Mighty Moa Blog

Here’s where you can find the latest goings-on here at Mighty Moa.

Yes really, they are doing research on the Moa still in New Zealand (well obviously they can’t do research on the Moa elsewhere as it was only in New Zealand)

Read the full story [source: Dominion Post]

I like the final comment on the story regarding what happened to Australian birds – “A key question for us is, `where has all the Australian poo gone?”‘

Any appropriate comments?

Well it’s been a number of months since I put it in, and I got a letter the other day from the Trade Marks Registry and my trademark has been approved!  Yah!

This means I can now put the small R (®) in a circle beside all the words – “Mighty Moa”®

I’ve made a few tins now so have been working on improving the look and styling, so here are some new photos to show you what the packaging looks like now..   The cookies in the tin for this shot are the White Chocolate and Cranberry

Supermarkets sure do have to prepare a lot for Christmas.. That sure is a lot of food, booze, and turkeys they have to deliver..

It’s a good thing that I’m not in the supermarket business, see the mass amount of planning and shipping that’s involved.    Though if I was supplying the supermarkets I’m sure I would be able to sell things cheaper due to the old economies of scale..  but of course the ingredients probably wouldn’t be as good as the supermarkets wouldn’t care as they just want to hit the right price point..

Well I’ve emailed quite a few people that I know regarding my Christmas Cookies.. and had a few orders, but no way near as many as I was hoping for, and none from any workmates of friends..

A lot of people have been surprising quiet about things as well.. Does this mean people didn’t get my emails.. or all these people that wanted to be “tasters” of the cookies don’t want to be “buyers”..

Hmm..

I probably will have to go back to IT work in 2009 at this rate.. :(

After a bit more tweaking, fixing, and overview from friends (that spotted some areas that could be made a bit clearer).. the website is finally officially live!

I feel like I should be having a party, but not quite yet.

Have to see how many orders I have to fulfil first, but go on check out the homepage and order some yummy handmade cookies.

They smell and taste great!

Well Dan helped sorted out a few problems I was having with the template over the weekend, and I’ve spend the last couple of days battling with a number of different eCommerce applications.  Trying to work out which one would be the simplest and easiest to implement.  After a bit of looking around I’ve gone with Google Checkout.

Still even with Google Checkout while they do make it quite simple for you they almost have two different options, one for the simple stuff you want to do and one for the more complicated integration into eCommerce applications.

Of course the problem is that when your looking through the documentation, sometimes its not all there, or it refers to the more complicated solution when your using the easier one.   Even more fun is when you want to try and use both bits!

Took a while to read through and try a number of the different options that can and can’t be applied.  Had to hunt around the documentation as well to find what code I needed to add in so that I could use the Google test system to go through and check out the complete process without charging something to myself!

For that system you have to register separately, and with a credit card number as well.  After hunting around on the Google documentation site again I found that they have three different test credit card numbers that you can enter, which was good, didn’t want to give my normal credit card details on a test site.  You never know it might accidentally process it!

Shipping

I wanted to setup the shipping so that if you order one tin there is a basic charge, and each tin after that is a cheaper price (postage is high to begin with but then a fixed rate after).   However I also wanted to have an option so that if people are ordering five or more tins and they live or work within Zone 1 or 2 in Central London then we would deliver to them.   The first part of this shipping Google calls “Fixed cost per order plus additional per item”.  This is easily available in the simple Buy Now type option they give you.

The second part however would be similar to offering an “Instore pickup” (Google do allow you to automatically specify the region in which your free delivery might occur, however this nice bit of code is only available to US customers.. Grr…)  But of course this option means that you use slightly more complicated (HTML API functionaility) code.   However after playing around for this for a while I eventually worked out that I could combine both and it actually seems to work ok.  Great!

Just have to hope that all the shipping information is correct now when it comes through…

After a bit of thought, calculations, and numerous visits to lots of different shops, and websites, I decided to go with some nice round metal tins from The Box b.v.

I had to order a minimum $ quantity, and they only come in boxes of 6..  so had to work out how many I should go for that would take me over the right amount required.

Ordered them on Friday and thankfully the couriers they use actually provide a proper service (See Royal Mail are Merde), so they turned up today in all their glory!

So next step is to finalize the labelling for them and what kind of painting I’ll be able to achieve with them…

Also have to find some place to put them in the meantime!

(and yes I know the wallpaper is pretty shocking)

Decided to try making another variety today, previously had some details on a white chocolate and cranberry cookie.  So went off to the supermarket and brought all the required ingredients to give it a go with.

Different type of sugar in this batch, and the cranberries that I ended up finding (and buying) come coated with a sprinking of cinnamon.

After the usual cooking and then a wait for the cool down, I munched in…  Boy they are really yummy!  That cinnamon add’s a nice touch of spice to the whole cookie.

You can look, but you can’t yet eat..