Ruination & Despair

This afternoon we shipped a selection of our fine cards to Gryphon Studio, an ecclectic boutique in Melrose, north of Boston. The order simply came in over the transom, thus providing a useful reminder to the members of our crack sales team that they had better get out there and start bringing in orders of their own if they don’t want to be replaced with department-store mannequins, or perhaps a used crash-test dummy or two.

As you may already have noted here (assuming you were paying attention), we shipped an initial order of fine cards to The Montague Bookmill on May 28. According to the post office, that order arrived May 31. Yesterday, just eight days later, the Bookmill’s buyer called, clamoring for more cards, “because the first order I got from you almost literally blew out the door, with many different people!” Apparently, these discerning customers had been buying multiple cards, whether they knew what they were going to do with them or not, “just to have them.” As the Bookmill’s buyer confided, she had been certain the cards would do well, “but not that well!”

Given our base of operations here in Washington, DC, I’ll admit we’ve been a bit slow to build a network of retailers in the neighboring Commonwealth of Virginia. Happily, this morning we did ship a first order of fine notecards to Diversions Cards & Gifts, an independent card shop of long standing in the Fairlington Shopping Center in Alexandria.

This time it’s The Montague Bookmill, a used bookstore in the wilds of western Massachusetts, housed in a gristmill built in 1842. Even if Salon had not named the Bookmill one of the “world’s most inspiring bookstores,” we would still have been interested in it as a possible venue for our fine cards, but the slogan, “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find,” convinced us we needed to make getting this account a priority.

This morning we shipped an initial order of fine cards to ZIG ZAG Gallery in Centerville, south of Dayton. ZIG ZAG specializes in small-studio American crafts, including jewelry, pottery, clothing, accessories, and all manner of whatnot. Assuming it is even remotely feasible for you to get there, we encourage you to descend upon them with wallets open!

As some of you already know, we have released our catalog for 2011. Wholesale buyers are encouraged to request a copy!

This morning we shipped a first order of fine cards to Chameleon, an art gallery and store in the charming tourist haven and former abolitionist stronghold of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Reportedly the owners discovered us when a customer returned from visiting Washington, D.C., excitedly clutching one of our inimitable “Swine fever” valentines!

We are pleased to announce that this morning we shipped an order of fine cards to the estimable Russian Hill Bookstore in San Francisco. It’s been a couple of years, and we are excited to be returning to Polk Street!

Once again our avid sales team has come through, adding the socially conscious pet-supply retailer The Big Bad Woof to the roster of fine merchants who carry Archelaus cards. We have a wide variety of animal cards on offer, and it was these designs that enabled our sales staff to woo and win.

Founded in 2005, The Big Bad Woof is located in the Old Takoma neighborhood, right on the border between northeast Washington and suburban Maryland, conveniently close to the Takoma Metro station.

This time it’s Left Bank Books in Searsport, Maine, a former ship-building center turned antique-shop capital on the Atlantic coast, some twenty miles south-southwest of Bangor. We sent them their first order this morning. Reportedly, one of the three owners discovered our cards on a recent visit to Washington and decided they needed to get in on a good thing!

This afternoon we shipped a first order of fine cards to Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, North Carolina, a mere stone’s throw from Meredith College and North Carolina State University. Established in 1984, Quail Ridge Books is an award-winning independent bookseller, in short, just the sort of fine merchant who would choose to carry our products!

We have been putting this off for awhile now, but unfortunately increases in our supplier and shipping costs are forcing us to raise some of our prices. We are attempting to hold the line, however, by limiting this affront to your sensibilities to our black-and-white cards, which will be coming up to the same price level as our color cards.

Thus, our smaller black-and-white cards, which up to now have cost $1.95 retail, will rise to $2.50 (wholesale price: $7.50 per half-dozen), and our larger black-and-white cards, which have cost $2.50 retail, will rise to $2.95 (wholesale price: $8.85 per half-dozen).

These lamentable but necessary increases will occur on the following schedule:

wholesale: 1 February 2011;
retail: 1 March 2011.

Our retail shipping-and-handling charges will also increase on 1 March.

This staggered approach is intended to give our loyal retail customers an opportunity to help us clear out inventory bearing the old prices. And, to facilitate this worthy goal, we are having a SALE! Throughout the month of February, not only can you stock up on our black-and-white cards at their old prices, but — if you are a member of the Archelaus mailing list or an Archelaus Facebook fan — you will receive a 5% discount on your entire retail order, whatever it may contain, if you enter the secret discount code at checkout. But then, if you are on our mailing list, or one of our Facebook fans, you should already know this, and the secret discount code to boot!

So, by all means, go ahead and order our fine cards as though there were no tomorrow, for, while (presumably) there will be one, our prices will be higher then. (I hope I don’t need to explain that that’s a metaphorical tomorrow, meaning March 1, not a literal tomorrow, meaning Groundhog’s Day, when, in fact, our retail prices will still be the same as they were yesterday. As an Archelaus customer, you should be sufficiently sentient to grasp that on your own, but this clarification is provided in case you happen to be a Lawyer.)