New Designs

With winter on it’s way ( the leaves here in North GA are already past peak color ) there will be more time to experiment with new colors and patterns. Here are a few that came out of the vise this week:

Remember the “Artist Tribute Series?” Those are almost ready for photos, too. We’ll sell those as a set only since I think they’re kinda cooler all together than as individual collector’s pieces.

Look for those soon!

Kenny Rogers was right…

“You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run…”

 

Unfortunately, in the end after all was said and done, these aren’t really quite what I expected. Don’t get me wrong – they’re pretty neat, but they’re not what I was hoping for when the idea hit. Back to the drawing board – nevertheless, I’ll be giving away three of the prototypes very soon! The correct answer to the Facebook question was : “real gold” and the store was “Dahlonega General Store”

From Facebook to Eternity

 

So, if you follow Zazzy Pop on Facebook , you might have seen our little contest there where you tried to guess the new material we’re using this week – and the store where it was purchased. If you got both exactly right, we’d give you one of the new poppers. Well, unfortunately no one got it exactly right although a few Zazzy fans were mighty close!

Fear not! We’re going to give away one anyway to one of the lucky folks that saw that post. You know, it’s true – you really do make your own luck most of the time. 

Well, anyway – if you’re clever enough to be following the facebook page AND the Zazzy Pop blog here – you’re ahead of the game again…because we’re going to give away that new high-end popper here, not there. Gotta be on your toes!

I hear you – “Alright already! What’s the new popper?” I’ll give you a hint, the soon-to-be-not-so-secret-ingredient is a material produced here in Georgia, but it’s not manufactured. It’s also not kudzu. 🙂

Any ideas? I’ve tossed this idea around before…..

Anyone?

Is it cotton?!? Nooooooooooo. It’s much more valuable than cotton?

Did we make a tobacco popper? One with peach skin?

A popper with peanuts in it? Now, there’s a thought – but no. Sorry peanut lovers. ( Or as we call ’em here – “P-Nuts.”  )

 

 

 

Pushing ahead…

I’ve been praying and thinking about the situation for a while. After the summer, sales have dropped off quite a bit even though I’ve been pushing and promoting as much as I can while still trying to make sure I’m not annoying both new, potential buyers and our loyal fans. With fall here, and ironically just as I’ve come to a decision on what to do, orders have picked up again and the decision’s been made: We’ll keep pushing ahead until next summer and take another look at things then.

That’s the good news. What may turn out to be the bad news is that despite my best efforts to keep things from changing, there is going to be a price increase in Jan. 2013. Insider information says the price of materials is going to go up next year, and the cost of making Zazzy Pops is more than what I’d originally thought. It seems almost every month I’m stopping to check our costs – our margins are that thin – and so far in 2012, even though sales have had their ups and downs, we’re still not making a profit. They say most businesses don’t for the first two years, don’t they? Well, that’s turning out to be true for us, too it seems. But we’re not going to give in now, we’re going to see how “Spring 2013” goes and make some kind of decision then. All we can do is take it day by day, month by month. We were hoping to go from hobby to business in Jan 2013, but I think we’re going to hold off on that for a bit longer, too.

So that’s the news today – and now I’ve got to tie some trout flies for Delayed Harvest season! I’ll be chasing rainbows, browns and brook trout in about a week. We’re glad fall is here at our house – bet you are at yours, too.

Thank you for sticking with us and don’t forget, we’re doing Buy 3 Get 1 Free PLUS a free Lightload towel on every order in October.

Tight lines and fat fish,

Owl

Hard decisions.

Some hard decisions will have to be made in the very near future. Prices may increase – or production may cease. I’ve put alot of money and time into this, but it feels like we may just be digging a big economic hole for ourselves. We’ll let you know something soon. Thanks for your interest in ZP.

owl

A few new designs – the camo came about after a failed try at something new. Who says mistakes are a bad thing? 🙂 These will be much more glossy after the application of the “SBC” and the epoxy. Which one is your favorite?

Heads up!

Yeah, we know – the website is down. We use GoDaddy.com since they’re uber-cheap ( although personally I loathe the commercials) and some left-wing hackers have ruined the websites of millions apparently. Frankly, I’m not sure how they think that helps anything, but hey – just another day in our crazy world I guess. So anyway, hopefully that will be fixed soon. If not, oh well. Most of our referrals come from friends, customers, the blog here and our social media sites anyway. We may even be able to just kill the website altogether next year, which might enable me to actually LOWER the price on 2013 Zazzy Pops!? We’ll see how that all pans out when I sit down with my nemesis, Mr. Calculator. LOL

Last week was a shipping week and as far as I know everyone who has pending orders either has their poppers now, or they are on the way. We shipped out two batches last Thursday and today – which means for now, we’re all caught up! New orders would be looking at about a 4 day turn-around – except for the fact that this month we’re taking a little vacation time. That will probably keep orders at 6-10 days before things get busy for fall and winter/Christmas.

If you have friends that fly fish – why not get them a few Zazzy Pops for Christmas? We’d love to have your business and I KNOW your friends would love to get some Zazzy this year! You can even order Zazzy Bugs for your friends that only fish with spinning gear! We’ve heard alot of success stories this year from folks fishing Zazzy Bugs on light spinning gear!

Speaking of which – if you have a story you’d like to share, we’re always all ears! Let us use it to spread the word about Zazzy Pop and we may even send you some freebies. 🙂

Well, back to the popper mine! Have a great week everyone!

You heard right: FREEBIES

So if you’re keeping up with the blog here, you know that in September and October you can get in on our Buy 3 Get 1 Free Deal, right? OK, so in addition to that we’ve teamed up with the awesome folks at Lightload Towels to give you even more freebies this fall!

With every order of 3 or more Zazzy Pops in September and October, you’ll get the FREE ZAZZY POP and now, a FREE LIGHTLOAD TOWEL as well!

Lightload Towels are all the rage right now in the outdoor blogging world and yeah – they are THAT awesome. First off, they’re tiny small and super light. Then, just a little water and you have a full-sized towel that can be used for about a bazillion things. They’re good for cleaning your hands, washing the dog, cleaning the car windows, wiping down your gear, starting a fire, keeping you cool, shading your head, using as a napkin after a meal at camp, etc. etc. etc.

You’ve probably seen them and thought about trying them – and now you can try one out for free!*

Supplies are limited, so don’t wait too long. Heck, you can even give your FREE Lightload Towel to your mother-in-law for Christmas! 🙂

 

 

*with an order of three or more ZP’s <- see what we did there? :p

 

Cooler weather? Is Fall Here?

Well, last week we had some pretty cool weather here in Georgia – but now I’m hearing tomorrow’s temps will be back in the 90’s again! So much for fall right now I guess – but it will be here before you know it. Hey, did you know – it’s only a couple of months until Christmas!?!?! Where did 2012 go?

I’ve been busy this last week filling orders and making some poppers for my trip to the beach. Me fishing on the beach would be like taking ” Troutrageous! Mike  ” to the Redneck Games. Maybe we’d see Honey Boo Boo there? 🙂 We’ll see if I can actually catch anything on a spinning rod first, and maybe then try the poppers out in the back bays or something. Not sure I could work them very well in the surf from the beach!? I’d probably end up catching a bikini-fish, which might not be all bad, right? 😉

For your pre-Christmas shopping, we put up some poppers on eBay today. This is the second time I’ve tried it and although the first offering was well revieved on eBay, I have to admit to you that it was one of our regular customers that got the winning bid! He still got them for alot less than our normal price, though so I’m hoping he was happy with the winning bid amount!

Today the poppers are up to $2.50 but I expect that to change. When we list poppers on eBay, they are the same quality as the ones you buy directly from me. I’m just looking for new ways to sell a few poppers here and there. Esty didn’t work and we got no traffic from Pinterest. We’re not really equipped to do craft/art shows with them, besides the fact that I can hardly keep up with orders, much less get enough done that aren’t already sold to have any kind of inventory. We planned on trying a craft fair this spring, then this fall – and right now I still don’t have more than a half dozen poppers in inventory – and 4 of those are on eBay! 🙂 LOL

So anyway, have a great week everyone and place your bid on this 4 pack! You help us keep paying our bills and you can get great poppers for you or as a Christmas present! Now we just need the weather to go with Christmas! Whew! Where did I leave that glass of sweet tea?

eBay Link:   CLICK HERE!