As many of you know we have been struggling with Reveal night issues for many months now, and last night was the worst in months. There are several reasons for that; the site failed, rather than just slowing, due to a change that was supposed to improve things. We also had another huge influx of subscribers, so there were many new people trying to get on the site, and to top things off Simon, the bunny, was in the Christmas kits and he always draws a  crowd!

Reveal used to be a fun event. We all got together on the forum, looked through the gallery and got the full reveal of the kits, but times have changed. Even though we’ve tried to keep that feeling going, with new technology and the growth we’ve experienced, we’ve failed to do so. We know our current system doesn’t work and last night, after many months and three IT vendors’ work we finally had to admit to ourselves that it’s not going to. We are displeasing more customers than we are pleasing with our current model. Our site is heavily custom-coded, and it just can’t cope with the spike in demand that Reveal causes. We’ve also come to realize that we can’t offer one of everything to everyone with our traditional add-on purchase model. So what to do? Well, we do what Cocoa Daisy has always done, we push forward, get creative, and try as best as we can to meet our customers’ needs. To achieve that we will be moving away from the traditional Reveal night model; there will no longer be any ordering on Reveal night.

We currently offer 95% of our product in a subscription form and we’ve decided that the only way to ensure we offer all of our products to as many people as possible is to transition to a subscription-only model. It’s the only way to accurately predict demand, fill demand and thus alleviate the stress of hoping you get what you want. My biggest dilemma with this change is my desire to continue to offer some extras that go with the kits–fun things that I find or want to produce but won’t fit in our kits. This is something I don’t want to give up because I know our customers enjoy the option of adding a little something more to their monthly order. We spent a lot of time last night and this morning coming up with a plan and I’m very excited about it! We’ll still do occasional pre-orders for seasonal items, popular re-releases, and special edition items, but in order to bring you fun extras each month without the stress of trying to log on and hoping there is enough, we’re introducing two new subscriptions: Cocoa Daisy Classified: Planner Edition and Cocoa Daisy Classified: Memory Keeping Edition.    

 

 Each of these subscriptions will be priced at $19.99 to $21.99 and available in 3 or 6-month commitments. The fun part is that each month they will have those little extras we are known for to make your Planner or Memory Keeping just that little bit “extra.” And, better yet, the contents will be a surprise–“Classified.” We keep the fun of the surprise of Reveal while making sure there is enough for everyone. We are not completely eliminating non-subscription orders though; bits and pieces or past kits that are in the store can still be added and shipped with your monthly subscription if the order is placed between the 28th and the 1st.

If you had your heart set on inserts or a kit you don’t subscribe to, you can always check the store mid-month after shipping; we will add any current release leftovers to the store which will then be available for anyone to purchase. It’s important to note, however, that these will be leftovers only. There is no guarantee if, what and how many we will have. That’s the subscription model at work, allowing us to order as many as we need to fill subscriptions, and not tie up money and storage space with unsold inventory.

I want to end this note with my sincere thanks to all of our customers for bearing with us through these last months, through so many stressful Reveal nights.  Thank you for continuing to offer me and my team encouragement; I know it’s been rough and I just thank you all so much for putting your faith in us every month to try to do better, to try and offer the best product to as many of you as we can and to always try to inspire you! So here’s to something new and Reveal nights that are filled with inspiration, discussions about what is in the kits and fun and creative ways to use them! I’m looking forward to it and I hope you all will too!

Best wishes and thank you for being part of Cocoa Daisy.