Joanne Musgrave

Cheeki Water Bottles

I’m so glad I have staff!!

This week we received over 800 new sports lids for the cheeki water bottles that are going to be given away free with each regular bottle, so the girls had to not only count the lids, but now we have to attach them to the bottles!!

In other news, I signed up this week as an Enjo consultant. If you want anything, just holler. I can place orders for you or do a demo in your house. That’s right, invite your friends over and watch them clean your house It’s a neat trick!!

This week, Gerry Harvey announced that he didn’t expect to make any money from his Harvey Norman Big Buys, or if it did, very little. Do you want a little hint on why that is? You’re flogging cheap crap not associated with your brand and you’re trying to take on the #1 online retailer in Australia at their own game, but with inferior wares.

I actually had someone write to me this week asking if I could get a particular Lock & Lock product in stock – they’d seen it at Harvey Norman Big Buys, but wanted to shop with me instead.

I also get plenty of people wanting Thermos products that are discounted elsewhere, but our customer service is trusted and we’re a well respected brand who give to the community and are concerned about people’s health & wellbeing.

I must be doing something right ……. Gerry, do you want some pointers?

Read more ….

Wow, what a crazy January this year for Shop Naturally. Our biggest selling product, the Thermos Funtainer in 8 designs. These insulated water bottles were the #1 selling back to school product in our shop this year.

Our biggest headache? The spare parts for the Thermos water bottles!!!

You see, a couple of Thermos water bottle designs are are available at places like K-mart, Big W and the like, who have no issue buying the bottles in bulk and selling them about $6 cheaper than I possibly can – but on the flip side, don’t seem to care at all about after sales service and don’t stock the spare parts.

Thermos have a really limited supply of these spare parts, and it’s virtually impossible to get a hold of any stock. When we do, people have been snapping it up quickly who did not buy the bottles from us, and several have complained about our minimum $7.95 shipping fee while doing so, more than one being quite rude about it.

Because of this, we only sell Thermos Funtainer Replacement Parts to people who made the original bottle purchase with us. This way, they’re reserved for our own customers who can purchase the replacement lids & straws with other items next time they shop with us.

A polite word to those who not so politely complained about our shipping  charges:-

• Our shipping charges are not designed to cater to people who want to spend $3.95 with us.
• No, we can’t just run down to the post office to save you $6. I have to pay staff to do that. We don’t EVER walk in to a post office to do anything. A big red van pulls up each day and they come in to our warehouse and drag out the piles of canvas sacks holding the satchel orders and pile the boxes on a trolley.
• EVERY PARCEL we send out goes through eParcel with tracking & insurance. We do not change our shipping policy to try and save a dollar or two here and there. It wastes time and money. We’re not an eBay seller. We send out hundreds of parcels a week. We have an automated system, and it works.
• Our eParcel account has a minimum charge of $7.95 for ANYTHING under 500g, even something that weighs 20 grams.

We have a system in place that works, and we don’t alter it because you saved $6 on your bottle at K-mart and now you need a replacement part and you don’t want to buy anything else from us. May I suggest you go back to the original place of purchase and ask them why they’re not interested in offering you any kind of after sales support? Sadly, we’re not equipped with enough stock to service our own customers plus those of two of the largest retailers in the country. We have a water bottle supply and spare parts supply for our customers only, and sometimes we don’t have enough spares for that.

Big thank you to the folks at Invisible Zinc for allowing me to stock their product. After picking up some Invisible Zinc at the chemist last week and lathering myself from head to toe with it on the weekend, I can very easily tell you that it is THE BEST natural sunscreen I have ever used.

Check out the official Invisible Zinc website to check out the range. My faves are the 4 hr water resistant and the tinted moisturiser for every day use. There’s no nano-particles, it’s micronised. It can leave you looking a little pale & pasty looking when you put it on, but seriously, if you’re out in the sun and you’re not getting burnt, who gives a shit? If you’re concerned about a pasty face, the tinted moisturiser is fab. You just can’t wear it in the water as it’s not water resistant.

Run to the chemist to buy a tube or wait a couple of weeks and you can buy it from my shop.

We’re just started stocking the most gorgeous reusable shopping bags on the market, from Envirosax. They’re large, strong (up to 20kg) and fashionable, so they can double as a shoulder bag for going to the beach, or anywhere.

We’re adding their kids range of bags too which are just too gorgeous for words and can double as school library bags. Some of them even have matching drink bottles to go with them. Watch this space for more details as we add the entire range.

Well, not quite literally. It would be quite the amazing feat if they grew little legs and ran off out the front door of our warehouse, but I cannot believe how many Klean Kanteen water bottles we’ve sold at Shop Naturally in the past 48 hours. I’m still trying to find out if they were in the paper on the weekend or on telly or something. We’ve sold over 80 of them in 2 days, and this is on top of us selling over 600 Cheeki bottles in 24 hours last week when we had a sale on after the Today Tonight story a week or two ago.

Gotta love the warmer weather. Everyone wants a drink bottle!!!!

We do have a special treat for those who don’t like drinking out of plastic or stainless steel bottles. Lifefactory have just released their Glass Beverage Bottle in Australia. It’s like a giant version of the baby bottles, with a silicone cover, except this one has a wide mouth screw lid and it takes 650ml of liquid. You can buy the Lifefactory glass water bottle from Shop Naturally, of course! Why else would I mention it.

You know what, now that I’ve said that, I’m going to give a bottle a plug that I don’t sell. Seriously!! Have you seen the Water Bobble? It looks and feels like a curvy soft drink bottle (quite light and squeezy) and it has a water filter built in. It’s BPA Free, so it’s safe too. I saw them at Robin’s Kitchen, I’m not sure who else stocks them yet. I haven’t bought one yet, but I’ll probably check it out to see what the quality of the water is like once it goes through the filter.

… what, that funny noise you make in the back of your throat when you hear something funny?????

I’m always amused when I see competing online shops pinching my promos and ideas and running the same specials that I do. I do wish them all the best, after all, if a tree falls in the woods and no-one was there to see it fall, did it really happen?

Added some absolutely fantastic baby bottles this long weekend from Weil Baby, the first we’ve found that actively advertise they’re BPA Free and EA Free, made from Tritan™ Eastman + the first 9oz sippy cup we’ve been able to find too. Excellent find, super excited to watch them run off the shelves.

We’re ramping up the new business development for the online shop in the baby bottles department. We’re now stockists of the fantastically round and bright mOmma baby bottles plus the range of baby feeding products that go along with it; cutlery, plates, egg cookers and more.

Next week, (when I get over the 3 nights in a row where I stayed up and worked until midnight),  we’ll be adding the first brand we’ve seen in the world to advertise their baby bottles as EA free. More on the phrase EA Free at a later date.

Also very proud to announce the launch of a brand new online shop today – www.eatdrinkstainless.com.au, our new dedicated Cheeki brand store as we’re now officially Cheeki’s preferred online partner in Australia. Look forward to some great deals & freebies as we do the hard launch in a few weeks.

BPA is in the media again today, as Choice magazine put out a report on all the nasties found in canned food, and even some Heinz baby food (tsk tsk). This has finally prompted me to start up my BPA Free project, a blog where I will post news articles, research and links to all manner of products that are BPA Free, whether we sell them at Shop Naturally or not.

There’s so much BPA Free stuff out there, it’s easy to find plastic that won’t kill you slowly if you know where to look.

Now we have room to expand the online shop in our new premises, we’re madly adding a variety of new product to the shop. Next week will be the mOmma range of the funkiest round bpa free baby bottles and feeding plates on the market.

These plastic bpa free baby bottles are made from #5 polypropylene plastic and look like a ball. They’re easy for babies to hold, and if you knock them about, they spring back upright like a balancing toy!

Take a sneak peek at the mOmma sippy bottle with drinking straw and the mOmma warm plate which are our faves. If you want to pre-order anything, pop over to www.shopnaturally.com.au and send us an email.