Moving to Wordpress

We are moving the blog to wordpress. It offers much more functionality for writers on the back end and will be more adaptable to match our website. Please bookmark the new site: bayinghound.wordpress.com. Thanks!

Holiday Shipping Deadlines

To receive your package by December 25, please place your order on www.BayingHound.com by the following dates:

For US packages:
Standard (priority) - December 19
Express - December 22

For International packages:
Standard(first class international) - December 10
Priority International - December 10
Express International - December 16

You can read more about our EasyShip program on our website.

Happy Holidays!

Squishy Bowls on Barkability.com

Check out this mention of Squishy Bowls on Barkability.com:

"I just love the word 'squishy' and these bowls will allow you to say it often. You can be all like, "Did you bring the squishy bowls?" Or, "You know what I love about these bowls? They're squishy." Sniff around @ BayingHound. ($15)"

Cute write up and thanks for the mention!

Come visit Baying Hound at Holistic Mom's Network November 3!

On Monday November 3, 2008 we will join local Columbus Ohio vendors at the Holistic Mom's Network Holiday Extravaganza. Join us for Green Shopping and door prizes from 7 - 10 PM at Hayden's Crossing North Clubhouse in Dublin!

Please download and share this flyer about the event.

Baying Hound at Small Business Marketing Unleashed

This week I am attending Small Business Marketing Unleashed (SBMU). It's a conference put on by the good folks at Search Engine Guide featuring experts in the search engine, marketing, and website development industry. I'm at the conference to learn about how to make our web business more successful and more user friendly.

What's the best benefit of running an internet business?

For me, the best benefit is all of the cool technology and gadgets you can
buy as a business expense.

Our cell phone service is through T-Mobile, who will be coming out with the
HTC Dream phone in October running Google's Android operating system. This
is the first phone to run Android and will likely be called the G1 by
T-Mobile. This is going to be a full-bore smartphone that, if executed
properly by T-Mobile and Google, will likely rival the apple iPhone. In
addition to running Android, this phone will support T-Mobile recently
opened 3G network.

So, for the first time, I will discard my rules of waiting until the second
generation of a new cell phone before jumping on the bandwagon. I find the
prospect of a Google OS terribly exciting as I love so many of their other
products already. An added bonus is that Android will see heavy integration
with Google's existing online service (maps, calendars, email, documents,
etc.). Rachel and I are both hoping to transition away from Microsoft
products and make ourselves far more mobile by using web-based applications
to run the business.

The one downside is that so far pictures leaked of the G1 indicate it will
be something of an ugly duckling. It looks squarish, blocky and kind of
fugly in general. However, I am a staunch believer in function over form,
so I won't let this bother me.

Hopefully I will be posting again in just about a month concerning my
super-sweet new business expense.

Ciao.

Heading to Outdoor Retailer

In a few hours we will board a plane to Salt Lake City for the annual Outdoor Retailer conference. We will meet with current and potential vendors, browse for new product ideas, and enjoy some time ruminating on the future of Baying Hound. All the while staying linked in to our customers via web and phone, of course.

We leave you with this photo artistry from Chris Jordan photography:
That's a sea of plastic beverage bottles, two million in fact, the number used in the US every five minutes. Wow...

Klean Kanteens and SIGGs taped for NBC 4

Ellie Merrit, a local Columbus OH news reporter, taped a segment on BPA free kids bottles at my friend Alissa DeRouchie's home office today. Alissa invited me to bring over a SIGG and Klean Kanteen for demonstration. They aired the segment at 4 PM. As soon as I get a link I'll post it here.

Ellie also posted on her blog about BPA.

It's great to have more press on this issue!

Follow me on Twitter

Ok, enough people have told me about it. We're part of Twitter now.

Follow Rachel's every move at www.twitter.com/bayinghound and Alex is www.twitter.com/baying_hound

Adding online addictions is good for our health, right?

Baying Hound attending Outdoor Retailer

In a little over a month Alex and I will travel to Outdoor Retailer, the largest show of outdoor products in the nation. It's held in Salt Lake City August 8 - 11.

While we're are there we will be scouting new products to carry and talking to current vendors. What would you like to see Baying Hound carry next?

Baying Hound on Facebook

I just added a facebook page for Baying Hound.com. For Facebook users, the page will allow you to rad this blog and communicate all in one place. Come be a fan!

Klean Kanteen Kontest!

We are so excited that Klean Kanteens are Koming at the end of June!

To celebrate, Baying Hound will choose a lucky entrant on July 1 to win one of our newly stocked Klean Kanteen bottles. All you have to do is find this logo: on one of our item pages.

Email us with the correct item name you will be entered to win!

*Only one entry per person. Employees and family members of Baying Hound Ltd. are not eligible. Prize is one Klean Kanteen bottle in stock on July 1 and shipping to winner's location. Entries must be received by 12PM EST July 1, 2008.

SIGG restrictions on Internet sellers

We just learned that SIGG is placing restrictions on Internet sellers like ourselves. We will not be allowed to place wholesale orders for at least 8 weeks. According to a letter written by SIGG Switzerland CEO, "We will continue to assess our supply vs business opportunities in the near term and longer term future and will let you know when we can strategically supply our brand on internet sales again".

We are disappointed because without stock we can not make sales, which of course affects our growth. We are also fearful that all the positive Internet buzz about SIGGs will turn when consumers cannot find a retailer. We are discouraged that the company whom we previously trusted now cannot support our growth.

We are most displeased that customers without a brick and mortar store nearby will not be able to order SIGG bottles from Baying Hound or any other online retailer once current stock is gone. If you are upset by this we encourage you to write a cordial email to SIGG requesting that Baying Hound be allowed to make wholesale orders again.

What are we doing to mitigate this situation?

1)We are petitioning SIGG gently but firmly that we believe this is a bad decision for our business and the SIGG brand.

2)We have placed orders for other BPA free bottles with Klean Kanteen and Guyot Designs. These are expected to start arriving at the end of June.

3)We will continue to sell what we have in stock until it sells out. We are doing our best to inform customers of what is currently available conveniently.

We appreciate your support. If you have suggestions for other products you might like us to carry or other ways we can make Baying Hound better, please don't hesitate to contact us.

MySIGG suspends sales

MySIGG.com, the storefront for the US distributor of SIGG bottles has suspended sales of SIGGs so that all inventory can be diverted to smaller retailers like Baying Hound. The demand is huge and our orders have increased dramatically since MySIGG made the announcement and linked to retailers. We're pleased to be working with such a supportive company.

In other SIGG news, we spoke with a SIGG rep today to place another order. We'll do yet another one next week to keep replenishing our stock.

Inventory Issues

We are out of stock of a lot of SIGG styles. I am hoping to get a new order in tomorrow for whatever is coming in the next shipment. It's frustrating to have customers chomping at the bit to order something we don't have a the moment...

Last night, Yahoo Stores added insult to injury by having a screwy outage that temporarily opened up all our stock as available for order. So I woke up this morning to a slew of orders (yeah!) for things we don't have (boo!). I appreciate how patient our customers are in waiting, refunding or changing their orders.

I guess this just exemplifies why we need to diversify our lines and carry more stock - so that a shortage in one product doesn't leave us in such a situation.

Splitting off the helmet upgrades

Our (tiny) web venture began with the resale of military surplus helmets. Our most successful product in this vein are our in-house (and by that I mean, in our actual basement) made upgrade kits of a chinstrap and new padding to replace the uncomfortable military issue suspension.

We decided last fall to stop selling the upgrade kits through our current webstore because mixing surplus and new products in two different categories didn't make sense to our customers, and may have even turned people away.

We continued selling the surplus items and kits through our ebay store.

Ebay is now charging upwards of 12% to sell in their stores and they made changes in feedback that took away our ability to honestly leave feedback. This doesn't match with our financial or business philosophy.

We have enough of a reputation that we hope to drive customers to a new site instead where we have better profits, better deals, and more transparency to our customers. This morning I registered www.helmetupgrades.com and will have a site up in a few days. I'm publishing new business cards with the new address too - maybe Alex can be president of this spin off. ;)

We're on Guyot Designs site!

It isn't in my nature to ask for help. I prefer to do things myself. But marketing in the internet world isn't something I can control myself. I noticed that I would have to reach out to services and networks to do some marketing for me.

It took some courage for me to stick out my neck and talk to manufacturers about sharing links. I was pleasantly surprised that SIGG and Guyot Designs were happy to add us to their 'where to buy' pages. We've already noticed orders coming in through those links.

Just goes to show that sometimes taking a risk pays off and is easier than you think.

****
Don't forget that you have only a few more days to enter the Ibex Echo-T contest.

Photoshoot for Guyot Designs

Yesterday I tried to take some pictures of our new Guyot Designs gear in the rare spring sunlight here. I had three "helpers" - Devie the coonhound, Hawise the mini-hound, and Lil, the toddler. The few good pics will be on the website soon. In the meantime, here are some outtakes:

Shipping to Canada - fast and economical!

Though we are based in central Ohio, we find ourselves shipping more and more items to Canada. We suspect that the exchange rates favoring the Canadian dollar have something to do with this. We may also attract customers because shipping for most items is less than $5 via first class mail to Canada.

Whatever the reason, we appreciate our customers from every country.

Sustainable Business Practices

One of the unique aspects of Baying Hound is the care and consideration we put into making our business environmentally and socially sustainable. We are working on defining our sustainable business practices to make it clearer to customers, vendors, and our financial backers why sustainability is a reason to support Baying Hound. We are also exploring certification by a credentialing organization.

To that end, we want to hear from our readers: What practices are important to you? Comment or email us your thoughts.