How Much is Too Much

Happy 4th of July everyone.  I know for many of you summer is your favorite time of year with all the vacations, beach trips and outdoor celebrations, but I must admit I'm feeling a bit uninspired this month.  Now that we are in the middle of summer, the humidity here has been suffocating these past couple of weeks.  I'm now officially in my fainting flower phase and my soul is just waiting for the first breath of fall in the air to assure me everything is going to be okay.

I hoped to use this space this month to announce some new product offerings coming to the store, but, as with everything, it's taking longer than anticipated.  Instead, I've decided to just kind of go with the flow and share some things I've been thinking about.

Lately, I've been thinking about how difficult it is to embrace simplicity in our modern world.  No matter how hard you try there are so many things to think about, so many decisions to make and so much coming at you all the time, it is difficult to even find time to think about simplicity.  I am a very simple person in the sense that I do not feel the need to have my phone with me every single second of the day or to stay connected to social media 24 hours a day.  I do spend time disconnected from technology other than monitoring my business and keeping up with customer communications and orders.

What actually got me started down this rabbit hole was an online shopping experience I had recently.  I was searching for some essential oils, researching brands and trying to choose between the gazillion selections available.  Eventually I narrowed down my selection to two brands.  Upon visiting both websites, each of them had so many pop-ups for various marketing campaigns I was completely annoyed before I even purchased a product.  In the end I actually ordered from both companies (despite their aggressive marketing tactics) to try out their products and see which one I liked best.  IMMEDIATELY upon ordering from both companies I was bombarded with, and continue to be bombarded with, tons of emails.  Here is a discount coupon, here is our new scent, try our new subscription service, and the list goes on and on.  I was completely turned off with this spammy behavior, and it got me thinking about marketing and how much is too much.

Realistically I know there are so many choices of products in the online shopping world that it's always a good idea to stay in touch with your customers so they keep you in mind.  But, and this is a big one for me, is it really necessary to hound them day and night and does that actually translate into sales and make your customers want to buy from you?  Maybe it's been the subject of some billion dollar marketing study and maybe it does work.  I don't know.  But that's not the way I do business, nor the way I intend to do business. I have specifically designed my website to be simple and not feature pop-ups and send you emails every single day.  Maybe I am being very naive, but I believe if you are an honest business, provide quality products, fair prices and share things your customers want to see, enjoy and buy, that is enough.  Life is too short to be inundated with 5 or 6 emails every day from every company you've ever shopped with in your existence on this planet.

Anyway, if you are interested in a simple non-harassing shopping experience, I hope you will consider browsing through Cherry Rose Cottage's selection of products from time to time and stop in to visit the blog to see what's been happening around here.  I don't have pop-ups (other than some necessary informational ones).  I'm not going to fill your inbox with 100 emails per month.  If you shop with me, I may send you email offers from time to time but my intent is to keep everything easy peasy and simple.  When you visit Cherry Rose Cottage, I want you to feel welcome, relaxed and enjoy your shopping experience.

If you are interested in viewing new products as they are added to the store, please follow on Instagram and Pinterest as I try to post new products there most every day.  But again, I post a max of 2 or 3 products on both sites.  Right now while I'm reworking my profiles, it may be slightly more on Pinterest, but once updated, the max number of posts will be 2 or 3.  I'm not going to spam your feed every day with an annoying amount of posts.  In addition, I try to add new products to the store every day, so if you want to stop in and check out the new offerings, select "Shop All" from the top menu bar and the products are arranged by newest items added. I would be delighted to have you visit.

Thank you so much for visiting and sharing your time with me.  I hope you will stick around and shop for a while and that you find your perfect treasure.  Happy Shopping!