Six Awesome Winners

First I want to go over the big news from last week…
which is…
I’ve co-founded a startup called Shelf.
And it’s going to be the coolest thing since Facebook! 🙂

Last week, for the very first time, we released this project to all of you blog-hoppers… Yay!

And for everyone who participated, let me just say, that we couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of testers! Even those of you who had issues getting the site to work… you all still provided feedback that was upbeat, constructive, and friendly. So thank you very much for helping us out… and for telling your friends!!!

For those of you who missed that blog entry (and the 3 giveaways that went along with it), no big deal… we’ve got a 3 month long plan for getting this website up to par before doing a big public launch. And during that time, we plan on doing A LOT more giveaways!

Essentially, Shelf is a better way to shop! And you can watch a demo video here.

As we scale up, we’ll be doing huge chunks of improvements, like… adding stores, incorporating kids clothes, expanding into home goods, putting together a phone version, adding in “gift shelves”, implementing a Pinterest Plugin, etc. And while we’re doing all that, we want to make sure that we keep getting feedback.

You all did such a GREAT job with this first mini-release, that we’ve decided to do mini-releases every week, at which time, we’ll be giving away a few $50 Visa Gift Cards. (These are a little more generic than quilt store gift certificates… so please, invite anyone you know to participate (preferably people who do a lot of online shopping.)) Oh, and for all the quilters that decide to follow along, we’ll be putting up free patterns from time to time! Which should be fun! (Because they’re 9 bucks in stores. :))

Anyway, to stay involved, you can check back here on our blog every Monday morning. We’ll keep you posted about what the next giveaways are… and how to get involved. If you “Like Us” on Facebook, you can also check there for updates on the next giveaway. We’ll make sure to put up a post a few days in advance.

So here’s an overview of how Shelf did on it’s first week…

Thank you Sandy, you were our very first user ever!
And Katie Y, you are our most active user! 🙂 And we love you!
Total unique visitors : 360
Total pages viewed : 2456
Total participating countries : 13
Total participating cities : 253

As far as the feedback goes,
we’ve incorporated almost all of it! Yay!
It’s been a VERY busy week… 🙂
Our biggest feat being: iPad compatibility!!!

We’ve:
1. added ANTHROPOLOGIE to our list of supported stores
2. fixed login issues
3. completely redesigned the login experience (hopefully it’s not still confusing)
4. fixed a whole BUNCH of bugs that you guys helped us find! (Thank you for that!)
5. added the ability to filter deals by store on the Promo Dashboard
6. iPad compatibility

If you all could check it out again, that would be awesome, and let us know if things are working better! And for those of you who requested iPad compatibility, it would be great if you could try it out now, and then let us know what you think. (Installing the bookmarklet on an iPad is a little bit of a pain because apple doesn’t support “dragging-and-dropping”… but we’ve given pretty concise instructions. They’re a little ugly at the moment though because we’re tired. :))

Lastly, I want to mention two super big chores that Shelf takes care of.
The first is email clutter.
Every single day, people receive an average of THIRTY-THREE retail emails!
Which is too darn much in our opinion!

We provide users with the promo dashboard. An aggregate view of ALL running promotions (that you would usually have to search for in your inbox). Now, they’re all in one place. They have a uniform format for easy scanning. AND you can now filter them based off of the stores that you care about.

Wouldn’t it be fun to unsubscribe from all of those daily emails. And then, just come here whenever you want to see current deals. We’ll have them all, and within the next week, we’ll be adding ALL of the stores that you guys suggested during the blog hop! So keep the suggestions coming!

Secondly, you can set up price alerts. So if you like a pair of boots that cost $200. But you only want to pay $125. You can set up a notification, and we’ll watch the price for you!

And now for the giveaways!
We had three fabric giveaways that are going to the following people…

Great story! Your dad sounds like a character! Thanks for the pattern!
(1 Birds & Berries jelly roll)

I love the story about your Father, so sorry he spent the night in Jail.
Love your fabrics.
(1 Birds & Berries layer cake)

I love these bow ties! Thanks for the chance to win!!
(1 Birds & Berries layer cake)

And we have three FAT QUARTER SHOP gift certificates (each for $75) for three of our new Shelf users!

Sweet I am totally looking up shelf! I do the same thing about deal shopping… and it is a HUGE pain, but worth the savings in the end.

I loved your idea of Shelf.. My daughter is the real shopper.. she just moved to Denver in May.
I will turn her on to the idea… I know she will love it and try it and join… I bet.
I will also give the info to my grand daughter. Love your story!
best of Luck in San Francisco!
Thanks for the pattern…
Sherry

I love the concept and the site tutorial was fabulous… I’m sure smart and thrifty shoppers are going to love this tool. I agree that Anthropologie, and department stores like Macy’s and Nordstroms would be great additions.

Thank you to everyone who participated, and please keep up with us and our new project, Shelf!