Selling Scrollsaw and intarsia Patterns

Allison – I would think if you could convert each pattern into a pdf format that you should be able to e-mail to your customer. Not sure how to do a zip file either – but I’m sure someone here will.

As far as their receipt – most e-mail systems will let you request a return receipt when someone receives the e-mail. You usually set that up in your mail preferences section of your e-mail server.

I’m not sure what you mean by a confirmation receipt. Do you mean to have your customers send/notify you when they receive their shipment? If so, that would be a bit unusual. Most of the time, if you order something the vendor assumes you receive it unless the customer calls to inquire about it. I would think asking for receipts from your customers would be unnecessary.

The shipping costs is essentially what it costs you to mail the material—- you can charge what the post office would charge you for the weight and size of the package and pass that on to your customer. Most online vendors charge a range of postal charges. (i.e. – if your order is $5-$10 the charge is “x” if the order is $11-$20 the charge is “y”.) The handling portion of the S&H is what it costs the vendor to pay their employees to package and prepare the order for shipping. I would think that you would want to be sure to charge enough postage so that you are not putting yourself in the red. As for handling – you’ll have to decide if you want to pay yourself for your time in preparing the package – I would think you should.

I hope I understood your questions correctly. Hopefully someone here can tell you about zip files.

Good luck on your venture.

-- Betsy - GO BUCKS!

As far as converting to PDF this requires full-up Adobe, which can be quite pricey. You might be able to just buy the renderer, haven’t looked into it in a long time. My company has all the full-up versions so I just use it here. I am sending you a PM about the Adobe…

Depending on which version of Windows you are running the zip feature is built in, XP and Vista definitely have it. Otherwise there are free-ware and share-ware versions out there for free download, google pkzip or somethine along those lines. If your windows has it you can find it in the accessories program menu or you should be able to highlight some files, right click and that menu should contain a zip line item that will open the zip program.

I have purchased online plans before and the seller usually has an automated system so once you paypal the funds in you instantly get an e-mail containing the zip file or pdf. You have to be careful with zip files, some firewalls do block them now, we cannot receive them at work. So you might want to put something in the instructions for the buyer to specify whether they can receive zips or not. Zips can be set up as self-executing so they could contain viruses that instantly do their thing as soon as your double click the zip file, this is why some places are blocking them.

Good luck!

-- Rich, WNY, www.nyrockingchairs.com

Google CutePDF to get one version of PDF creator, or you can of course use Adobe on line to create your pdfs…I’ve not done that but they keep advertising it so it must be good right:-)?

A Zip file is a compressed file; something that Windows will now do for you (I don’t know if this works for Linux or other operating systems). Assuming you are using Windows XP…Right click on the file, look for Winzip in the window that drops down (its about 1/2 way down) click on that and then “add to zip file”. The zip file will appear in the same folder as the original file.

One question I have is why bother ‘zipping’ it, just send the PDF directly, there is minimal risk to sending the pdf out (zipping was routinely done to reduce the chance of file corruption and to reduce the size of file being sent over the network….2 situations that really don’t apply in this modern area of fast connections and clean data lines)?

Good luck with the cost recovery for your habit…uhhh hobby. Hope this helped.

-- ....next big purchase is wood for the next project, Mark

Allison, I agree with Mark that the whole zip deal is unnecessary for your purposes. Just email the .pdf files.

The first step, of course, is scanning the patterns. You do have a scanner, right? Depending on your scanner, it may already offer you the option of saving the scan as a .pdf file.

I also would not be concerned with confirmations. 99.9% of the time there will not be a problem, and if anyone says they didn’t get the email, you just resend it. (One thing I’ve learned in business management over the years is not to make avoidance of a problem more problematic than the problem itself.)

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

hey al let us know when you have all the patterns up and working , i would love to pick some up.

-- Roper - master of sawdust-

Allison,

Most email programs allow you to set a tracking option for your messages. If you are using Microsoft Outlook, here is the procedure:

Do one of the following:

To be notified about all messages

On the Tools menu, click Options.
Click E-mail Options.
Click Tracking Options.
Select the Read receipt or the Delivery receipt check box.

To be notified about a single message

In the message, click Options.

Under Voting and tracking options, select the Request a delivery receipt for this message or the Request a read receipt for this message check box.

PDF is the way to go and as Charlie pointed out, most scanner software has the option to save the scanned document in a .pdf format.

Lew

I wouldn’t worry too much about zip files, as these are small scanned patterns, and PDF should be just fine. there are free apps to save pics and scans as PDF and if you have a scanner – the software that came with it should give you that option right off of the bat.

I also wouldn’t worry about scams etc. these are artistic patterns: 1. the people who will mostly do business with you are artists, and woodworkers, and are mostly down to earth, and 2. there won’t be much of a payoff for anyone to try to scam you over these items…

good luck :) sounds like you’re on the right tracks!

-- My Drinking Club has a Woodworking Problem...

Hi Ailson

Im with charlie . But i have one question you said that you got your patterns of the web if they are in pdf format just save them as the same

Andy aka pommy

-- cut it saw it scrap it