Saturday 15 January 2011

New EC Postage


We receive a lot of orders from mainland EC countries & are keen to attract more. Postage is a little more than UK rates which the shopping cart adds to each order. In the past we asked customers from these countries to contact us for a postal amount. This was a hassle for our customers & caused us more time to work things out individually.

From now on all customers from European countries (classed as Europe by Royal Mail) can use the shopping cart buttons without contacting us. We are sure this will be better for our customers in Europe & hopefully attract more business.
The only restriction to this is the weight of the packet which must be a maximum of 2kg. This is because Air Mail postal rates rise dramatically over this.
The Babelfish online translator is very good. This is built into the site. If you want to see what the site looks like in Chinese or Russian have a play around with it.
Dainichi update - We have been exchanging e-mails & the USDA which approve goods for export to the EU are still dragging their feet with the permit. This time it's the krill ingredient. What is really crazy is the USDA have approved the source as fit for use.
The whole EC situation on fish feeds imported into the EC is getting a little crazy & this beaurocracy is going to get worse with new changes coming into force this April.
Dainichi are doing everything they can to renew their permit.
Meanwhile stocks of Cichlid foods are getting extremely low & most are now out. If you need these foods I would advise buying them up now.

Saturday 8 January 2011

New Year Catch up

It's been a few weeks since the last blog. Christmas & New Year have come & gone. Happy New Year to all our customers. We really appreciate your e-mails & orders.
Last year we had a fairly quiet Christmas period due to the recession but this year has been non stop with orders every day except Christmas day. We thank you all for supporting us.
As we are VAT registered we have had to put prices up by the 2.5% increase. The radio has been saying many retailers are going to use this to increase prices further. At TA we have only increased our prices by the 2.5% VAT increase & have not 'sneaked' in subtle increases here & there.
For a 100g bag of our granule this is only 8p extra & 77p on a big pouch of Siberian Brine Shrimp eggs so it's not so bad really.
Sales after the rise have increased if anything especially to mainland EC destinations.
The charity auction has been booked for June 5th 2011 at the same venue. We had to cancel the December do due to the cold weather. Some photos are on the auction page. As always click the yellow box top left of the home page to get into the auction page.
This year the BKA & BCA are holding auctions at the venue. In all we hope to host at least 5 auctions this year.
New products had to be put on the backburner this month after David & Nick sent me a nice letter asking for a donation to HM Revenue & Customs. I really appreciated it dropping through the letter box on Christmas Eve but that's the way it goes.
New products & new packaging are planned for February. As always we are continually looking to try new things out.
With more trade orders coming in from the EC we are keen to get all our products in retailer packaging this year. This will take some investment but should be completed this Spring.
Once again - thank you all for your interest in TA products. We look forward to supplying fresh feeds for your fish in 2011.