog layout and as for the painless part...maybe someone else got that tonight.

Do you have Plastic?

Today, I officially terminate my credit card merchant services. As much as it pained me to cancel this service, it is a necessary step.

I know that everyone loves to wave that plastic out. I know I do.

"Do you accept credit cards?"

I regret to say, "Not anymore."

But the reality is that the fees the companies charge retailers are high. We won't go into percentages but when I look at all the fees and poorly named "discount rate" that are charged, I cringe every month. It's the cost of doing business that I can no longer justify.

On a positive note, this reduced overhead–among many efforts I have implemented in the course of the last 8 months–are significantly so that I am now prepared to re-open my business (so to speak) with the ability to provide even better savings to customers.

And don't forget that I have some awesome backlog of inventory that I would really like to move and the discounts are phenomenal!