Category: website

status update and plans: shipping of backlogged orders, plans for next 6 weeks

Between my starting the first draft of this post and finishing the version I’m actually posting, some things (as usual) changed. I’ll mention the changes in brackets within the text.

This turned out to be rather a long post. I’ve put it under a cut. The bottom line for readers is that I’m giving myself a deadline to be caught up – October 15th. If I’m not caught up by then, i’ll be putting the shop on “vacation” until I *am* caught up. Since I’m officially job-hunting again as the outside work has largely dried up and since there won’t be even the trickle of income from here in that event, I am not sure *how* I’ll get caught up, but I have to do something, and that is what this post is about.

Continue reading “status update and plans: shipping of backlogged orders, plans for next 6 weeks” →

july coupon codes – take 10%-20% off karmazain.com

I was going to have a July sale on mastery/commanding items, but DSL is still too spotty and I’m afraid I won’t have time to both set it up and post it before 3 am. So I just updated codes that expired last month so you can use them in July, since that was the quickest way to get the July specials out.

From now until July 15, use these codes when you check out through the new storefront for percentages off your entire order:

use code july10 for 10% off orders over 15.00
use code july15 for 15% off orders over 50.00
use code july20 for 20% off orders above 99.00

Here are the instructions:

Using Discount Codes:

“For direct payment gateways [this means if you use a credit card to pay through shopify payments], the discount code can be entered on page 2 of the checkout process when the customer has the opportunity to select a shipping method and enter in credit card information.

“PayPal Express, being an offsite payment gateway, works a bit differently. This is the PayPal Express Checkout’s workflow: when checking out, your customer goes to paypal.com right away, where PayPal collects his shipping and billing addresses. After that, the customer returns to Shopify where he picks a shipping rate, types in a discount code (if you have discount codes that are ‘active’), the price is updated accordingly and, on that same page, your customer gets to finalize his transaction.”

– from the Shopify user guide

Don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter – once we get the kinks ironed out, there’ll be newsletter-only specials, coupons, updates, and then regular tips, tricks, and conjure advice.

Write with your questions – I will publish and answer the really good ones as a regular “column” – you can ask anything, from hoodoo theory to recommendations to troubleshooting a spell you’ve done recently. Just shoot an email to karmazain at gmail.com and put “question for column” or something like that in the subject line. If I choose your question, you’ll not only get a perseonalized answer, you’ll get free goodies in the mail (my choice, but I will try to take preferences for formula families or product types into account).

website glitch + huge discounts for store testers

We are experiencing technical difficulties and karmazain.com is down at the moment. I’m on the phone with my registrar’s customer service now and hope to have this solved soon. Meantime, many services can be booked at my userinfo page or services post, or at my AIRR page, and urgent product orders can be placed by requesting an itemized invoice – just send me a list of what you want.

TESTING NEW STOREFRONT: HUGE DISCOUNTS FOR TESTERS

If you are feeling brave, you can also shop Karma Zain Spiritual Supplies at my new storefront, but be aware that it’s still under construction and some feathers are still sticking out. (It will be available at karmazain.com as soon as I get this mess sorted out, but right now there is this alternate URL.) I do need testers, and to that end I have put some discounts up to encourage folks to try it out and let me know their thoughts so far and any huge weirdness they encounter that I don’t know about yet. If you do hit a snag in browsing, email me and I may very well be able to iron it out in real time for you, or close to it. These discounts are significant and they completely eat any profit — for many items, it will actually cost me money to offer these discounts — so these won’t be available for too long; I just want to get the kinks out before I start promoting.

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If you want to take advantage of the discounts, here are the details:

get $3 off orders over $6 with code lentlaunch3 [good until March 13]
get $5 off orders over $30 with code lentlaunch5 [good until March 12]
get $12 off orders over $65 with code lentlaunch12 [good until March 11]
get $22 off orders over $100 with code lentlaunch22 [good until March 10]

Does shipping count towards the total? Good question. I still have no idea.
Can you use more than one code? I hope not, but I have no idea.
Does the system give you an option for creating an account, or will it force you to? I am not sure.

You can see why I need testers so badly! You will probably encounter glitches; that’s the whole reason I’m offering these deep discounts, so be sure you understand that there may be hiccups in the ordering process.

Discounts apply to *anything in the store that is showing up as in stock,* including Consultations and other services.
If you want an item that I usually carry but that isn’t showing up yet, feel free to write and ask; I am prioritizing some listings over others, but if you have a request, I can easily adjust some priorities.

KNOWN ISSUES

SERVICES NOT SHOWING: As of Friday night, you can’t get to the services through the pages called Altar Work and Consultations – those are just info pages at the moment. Services like light settings and consultations will be listed as store inventory soon (though shipping should not be charged). I am working on this but i’ts a lower priority than getting inventory and checkout weirdness ironed out since those services can still be booked elsewhere (like at this blog and at AIRR).
ETA: Consultations are now available at the website but are not yet linked to the directory/info page.

SHIPPING WEIRDNESS: There is a chance that you will not be charged shipping for your purchase. I have to update this in a manner that will take a very long time; some listings are updated and some aren’t. If you get lucky, you get lucky – enjoy the additional discount! If you are overseas, though, I might have to cancel your order if you aren’t charged shipping and don’t want to pay a second invoice; I can only afford so much cost here in the name of testing.

MAILING LIST: It was working, and then it wasn’t, and I don’t understand what’s up yet, but I’m working on it. 
ETA: I believe the newsletter/mailing list signup is now working. You can enter your email address and then you will get a confirmation link to confirm.

CATALOG LINK: Working on it. Currently linking to Oils category only; to get to the entire list of store categories, go down to Quick Links at the bottom, or to the drop down on pages with that feature, and choose Collections. This is the same thing as Categories.

ITEMS WITHOUT THUMBNAILS: I know. I just have to upload each one manually, even if they all have the same photo. It’s a feature :/

NO ITEM INFO IN POWDER/INCENSE CATEGORY: This is not only a known issue, it’s been an issue for years now 🙂 Unfortunately, I just always had things higher up on the priority list, and many of these items have never had product descriptions. It’s on the to-do list though.

RELATED PRODUCTS: This is weird, but it’s probably going to stay weird until I get all the stuff put into its proper category, and that has to be done one item at a time.

COUPON CODES: Apparently, you need to enter the coupon code after paying. So if you don’t see a place to enter it beforehand, maybe don’t panic? This makes no sense to me but I will check it out when I get somebody to go through checkout while I’m sitting here over their shoulder so I can see what’s going on.

THANK YOU TO EVERYBODY WHO HAS TESTED THE SITE SO FAR!! If anybody hits an issue not already listed, feel free to holler at me. Or if you have any comments or suggestions, I would love to hear those too. This switch has been in the works for a while; I had hoped to make it prettier before I launched, but my hand was forced when my domain went down today despite my having renewed it [if you want to know who NOT to get your domain from, I can make a suggestion 😦  ]

If you want to browse, create an account, and/or add yourself to the new email list without shopping just yet, feel free to do that too. The newsletter will be the source through which I will publish future newsletters with updates, recipes, coupons, and offers. The subscribe feature is at the very bottom of any page (I hope).

status update

I know I promised the store would be getting repopulated over the next week or two. Things have been a bit crazy – in addition to the move, I had some problems with the new DSL hookup, and then there’s the issue of finding local vendors/suppliers for some of the stuff I prefer to get locally rather than through mail order. But as of *right now*:

All client work extended during the upheaval period *was* maintained (extensions are for things like honey jars; something like a new vigil light setting order would not be in this category); the orders were received and work performed, but updating the calendar was slow. The calendar is now caught up with extensions of current altar work, so you can see where it’s at. If I owe you a report and/or photos, I’ll be working on that next.

If I owe you a light setting report, I’m working on those now.

If I owe you a light setting, I’m working on those too.

If I owe you a consultation, I’m starting back up with the queue this week.

I have put many store categories back up and am *slowly* getting stock re-listed, starting with conjure oils/hoodoo condition oils.

More as it comes.

website updates, consultations

The Altar Work page on my website now has a functional shopping cart for everything that doesn’t require a consultation beforehand.  So it’s a one stop page for single-candle light settings, mojo bags, chicken foot charms, and pakets wanga.  We’re still working on some of the photo issues (I sent crummy photos which are not working out, and then the "pakets" box has a photo of a mojo bag instead of a paket right now), but all the paypal buttons should be working.

Anything not listed on the page with a "buy it now" button needs a consultation.  ANY breakup, crossing, goofering or revenge work needs a consultation.

And a note on consultations: I’ve had more than one person lately purchase a consultation without reading any of the text associated with that consultation.  I then have to ask them to read the text again and make sure this is the service they want, since they’re asking for stuff I don’t do (like call them on the phone). Then I have to refund their money.  All of this back and forth could be avoided if people would *read.*  On every site at which I offer the means to purchase a consultation with me, the copy makes it clear that

  • – these are EMAIL consultations, not phone consultations
  • – they are consultations, not full-length, in-depth readings
  • – clients need to allow 7 days turnaround time for completion, AFTER receipt of all the info I need (if it takes me two days to get all your info, your seven days starts then).  I will answer your email ordering the consultation within 24-48 hours, and ask for any info I need, but it might take me a few days to finish yours, as sometimes a bunch come in at once. 

Guys, if this were a full-length, in-depth reading, there is no way in hell you’d be getting it for $10 or $15, sorry.  I’m not just starting out.  I haven’t charged prices that low in 20 years.  And I HATE the phone.  I do not talk on it without a prior appointment being set up.

I apologize to those of you that read, and to those of you that have read this before; I’m mostly posting it for the benefit of newer blog readers who may not already know this stuff.

NOW, how about a hoodoo post?  Let me find y’all something by way of thanks for listening to me beat this "why don’t people read the item details" dead horse….

ebay and website changes

Hey guys,

As I’ve vented about a few time, ebay is making yet more changes to the standards they’re holding sellers to.  I’m not going to repeat myself on any of that here, except to note again that their policies are horrible to small sellers, who they appear to want to drive out.

Their changes are resulting in changes that affect you guys though, so here are a few that have happened or are happening shortly.

For a while, I listened to ebay when they discouraged us from taking money orders, and I told several new inquirers that I would no longer accept them.  I’ve recently rethought that.  I am not allowed to say that  I will accept money orders as payment for items on ebay, but I can answer "yes" if a buyer raises the issue and asks to pay with one. 

Change: I will accept a money order as payment on ebay, as of now.  You just have to ask.  I cannot offer unless you ask.

Also, I now have the majority of hoodoo oils, voodoo and specialty oils, powders, and salts available on the website (at prices lower than on ebay, too).  Right now the only automated payment option is paypal, and the only automated shipping configuration is domestic (U.S.).  But if you are an international customer, and/or a customer who prefers to pay with a money order, you may still shop at the website.  Just contact me and tell me what you want. I will create an invoice for you, either directly within paypal or line by line in Excel to send to your email account if you prefer to mail payment. 

The site is still under construction, but my graphics person and coding person have been working on translating all my gibberish into computerese, and their work is making the site look better every day.  And we’re continuing to work.  One of the areas where prices on the site have gone up instead of down is the fee for consultations.  They are now $15 for email consultations, and I am still not doing phone consultations without prior appointments (and prior appointments are booked with prepayment.  I do not talk on the phone unless 1. an appointment has been made, and 2. the consultation fee has been paid.  Consultation fees for phone consultations start at $30 and there is a very long waiting list.   A $10 or $15 consultation fee is for an email consultation).

The consultation fee has not yet been updated at AIRR, though, and I don’t know when it might be, as a little thing like that is rightfully at the bottom of the web folks’ priority list.  So if you want a consultation, you actually want to book one through my AIRR link right now, as it still says $10. *

Now, if I could just get a weekend away from editing my ebay listings, which I have been doing constantly for the last seven months to keep in line with every single one of their changes, I might actually be able to post some hoodoo-related content here for a change. Wow, what a novelty?

So finally, on that note, guys – don’t be afraid to post questions here at the blog, or even email me directly to suggest a post or article you’d like to see.  And don’t be afraid to remind me if you asked one a while ago and I haven’t gotten to it – I can’t promise I will anytime soon, but I"d like to try, and there really isn’t a central collecting place for them given all the sites, email addresses, and social networking things.   I get tons of questions in private email, and I just plain cannot answer them all.  It’s not humanly possible.  But when I can, I try to answer some frequently asked ones here.  Now, about a third of my questions are "how do you use this condition oil," to which I answer, "rub it on something," ** and "can you give me a spell for…." to which I answer, "no."   But I get some really good ones, some really interesting ones, and even some stumpers sometimes, in addition to the really infuriating ones ("you’re going to hell, why are you in league with the devil?" to which I answer, "You are strange, pushy, and obnoxious. Go away") and the really asinine ones ("burying a saint’s statue is a sacrilegeous heathen invention and you should be ashamed," to which I answer, "Wow, you don’t really know *anything* about the history of your own religion, do you?").  I’d like to answer the good, interesting, and even confusing questions here.  So don’t be afraid to ask.***

Coming up hopefully tomorrow, if I have time: some questions that were asked ages ago in the comments here, involving medieval religious flower symbolism.

* See?  I love y’all. I’m not trying to rip anybody off or yell at people for the joy of yelling.  I hate yelling.  I am, after all, a Libra under all this Taurus rising and Scorpio moon (ahem)…. and I LOVE doing this work.  If I could find a way to get off ebay I’d even *like* the work.  Hell, I have a 6th house stellium from hell.  I’d go insane if I didn’t work and if that "work" didn’t have something to do with "service."  On that note, don’t forget the shipping discount code good through Labor Day (see previous post).

** Really, some folks want to make this harder than it has to be.  You don’t need instructions for a candle.  I mean, I could write them, but they’d be like shampoo instructions, which you don’t really need either.  "Dress.  Light.  Repeat as necessary."  Just light the darned thing and don’t leave it burning unattended.  What chants you say, how you decorate your altar, what day you do it on, what moon phase, all those little details?  They’re up to you.  Feel free to run your ideas by me and I’ll holler if I think you’re about to break something, and let you know if you’re making a deviation from hoodoo tradition, but I’m not going to dictate to you how to conduct your personal altar working.  Take a deep breath, do some research, and go forth and do spellwork.  You are probably not going to goofer yourself or hotfoot your dog, really.  Need guidance?  Hint: bring me an idea about how to do the work, and ask me for my opinion on your idea. That will get a much quicker and much more cheerful response than an email asking for a spell from "scratch."  I don’t mean it’s a free for all, but I do mean that a LOT OF PEOPLE MAKE IT HARDER THAN IT HAS TO BE.  Also: more is not necessarily better or stronger. But that’s another post, I think, all its own.

*** Just please don’t take it personally if I can’t answer every single question you have about hoodoo in a private email.  It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, and it doesn’t mean I think you’re an idiot.  It just means I’m only human and there are still only 24 hours in a day.