I’m not a chocolate fan.

Now, now… I didn’t say I “hate” chocolate, or I “don’t like” chocolate… I’m just not a fan. Maybe my disdain for this confection comes from being exposed to such cheap drug-store brands like Russell-Stover or Whitman’s as a young lad. Or maybe it had something to do with eating way to many 3 Musketeer bars and spending the night repositioning them into a bucket next to my bed.

Whatever the reason, I’m just not a fan. Except at Easter time.

Oh, Easter! The one time a year when Cadbury makes the only chocolate I’ll eat – the Cadbury Mini Eggs. These irresistible nuggets of milk chocolate shaped like a bird’s egg and coated in a crispy, sugary, candy shell are my weakness. Just ask Pam, the owner of BlairCandy.com.

When she told me that she spent this past weekend getting all the Easter candy up for sale on her eCommerce store, I knew this was the moment I’ve been waiting for. Just a few weeks ago, I finished the last bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs I had left from last Easter. You see, I buy a lot and keep a candy dish filled with them throughout the year, so when it’s time for a quick Mini Egg fix, they’re right there.

Today, I received my order of three cases of these sugary delights from BlairCandy.com.

• 108 bags.

• 1,080 ounces of chocolate.
• 1 year’s worth of way too much chocolate.
• Far too many calories to even think of.

But who cares! I’ve got a year’s supply of the only chocolate candy I eat and I’m happy.

If you’re looking to get a chocolate fix or if you have a hankering for some nostalgic candy, head on over to Pam’s website and see all the delicious confections she offers, and tell her I sent ya.

Just don’t buy up all the Mini Eggs, I may be back for more…

A younger me, on the right, working the line in the Ferret Store's warehouse. Picture from July 11, 2005.

But alas, the days of me picking, packing and shipping orders are gone. But I do remember them. I remember them well.

When I owned TheFerretStore.com, a typical Monday would consist of about 300 – 350 orders. Once Black Friday hit, a typical Monday had us looking at 500 – 600. And we didn’t drop ship. All the product we sold was stocked in our warehouse, picked, packed and shipped by a staff of 50 before automation.

We had pickers that would grab an order, start at the front of the pick route and fill big plastic tubs up with that order’s contents. The tub made it’s way on a set of rollers to a packing station where someone would verify items and quantities, wrap the items up with care and seal the box. The box would then make its way to a shipping station where one person would do the weighing and shipping.

Then we automated things. Everything was barcoded for accuracy, the shipping station was eliminated and equipment added at each packing station which enabled the packer to verify, pack and ultimately ship the package. With automation we dramatically increased out output and reduced our headcount.

Even with automation, when the holidays rolled around, it was all hands-on-deck. Everyone stepped up to the plate when the orders were backing up. We had a 24-hour shipping guarantee that we had to abide by and that meant many late nights and weekends. Customer Service Representatives would help out after their shifts, all our managers were pulled into the warehouse and basically anyone who could breathe was enlisted to help.

While the orders were going out, stock was coming in, so we had to balance and work around stockers who would be in the aisles restocking shelves or relocating product for quicker picking. Normally restocking was done at night when the picking operation wasn’t going on, but during the holidays you did what you had to do!

The hustle-bustle of “the season” was fun and exciting, and in case you didn’t get it from this post – I miss it. I loved walking through the warehouse watching that big stack of orders start out inches high and get whittled down by the end of the day, then grow the next morning. I miss the excitement of hearing “150 orders to go and an hour to get them out” at three in the afternoon.

A lot of eCommerce store owners never had the “thrill” of warehousing product and and filling orders. As more and more companies started drop-ship programs the eCommerce store owner needs to just send their orders in and someone else does the work for them.

The stores I own today, are all drop-ship stores and well, aren’t very exciting this time of year! There’s no warehouse for me to walk through and count the boxes going out. There’s no busting on the FedEx or UPS driver who was off for 8 weeks because that 70-pound ferret cage he lifted resulted in a hernia. And there’s no late night or weekend shifts working to crank out the orders (everyone hated them anyway).

I waxed nostalgic in today’s post after receiving an email from one of my good friends who uses Solid Cactus for her eCommerce needs. She was showing off pictures of the orders leaving her warehouse like a new father would show off pictures of his newborn son.

I remember pictures like these too…. I also remember how bad my back hurt by the end of the day Friday.

Happy selling!

If you’d like to open your own eCommerce store and experience all the fun and excitement for yourself, be sure to call upon Solid Cactus. I’m not only a former owner, I’m also a customer. And an employee! They can help you get started on Yahoo! Store, Amazon Webstore, eBay Prostores or Solid Cactus eCommerce.

Then once you’re up and running, Solid Cactus can help with Internet Marketing, Call Center Services, Comparison Shopping Engine Management, accuRATEship Shipping Manager, and total automation with Cactus Complete Commerce.

Shameful, self serving plug is complete.

Headbanger’s Holiday
Yesterday was Halloween, the one day a year when kids think the world owes them a sugar high. I don’t get the whole “Halloween thing.” Yes, as a child I too dressed up in ridiculous looking costumes, parading down the street and ringing doorbells at night singing silly ditties looking for a handout. Then upon returning home, usually spent the night vomiting due to the excessive candy intake.

Now I spend Halloween with the lights out, the doors bolted, shades drawn and as far away from my house as I could be.

So before heading to Arturo’s in Boca Raton for dinner last night, I took a shower. While exiting, I slipped, slammed my head off the marble sink and went down for the count for about a minute. Happy Halloween.

With a massive headache and a bout with the dizzies I still managed to enjoy a great Italian meal at my new found favorite restaurant.

Today, the headache and dizziness was gone, but I can’t remember stupid stuff! I got lost going to the Boca Beach Club – a place I go to almost daily – had to look up phone numbers of people I call all the time, and couldn’t remember the password to log onto my laptop.

I’m not too concerned about it, after all, they say only the good die young. I’ll be around to 103.

The Flu
One thing I wanted to do today was get a flu shot. I was anticipating getting both the seasonal flu vaccine along with the H1N1 vaccine, but noooooo.

First off, it took visits to five Walgreen’s to finally find one with the vaccines available. Since you can’t get the two shots at the same time, I opted for the seasonal flu one since the line was a lot shorter.

Two and a half hours later, I had my shot. There were people waiting over four hours for the H1N1 vaccine, to which I say, never on a Sunday! So I have to wait till December to get the other shot and with my luck I’ll either have the swine flu by then or there will be no more vaccine available.

The Tube
While watching television this afternoon, I realized that we, the viewers, are getting the shaft!

I was watching a movie on TBS and I noticed that throughout the entire film, nearly 1/3 of the screen was taken up by the TBS logo and a promo for the George Lopez show. To that I say, WTF?

Look, I’m a marketing guy and will use every opportunity to get my message out there, but this is just a plain annoyance. About 10 years ago, the “bug” started appearing in the corner of our screens. That’s the station’s logo that sits down there to remind us that we’re watching NBC, like we would forget. Now, in addition to the “bug” we get static ads like the one for Lopez, or full video ads like you see on Discovery or The History Channel.

The images you see below show the screen I’m referring to along with the percentage of the screen that the ad takes up. I’m not a fan of this new type of advertising, as I think it’s pretty annoying. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if it only appeared for a few seconds here and there, but for it to be visible all the time, well, that’s unacceptable.

Maybe TBS and the rest of the networks who do this would like to pay 1/3 of my cable bill.

Yeah, right.

The original screen shot showing the position of the bug and the ad on TBS.

The same screen showing the percentage of the screen that is taken up by the bug and the ad.

Photo by Mattel

As he describes him, Ken “comes complete with a George Hamilton tan, apple-green jacket, white pants and shoes, swim trunks, tea-cup white pooch with a pink leash and, it’s understood, an attractive bank account.”

When it comes to Sugar Daddies, no geographical location has more of them than Palm Beach. Unfortunately, they’re all over the age of 70 and their Sugar is usually about 40 years their junior. I find them quite amusing, like the old buck who can barely make his way to the men’s room at Bice having dinner with a honey who belongs over at E. R. Bradley‘s with people her own age. But hey, who can blame Sugar! I’m sure she is getting everything she wants like that new Gucci bag, the diamond earrings, the new Bentley…

I could never be a Sugar Daddy. But I know a few of them. They’re the ones who feel they need to buy themselves happiness, if only to be taken for a ride later on. A friendship or a relationship is never bought, it’s something both parties work at together with mutually respected boundaries and contributions. Those who feel the need to buy their happiness can’t really be happy, but those being bought certainly can and most take full advantage of the situation.

I see myself more the gigolo, or keeping with the Palm Beach theme, “the walker.” These are guys who get paid to be companions for the elderly women of the island. They’re their dance partners at balls during the season, dinner companions at the Palm Beach Grill, dog walkers along Worth Ave. Some of them make good money and the job doesn’t usually come with bedroom responsibilities, unlike that of the Sugar.

Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken looks like he’s more in tune to be hanging out at Rooster’s than The Breakers, but then again, this is Palm Beach where anything goes. And often it does.

Visit BlairCandy.com for Your Sugar Daddy fix!

Now, if you came here looking for some real Sugar Daddy’s, my friends over at Blair Candy have them for you! They’ve got the small one, for the Daddy who’s a little low on the cash, and the big one for the Daddy with the bucks!