FredMcKinnon.Com

Hey Everybody -

FRIDAY – now that things have settled down a bit after our transition into the new building at church, I actually start having my day off again, Fridays. Typically, Fridays aren’t a day off work … just off work @ church. I’ve still got to get up and enter lyrics for ProPresenter this weekend (one of my tasks that didn’t get completed), but for the most part, I’m done until Sunday.

However, as a small business owner – I have a ka-zillion other things that stay on the back burner until Fridays when I catch up. Until I can find a good part-time assistant to return phone calls, take orders, process orders, and manage inventory, I have to neglect most of my incoming sales calls – many don’t leave voicemails … many leave voicemails, only to have shopped elsewhere by the time I call them back. NOT good business … for the folks who did it simple, and order online …. it makes the world so much easier. Speaking of … for all you folks w/ Macs, iPods, iPhones, PDA, BlackBerry, Treo, etc … checkout all the goodies we offer at GetSkinsNow.Com.

Anyway – I love Fridays. For the first couple of hours, I juggle attempts at beginning work, while at the same time listening to the non-stop beckoning calls from the younger two kids through the baby monitor as Joy has a girl’s accountability group for b’fast every Friday AM from around 8:30 – 10:15.

Today:
1. There are currently 753 messages in my email inbox.
2. Only 75 unread blogs in my GoogleReader (unfortunately, those are lower on the priority list)
3. I have multiple cases of product from vendors to check-in, ship out, or manage. (new cases for MacBook and HP 6000 series from Speck, a huge shipment from Canada/Hong Kong arriving today from UNIEA, more from Marware, InvisibleShield, OtterBox, iSkin, and Klear-Screen)
4. I have 3 piles of paperwork on my desk – tax paperwork, invoices to be paid, bank statements
5. I have a stack of returns/exchanges spilling over in a pile on the floor.
6. I have 3 big boxes of NEW PRODUCTS that have arrived from vendors that aren’t listed anywhere for sale yet.
7. I have a few banking errands that are like bugs biting me … need to take care of them, but they are just nuisance errands that I don’t really feel like dealing with yet.
8. We’ve been approved as official dealers for M-Audio, maker of incredible music products, including keyboards, monitors, studio headphones, in-ear monitors (the IE-30′s are awesome), music software, ProTools plugins, USB MIDI controllers, guitar processors, etc. We have full dealership to all the M-Audio product line – so I have a huge bit of products to get added into our listings at Ebay and Amazon … in the meantime, if you want any M-Audio gear, I will make you an awesome price. Contact me directly. And hey – how ’bout spreading the word that you can get M-Audio gear from me!? Thanks.

Think I’m kidding? I’m ashamed to show you just ONE ANGLE of my studio/office (much more an office/warehouse these days as opposed to a studio).

How’d you like to walk in to THIS in the morning? I’ve got my work cut out for me today.
Fred

Hey Ya’ll,

Just a quick “hi” to my friends and readers .. I’ve not blogged much, but I’ve been here – just swamped w/ Christmas music preparations for church, meetings, and then lots of early AM time and late PM time doing e-biz (it’s the holiday selling season and discountkidsgames.com, thekidmall.com, getskinsnow.com, and our Ebay, Amazon, and PriceGrabber storefronts are booming) … so I’ve not had any time. I have over 283 unread blogs in my Google Reader. I see another RSS Bankruptcy being filed.

On a separate note – I was checking over Jon Michael’s homework tonight. He’s in 1st grade. He had to write five sentences with each of his first five spelling words. The 4th word on the list was “shine”. Jon Michael’s sentence?

“I want to shine for God”.

Made my day.

Hope to be back to blogging consistently soon … please don’t remove me from your Readers … we’ll be back!

Merry Christmas,
Fred

PS: see all those links up there … still shopping? Check out my stores! Also, as soon as I can catch a breath … and if you’re interested, I’m about to put my Worship Under the Stars CD and DVD online for $5.00 … not each … for both. That’s $2.50/each. Cost. Less than cost. CLEARANCE … so if you’re interested in a deal like that, let me know!

Hey Ya’ll -

How ’bout that title … basically, this is a quick update to let you know what’s going on with several things I’ve mentioned (or meant to mention!) ….

1. O Holy Night – the saga continues. I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with the REAL “O Holy Night” singer yesterday. I’ll post the interview here this weekend. Plenty of people “claim” to be the real “O Holy Night” singer … and the fact that more than 15 YouTube vidoes alone have people “claiming” to be the real person and the dozens of “urban legends” surrounding it … well, that fact is what made the real person decide to break his silence and step forward.

As far as the big question – “was the singer for real, or just cutting up” ….

… you’ll have to wait.

2. Highest Praise Worship Podcast:
I released a new Highest Praise Worship Podcast last week but was too busy to announce it here. It features 3 cool songs for corporate worship by Barry and Terri Collecutt, Will and Crystal Yates, and Mark Condon, so check it out:
web | iTunes

3. Amazon.Com Saga:
Thanks to everyone who contributed their input regarding the Amazon.Com situation. For now, I’ve decided to run BOTH accounts simultaneously. You CANNOT list the same products in both accounts, so the products that are automated by my inventory source provider are in the original Marketplace account, and the products that I physically ship and sell are in the new “ProMerchant” area. The “new seller” logo is gone, I have my first official 100% positive feedback (thanks, Chris), and have sold 31 items already – so I think it’s moving along nicely.

4. New Blog Alert:
“Thinking Out Loud“, a new blog by the Technical Director of SSCC, Travis Paulding (known on TheWorshipCommunity.Com as dtpuga). Travis and I share an office and he’s always talking about how he has too much work to do for “blogging”. Well, he’s eating crow. Travis is now Blog Boy #2. And it’s a good thing – he’ll talk about life, his baby girl (eta about 3 mos), technical stuff, ministry, and whatever else he feels like discussing. So go over and leave a comment on his first post, and give him some link love. I’ve added him to my blogroll.

5. Christmas – Be Still
I’m very blessed by the strong encouragement I’ve gotten from everyone about recording the “Be Still” album. After publishing this blog, I hope to finish up the final version of “Away In A Manger” and start on Silent Night.

Speaking of Christmas and music – stay tuned, because we’re about to do a CD/DVD blowout on Worship Under the Stars that you won’t believe. (Can you say Abe Lincoln?). Seriously, watch the blog for a package sale that will be an incredible deal.

OK – so regarding, “Be Still” … It’s your turn to contribute - what peaceful, (slower) Christmas songs would you like to see “make the cut” and get on the album?

Have a great day – I may be back over the weekend, but will be at soccer tomorrow AM and the UGA/FL game tomorrow afternoon!

For the Kingdom,
Fred

Hey Ya’ll,

Well, this blog is certainly about much more than just worship and music. As you may recall from a previous post, I had a 911 Emergency with Amazon.Com and my online business. I’m happy to say that was resolved, but now I have a new issue.

You see, I am an Amazon.Com Marketplace Seller – anybody can signup for this and start listing products to sell. For over a year, I’ve been trying to get approved as an Amazon.Com “ProMerchant” seller through their Business Solutions department. There are many advantages to this over the MarketPlace format. Advantages include:

1. ability to upload your company logo, which makes it stand out more in the listings
2. ability to customize your own shipping rates, as opposed to being restricted to the default, flat rate Amazon pays to Marketplace Sellers (which in many cases isn’t enough to cover actual shipping)
3. ability to sell internationally
4. ability to qualify as a “Featured Merchant” to be displayed on the top of the listings
5. and a few more …

The cost for this is the same as for Marketplace – most everything else is the same. To the end-user, the purchasing experience is identical – they can’t really tell who is a “Marketplace Seller” or a “ProMerchant Seller” except for the fact that a ProMerchant Selller may have a logo next to their listing.

You can have a ProMerchant account AND a Marketplace account – but you CANNOT sell the same items in both. Just so you can see what I’m talking about – I’ve got some separate (but similar) products listed at the links below – look and see the differences. FYI – my SellerID is “hppenterprises”.

13″ Aqua MacBook Case (listed as a ProMerchant – note HPP Enterprises logo, and “Just Launched” … no feedback score, which would go away after my first sell where someone leaves feedback).

15″ Aqua MacBook Case (listed in my MarketPlace account, the one I’ve had for a few years … no logo (no big deal really, I don’t think) and the “94% positive over the past 12 months (325 ratings.) 748 lifetime ratings.”

Here’s the dilemma. In order to convert, it’s like starting all over. You lose ALL of your feedback ratings, lifetime ratings, and “star ratings”. I’d go from a very high, positive 4-1/2 star (out of 5) rating with nearly 800 lifetime ratings to a “Just Launched – New Seller” rating.

It’s a tough decision. If my feedback score and previous ratings would migrate to the new “ProMerchant” portal, it would be a no-brainer. I’ve wanted to get accepted into this “more elite” level of sellers, but not that I’ve received approval, I’m having a tough time letting go of that feedback reputation and starting all over – it took me 2+ years to earn that much feedback. Of course, I can always start buiding a new feedback score.

If you’re e-business saavy, please let me know your thoughts … and if you’re not, please pray for God’s wisdom. I really appreciate it. It’s a critical time to make these decisions, just prior to the big Holiday Season.

God bless,
Fred

Hey Ya’ll,

I need your help. I need prayer. Prayer for grace and favor. I just got the following notice regarding my “amazon.com” seller account:

Hello from Amazon.com.

This message is to let you know that we have blocked your seller account and ended your listings. You may no longer sell on our site.

We took this action because it has come to our attention that your seller performance is significantly below our standards for sellers.

The feedback, claims and/or refunds submitted to your seller account profile indicate that a number of buyers have been dissatisfied with the service you have provided. As per our Participation Agreement, Amazon.com reserves the right to close accounts that fall significantly below our standards.

If you still have items to ship, please take appropriate steps to resolve your pending sales. Your Seller Account will remain accessible and you are encouraged to refund or ship pending orders.

Your funds are being reserved in your Amazon.com account for up to 90 days from the date of your final sale. After 90 days, the funds will be disbursed minus any A-to-Z Guarantee claims or chargebacks. It is possible to expedite the release of these funds by providing sufficient proof of delivery and/or shipment for your orders to payments-funds@amazon.com. The order number should be included for each order you are providing this information about. If you have further questions about your disbursement, please email payments-funds@amazon.com.

While we appreciate your interest, the closure of an account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well. Please note that we take such actions for the protection of all Amazon.com participants.

So … this has happened before. Once with Ebay because someone somehow hacked my account once. It took 6 months to get resolved. It also happened last year with Amazon … thankfully, they heard my appeal and re-opened my account within a week.

Here’s the lowdown, and why prayer and a plea for grace and favor on my behalf is critical:

I do e-business. It’s fun for me, but it’s necessary for me. It supplements my ministry income, and with a family my size, “supplement” is beyond necessary. I’m a great seller. I ship promptly and give incredible customer service. However, some things happened a couple of weeks ago that were beyond my control.

A 3rd party inventory source provider handles the “inventory feed” for about 2,000+ products that I sell on Amazon.Com. They erroneously pushed over 2000 products into my account one morning with a price of $1.85. Like, brand new $50 video games or software that would never cost $1.85. Items I don’t have … and certainly not at $1.85. It was a glitch. A mistake. A technical error. Within 30 – 40 minutes, I had over 200+ orders in my inbox.

I had no choice by to pull all listings and refund over 200+ orders. I then spent half the day personally emailing EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER explaining what happened to them, and why we were forced to refund their order. The majority of customers were positive and wrote back with “yeah, I knew it was too good to be true, but thought I’d try it”. There were many who were very negative, leaving horrible feedback on our Seller Account – some even threatening lawsuits … over a $50 video game.

Long story short, Amazon has a policy (and a good one, I might add) where if the ratio of refunds to sales gets too high, it suggests that the customer service and/or product is not good. As a result of this huge technical glitch, my ratio of refunds to sales soared well above the acceptable threshold.

So, don’t be mad at Amazon. It’s just their policy. At the same time, I’ve just sent a detailed explanation and I’ve pleaded my case with them. This “fiasco” that happened a few weeks ago should be notated on my Seller Account with them because they were the first ones I contacted.

Please join me in prayer that God’s will would be done. I’ve written a blog like this before – last year, a similar thing happened. God showed His favor then, and I’m praying He’ll do the same now. The last couple of months of 2007 would be our highest ever, based on previous years of “holiday buying”, and we could really use the business.

Will you pray?
Fred