southern.scents

I apologize for causing such a disruption in your thread. I hope you won't hold it against me. I wouldn't imagine soy way, avocado oil, aloe butter, or beeswax are tested on animals but that is probably something you'd have to call your supplier about and then your supplier would have to call the manufacturer (unless you buy from/know the manufacturer.) That is probably the most accurate/trustworthy way to know for sure.

No, I am sorry, it does not. By your principals, you are saying that if a representative of Craftserver said that all paraffin candle makers should be tortured for polluting our nation that all members/supporters of Craftserver believe the same thing. We all know that this isn't the case. Just because one person from an organization supports a view doesn't mean everyone does. Another good example.... the President of the United States of America is pro-choice....some might even argue he is pro-abortion. But, just because he is a representative of an organization which you send money to every year does not mean that you are pro-choice or pro-abortion. What you do is your own choice. However, I would highly recommend you end your practices of condemning other people for their beliefs....especially when you begin to generalize amongst a group of people that is several million strong. I am not saying you should support something that most everyone knows is wrong. I am just saying, there are quite a few people out there who believe PETA is a great organization whether it is or not. Education is a great place to start....pulling quotes from media sources,immediately telling someone they are wrong in their beliefs, and calling them a "terrorist organization" is not. My suggestion was made as in, PETA is a widely known company. It would have been like me saying the company was run by Wal-Mart.....the name recognition is there....it hits home with consumers. As I previously said, I have no affiliation with PETA and I ultimately have no positive or negative feeling towards the organization; I simply haven't done the research to form such an opinion. However, I DO have an opinion of people who pull quotes from media and immediately condemn a large group of people for something one person said. I don't think it is very kind. If you wanted to make your point you could have kindly said, "I'm not sure PETA is an organization I'd want to be associated with. You can find the reason why at the following links," and your point would have been much better taken as opposed to saying:

It is against most merchant agreements for you to directly pass the processing fees on to your customer....those are fees that should be built into the cost of your product. It is also against most merchant agreements to set minimum purchase requirements in order for consumers to be able to use their credit card/debit card, just so you know. They want a level playing ground between cash, checks, and plastic :-). If you are a start-up/small business, your best bet is just about always going to be Propay.com. No monthly fees....just pay your annual fee and then processing fees. They do allow you to call their automated system and process cards instantly, as well. And, still yet, if you already have an iPhone and don't want to spend the extra cash for processing equipment, their are lots of low cost Apps that allow you to instantly charge credit cards and email receipts to your customers.

Well, in all actuality the quote may not reflect the opinion of the organization or its supporters. This was really my point all along.....just because you may have formed an opinion that portrays PETA negatively, your customers may feel otherwise. Either way, I want to stress that I don't lean one way or another when it comes to PETA. I just haven't done enough research to justify leaning one way or another. All I've heard is what the media say and we all know how skewed modern-day media can be. People get quoted out of context, lies and false stories are published, etc, etc (not saying that this is the case of the above quote, though.) Back on topic, NaturallyTru, I'm guessing you got your answer somewhere in this thread, lol. Do keep in mind though, you don't have to pay any company to claim or promote on your logo/website that you offer Cruetly Free products.

Whoa...I never said I supported PETA nor their agenda. I just said they had a nicer logo and that their pricing is only $100. And, the fact is, every group out there has supporters and non-supporters...no matter what the agenda or the amount of progress being made; thats just life. Take the US Government for example, you have those who think it is the greatest thing in the world and you have those who think they're the most corrupt group of individuals around. But, just because you don't support a certain group or a certain concept doesn't mean you have to immediately revert to mud-slinging. If you wanted to search hard enough, you could pull up negative/ignorant quotes from just about every large organization there is.

http://www.caringconsumer.com/ has, to me, a much nicer logo and they are operated by PETA. Plus, their logo has only a $100 license fee no matter what your annual gross sales are.

:-) Glad to help. Hopefully it won't be a couple of weeks....ours only took a few business days. I remember particularly because we couldn't apply for our Tax-Id number until the LLC filings had been completed. You can usually check the website of your Secretary of State for results. They'll be there instantly...mail will take a couple of days. Good luck!

For me, here in Mississippi, I am the registered agent. From my understanding, the registered agent is just the person they'll contact in the event of legal proceedings being brought against the LLC. The registered agent will also be the person who receives any mail sent from the state for the LLC. If you are registering the LLC on your own then it is fine to list yourself. If a lawyer is doing this for you, then they'll typically be the ones listed as the registered agent.

Go it alone. You'll save yourself tons. For example, my accountant wanted $250 to file for an LLC and I did it myself for only $50 (the filing fee in my state.)

Hi Christine, I understand your frustration completely :-). This is happening due to the software being initially installed on one IP address and, with the server change, we have moved to a new IP address. The software is sensing the difference and warning you and us. We have been trying to keep up with the changes but during propagation the IP address may switch back and forth several times. Please try again this morning. Things should be completely done by this afternoon. I apologize for the frustration and confusion that this whole process has caused. Our data center (where our server is hosted) said that this would take only a few minutes and would cause no trouble. However, the results haven't been as they anticipated. I honestly would not have chosen to make this move had I known that it would take this long. Thanks for your patience! Adam

Hi Kristine, Server maintenance is still in progress. We are still waiting for the nameservers to update. We are hoping it won't take too much longer. We apologize for the delay. Our data center assured us that the switch would be seamless and would only take a few minutes. However, as I am sure you can see, it is/has taken much longer. But, I must add, the wait will be well worth it in the end. You should notice a significant boost in how quick your site loads. Check your store admin area later this afternoon to see if things have updated. Thanks for your patience, Adam

The first question in my mind (and probably one of the first out of a potential lawyer's mouth) is "why did you ship something without payment?" This kind of stuff happens ALL the time. You know how you can keep it from happening? Require payment BEFORE you ship an item.

Ultimately it will come down to how much someone will pay for your business. You can ask $100,000,000 because that is what you think it is worth but if the most you ever get offered is $1,000 then that is what it is worth. Yes, you may have LOTS of expenses involved with what you are selling but if you close up now and do not sell, how much of those expenses will you see a return on....none. But, if you sold for even $1,000, that is $1,000 worth of expenses you DID manage to recover. Your best bet would probably be to accept offers and when you receive one that you feel is ample, accept it.

Check your settings. We (had) a Samsung CLP-315 that we used for label printing. If you go in and change the "Paper Type" to Labels it will pull the sheet of labels into the printer at a much more precise and slow speed. This results in labels which are better aligned but they probably still won't be perfect. Ours died. Kept giving us an error that required it to be returned to the manufacturer. No problem, right?, except it was out of warranty by a month.

I really hope they are able to help you out. They were the only people I even got a quote from. I pulled out my papers and this is how everything broke down: Insurance Premium- $500 Taxes- $125.50 Broker Fees- $50 (that is right, the insurance agent only made $50 for writing this policy... that really surprised me.) Finance Fee -12.23 So, I paid $275.00 down (which was more than they required, I think) and then I pay three installments of $137.41. I *THINK* you can split this into monthly payments... I just prefer quarterly so I don't have to worry about it. Anyhow, HTH.

I forgot to mention that the policy I get is only $500 for the actual insurance. However, I had to pay quite a bit in taxes. Not sure if it is just a Mississippi thing but I think it was somewhere in the range of $130 in taxes.

Hi Everyone, Not sure if my insurance agent would handle policies outside of MS but it is worth checking out. I have a $1,000,000.00 Liability policy with them. I paid $275 down and then I pay $140 per quarter for three quarters. I think it totals up to $675 without the financing fee. HOWEVER, this product liability policy is for a food business. I am not sure if a candle business would run more or less. Anyhow, call them and see what they have to say. They are all VERY nice to work with. http://www.firstsouthins.com/ Tell them that Adam Grace sent you. I won't get anything for sending you but they've been so great for me and I'd like them to know I'm trying to repay the favor . Hope you find something that works for you!

You can trademark a phrase. As a matter of a fact, you can trademark almost anything that can and will be used in commerce so long as it isn't considered something common (although, keep in mind, I'm no expert and I'm just going based on my limited amounts of research.) You MUST use the TM. You cannot get a TM and just let it sit. If you aren't using it, you lose it. I would suggest, if you are serious about getting a TM, you speak with an Intellectual Property Rights Lawyer. One thing to keep in mind when filing a TM, they are NON REFUNDABLE! Even if they deny your TM filing, you will not receive a refund. This is why a lawyer would be valuable... I would rather spend a couple extra hundred dollars on a lawyer to get it right the first time as opposed to spending a couple hundred dollars filing over and over again.

A patent would be there to protect a product/idea. A trademark is to protect a word or a phrase. For example, you invented the microwave oven. You'd patent the idea and you'd trademark the phrase "CandleMama's Ovens." Since you patented the ideas and schematics for the microwave oven, no one could manufacture them to be sold without coming to you and requesting permission (which might be granted with a hefty fee.) The TM would keep people from being able to produce a product in a similar category as your revolutionary ovens and using your name on them.

ProPay.com is a popular option. Their fees are reasonable and there are no monthly fees to pay. You'll have to process the cards manually, though. I've been with them for a few months now and it has been going well. Transactions through them cost me more than PayPal but... what can I say?

Fragrance Oil Heaven had one that was amazing but now they are closed

Great prices and service- http://cdgcommerce.com/

Nothing can completely replace changing your password often but there are things that can be done on the Web Host's end to help prevent accounts being compromised. Chances are, your hosting account was hacked by someone who managed to get your password from someone/somewhere OR the hacker used a brute force attack ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute_force_attack .) Brute force attacks typically take a while to work. The attacker is literally trying hundreds & thousands of passwords. Our server uses a firewall that quickly detects and blocks these type of attacks as well as several others attacks that are used by hackers. All web hosts should utilize some sort of software that secures data on their server. A web host also has to make sure that their passwords are secure. So many times security issues are blamed on other people when in all actuality it was the hosting company'sfault (not saying that this was the case with GoDaddy but issues have come up recently where a security breach was blamed on a software developer when poor password management was the true issue.) Another suggestion, make sure you keep whatever software you use up to date... (eg. ZenCart, osCommerce, Magento, CubeCart, X-Cart) These people release updates often to help take care of security holes that are found. So many times things go bad simply because someone wasn't keeping up with updates (and this includes your Anti-Virus software.... these updates contain information regarding new viruses that the anti-virus software needs to help keep you protected.) Don't assume that since your software is secure just because you don't see any ways for people to access anything they shouldn't be. These people sit around for hours and days at a time analyzing code and environment variables to find these flaws. Also, an SSL certificate does NOT mean everything is secure. It simply means that things sent from your browser to the website's server are secure. It doesn't mean that the software itself has no flaws or exploits that can be used to access things you'd normally want kept private. Anyhow, to add to your statement about changing your password for your hosting account often.. You should change ALL passwords often. Also, do not use the same password for everything. If someone gets your password for XXXXX then they are going to try and use it a YYYYY. Never write down your passwords. All it takes is someone locating this common source of passwords and you are in for one crazy ride. Last but not least, get rid of information that tells exactly what websites you use, especially the ones that give your username and/or password. If someone managed to get access to your email then they are probably going to read it. Don't leave behind a little trail of all the sites you use. Yeah, they may know you use TTTTTT email provider but that doesn't mean you have to let them know that you use eBay, PayPal, Facebook, MySpace, Craftserver, etc.

That is what I've always noticed. Sellers state that they will accept PayPal instant transfer, check, or money order for free but they charge extra if you use your credit card. That just fair to other buyers, IMO. I don't want to pay over all higher prices (even if it is just .50) just because other people want to use a Credit Card. What I really don't understand is why people are complaining about it. If you are buying from the classies you are getting a better deal in the end. If you don't wanna have to add on .50-.75 in credit card fees to save yourself some money then just purchase from the supplier and pay the higher prices....

Also, when you buy from the classies, you are getting stuff for less than what it cost the seller in the first place....most of the time. They don't want to eat any more money, YKWIM?