[GZG] From GZG - important stuff re SALUTE, orders, store etc....

Hi all, news updates below on a lot of stuff - this will be posted to 
the website shortly, but I'm having some technical issues right now 
due to the changeover between old and new sites - I hope to get that 
resolved before the end of this weekend so that I can post stuff 
there again!

To all those of you reading this, please feel free to re-post this 
anywhere you think that it may be helpful - I'm afraid I've NOT been 
following the forums (fora?) at all for a while now, as I've just 
been so busy and as we all know they can be huge devourers of time, I 
just couldn't spare the time to get involved in online discussions 
right now.

Thanks!

Jon (GZG)

...............

GZG APRIL UPDATE: WHAT'S GOING ON RIGHT NOW:

In the words of the late, great Douglas Adams: "I love the sound that 
deadlines make as they whoosh past you..."  :-/
OK, so we're a week into April now, SALUTE is just a week away, and 
the new store is still not done. Being realistic about it, by late 
March I had figured out that even if I could put the necessary time 
in (which, with all the stock I had to make, was unlikely) there was 
really NO point in opening the new store just before SALUTE and then 
having orders start to pile up again - all that would mean is that I 
was behind again before I'd even started!

So, the current plan is that as soon as Salute is over, I'll be able 
to do the necessary stuff to finish off the new store, as well as 
dispatch the remaining outstanding orders - that way we can hopefully 
get it up and running before the end of April with reasonable stock 
levels, the new releases all fully available and we can start as we 
mean to go on.

.............

The current situation on ORDERS already placed:

I worked as fast as possible throughout March in an attempt to clear 
the huge pile of orders that were received in February, and succeeded 
in getting the bulk of them dispatched - however the sheer volume of 
last-minute ones (some of them very large!) that came in during the 
final days of Feb was quite overwhelming, and I simply didn't manage 
to get them all done before having to move on to making stock for 
Salute.

Virtually all the orders placed up to around the 21st of Feb have now 
been shipped (with the exception of a few people who haven't made 
Paypal payments, or whose cards bounced, and/or who haven't been 
responding to emails). Some of those from around the 22nd-25th have 
also been done (in particular those already paid via Paypal), but I 
still have a pile of 50+ orders from then until the end of Feb which 
did not get cast, packed and mailed before I had to switch over to 
casting Salute stock.

I've been in touch by direct email with (almost) all the customers 
with orders still outstanding, to explain that their orders will not 
now ship until LATE APRIL, once Salute is over and done. Everyone I 
contacted was given the opportunity to cancel their order if they 
didn't want to wait, and the assurance that NO payments would be 
taken on the outstanding orders until they are actually ready to ship 
-  card payments will be processed and Paypal invoices sent ONLY 
after the orders have been cast and packed.

If anyone has not had their order yet and also has not heard from me, 
or if you are concerned about anything else, do PLEASE get in touch 
by email to the usual direct address of jon[at]gzg[dot]com - some may 
have already been dispatched but be stuck in the US Customs backlog, 
some emails may have bounced or gone unread, etc.

Jon (GZG), Friday April 8th.
.................

SALUTE NEWS AND INFO:

The most important thing is that we WILL be at SALUTE! We're on stand 
TJ15, our usual spot on the central aisle not far from the Bring and 
Buy area. When you come in the main entrance, go straight ahead to 
the Warlords info stand in the middle of the hall, then turn RIGHT.
After all the changes and upheavals we've gone through in the last 
few months, preparations for this year's show have been terribly 
rushed and last-minute; at this point I am still casting frantically 
to get enough stock done, and I'm prioritising the lines that I know 
are the most popular.  IF there is time next week I will get onto the 
other stuff, but I can't guarantee it - so my apologies in advance if 
we don't have every single thing in our range.

Important stuff to note for SALUTE this year:

1)SORRY, BUT NO CARDS! We will NOT be able to process credit/debit 
card payments at the show; we have been able to take cards in 
previous years, but due to being in the middle of the changeover to 
online processing for our new webstore, we won't be able to take them 
at the show this year. So it is CASH ONLY this time I'm afraid - the 
good thing is that it will speed up the serving of customers, because 
processing cards at the show takes ages and slows everything down!
While on the subject of serving customers, please remember that GZG 
is a one-man business (me!) and therefore the helpers I will have on 
the stand are friends who have volunteered for that day only, they 
will do their best under pressure but please be patient and polite.

2) As the new store isn't going to be online until AFTER Salute, we 
have no facility to take pre-orders this year; I do hope to have 
reasonable stocks of most of our regular items, but everything is 
strictly on a first-come, first-served basis, and once stocks are 
gone then they're gone! This will especially apply to any NEW items I 
can get done in time (see below), which may be in limited supply - so 
please make us one of your first stops once you get in to the hall.

3) All our PRICES at SALUTE are being held at our old pre-increase 
levels, as promised earlier - most prices have got to go up when the 
new site goes live, so don't miss this chance to get stuff at the old 
prices!

4) NEW STUFF: well, I still hope there will be some - but I can't 
tell you what, as they are still waiting to be cast! I'm hoping that 
in the last few days before the show, once as much of the regular 
stock as possible has been replenished, I can get at least a couple 
of moulds' worth of new items made and some stock spun out of them. 
It'll be right down to the wire, some of it may still be hot from the 
casting machine when it gets packed in the van.....
What I can tell you is that anything I manage to get done will be in 
the 15mm range - sorry to all the FT fans, I do promise to get back 
to you before too much longer! Exactly what gets made is in the lap 
of the Gods, and there certainly won't be any time to preview or 
announce it here or anywhere else, so you'll just have to come along 
and see what we have on the day.

Best regards, and thanks again to everyone for your patience - I 
sincerely hope that everything will be back to normal soon!

Jon (GZG), Friday April 8th.
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