Weekend Update May 31, 2011 -- Good, Bad & Ugly

[Kevin]

Weekend Update May 31, 2011

The Good:
Website & Online Sales. As most of you already know, online sales had plummeted after Palladium’s NEW website went live. That was bad. We made a number of tweaks and changes, talked about the problem with you on Facebook, in these Murmurs and in the Weekly Update and fixed more bugs.

To encourage online sales and invite visits to the website, Palladium offered its first ever Memorial Day Sale. And we invited you to post links to the website and to the online store, as well as tell us about any problems you may have experienced. (Please keep doing all of that.)

The Sale was a success. Friday was our biggest sales night, Saturday sales dropped but remained strong, Sunday’s sales were half of Saturday’s and disappointing, but Monday sales surged and were almost as good as Friday's sales. Awesome. All-in-all an excellent holiday weekend of sales. Julius and Alex have been packing orders all day long. We got more positive feedback about the website as well as more little problems to debug and good suggestions.

The Bad:
There was one serious problem. There appears to be some incompatibility with a small number of web browsers including Internet Explorer and Firefox – though not all versions of them. I’m told it has something to do with certain settings and “cookies.”

For those who encountered this problem, they would go to put a second item in their shopping cart only to find the previous item was gone. This, in effect, prevented them from placing an order for more than one item.

The Ugly:
Some folks took this in stride and reported it to us. Others were annoyed and frustrated and a few were downright angry. Some people probably stormed off without saying a word. We understand. You want to help Palladium, there are sale items you wanted, and you could not place the dang order. Infuriating. Maddening. Hang in there with us.

More of The Good: Solutions are in the works.

First, thank you for notifying us and thank you for your understanding and patience.

Second, we are working on this major problem as well as making additional tweaks and adjustments. Unfortunately, I’m told the big problem is not an easy fix, so it might take a couple days for us to resolve, but we are on the job.

Third, you have NOT missed out on the Memorial Day Sale. Because so many of you could not place your order, we are going to hold the sale again this weekend, June 2-5, 2011. If you cannot wait that long, call the Palladium order line (734-721-2903) or email or PM one of us with your order and credit card info and we will process your order right now!

Fourth, we are sorry for your inconvenience and aggravation, and hope to resolve the issue as per above and re-offer the sale this weekend for those of you who might have missed out. We are doing more web browser testing, but may still be missing some things, so PLEASE keep the reports of bugs and problems so we can resolve them.

Rex Barkdoll -- our web design guru -- is visiting the Palladium offices all week to work out as many issues as possible, so this is the time to let us know!

Thank you for your continued support and understanding. Ultimately, we are trying to make the new website better and more fun, so we appreciate your thoughts and input as well as your understanding.

I hope everyone had a pleasant Memorial Day weekend. Stay frosty and game on!

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer and Game Designer

© Copyright May 31, 2011 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

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