Monday, May 31, 2010

Help! Which Ad catches your attention? Thank you coupon included!

Place your vote above!

#1

#2

#3

Thank you for your help!
Coupon Code: BLOGSPOT
You must use Google Checkout to use the coupon. It's for 15% off, and is valid through June 5th.
We don't have a coupon for PayPal unfortunately.

Sunday, May 30, 2010

PayPal Working!

After fiddling around with the checkout process for a month, we managed to get PayPal order processing working!

Up until recently, we could only take PayPal when someone "sent" money to us and told us what they wanted in the comments. Overall, it worked surprisingly well. Nearly everyone remembered to add in the shipping, pay in USD and not their overseas dollar system, and write down exactly what they wanted.

However, right now we have an order sitting in PayPal from 3 days ago that we can't process because the person didn't tell us what color and size they wanted. I've tried emailing a few times, but the person has not responded. It's possible that my emails are in their spam folder. I can't call because I don't have a phone number. I guess I'll wait a few more days and see if they email complaining about not receiving their order.

We use a back up version of SleepPhones.com for testing purposes. We make changes to that and test repeatedly. I've ordered about two dozen lavender sachets for myself using PayPal and Google Checkout, with and without affiliate credit, from PA, outside of PA, and internationally. More than half of those orders didn't quite work perfectly. I guess it's just one of those things.

Once we tested the heck out of it, we rolled it out into production. That occurred at about 1pm today. We tested a few more times, and called it good! We had a celebratory late lunch/early dinner at our favorite Mediterranean restaurant during which time 2 orders were placed with Google Checkout and 1 placed with PayPal, all of which worked!


Now we just have to figure out how to charge for Pennsylvania Sales Tax for the PayPal orders .... Only Pennsylvanians have to pay sales tax since we're located here. If you're from another state, you should be paying use taxes on your annual state income tax return. Many people don't know that, so they don't do that.

Monday, May 24, 2010

RealSleep for Adults Now Available!

The inventors of RealSleep were interviewed at Boston's NPR station. You can listen samples of the RealSleep CD at "Music That Messes With Your Brain To Help You Sleep."

To order RealSleep by Dr. Horowitz, please see our CD section! They come in Classical music and Ambient music.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Black SleepPhones Most Popular

Over time, we've noticed that black SleepPhones seem to be the most popular color. It's a particular problem right now because we're sending out a big wholesale order to ThinkGeek. They order all black ones, so our inventory is very low now. We're focusing on making more right now, but we may have a few days where we can't keep up. Our high school student employee is not really obsessive-compulsive as these pictures might suggest. He's the one who packs these. But I might be! I love how they line up!





Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Smarthome Expresses Interest in Carrying SleepPhones



I've bought some battery-powered motion-activated LED lights from them before. The staircase down to SleepPhones Headquarters has a nice over head light, but that light is so high up that I'm seriously afraid of it ever going out. I can't imagine changing it! It would probably take a ladder two to three times the height of our current ladder. So I hesitate turning it off and on all of the time. Instead, I got these motion activated LED lights that would prevent me from falling down the stairs in the dark. And we use rechargeable batteries in them, so it's okay - we're not creating too much of an environmental hazard. And yes, we properly dispose of our old batteries.

Well, just like that smart solution for a potentially hazardous staircase, Smarthome carries many other interesting items. If we ever get a new home, we might install a fiberoptic light system, built-in wall speakers, hidden cameras, and all kinds of gadgets. Smarthome has a solution for any home-related problem.

So what about sleeping problems? Well, Smarthome wants to solve that too! They are interested in SleepPhones. They sent us an email asking us to send them a sample for evaluation. We certainly will! There's a lot of paperwork too, so it will take some time, but we're very excited about possibly working with them!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Centerpointe: Holosync


Centerpointe, the people who make Holosync just contacted us! I think we might have contacted them in the past, but it's nice that they are now coming to us! We hope to be able to forge a relationship with them. In fact, Holosync was one of the technologies we had in mind when designing the product. Over the years, many people have chosen to buy SleepPhones for use with their Holosync CDs. We have a few friends who love and talk highly of Holosync too. If you're a fan of Holosync, we'd love for you to tell them that you're a fan of SleepPhones too!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

ThinkGeek SleepPhones Are Flying Off the Shelves!

We're big fans of ThinkGeek. My last Valentine's present and birthday present were both from there apparently. And I loved the gifts! I've been using them for the garden. I guess that makes me a geeky gardener? So after seeing various inferior headphones advertised on there, we decided that we've got to have SleepPhones in there.

I sent a pitch to ThinkGeek way back in early February about SleepPhones. Something about how caffeinated geeks might need to fall asleep to music. They thought it looked interesting and asked for a sample in late February. I sent them the sample and the buyer there replied in mid-March saying that he liked them. After discussing some details, he placed a first order. We sent it in by the end of March, and they took about a month to put it in inventory, write it up, and take pictures.

On April 27th, we received their newsletter announcing SleepPhones as a new item towards the end of the email, quite small, among many other things. But apparently word spread quickly! The Twitter buzz was tremendous. Within a week, the first order sold out.

We've sent them a second order now, so SleepPhones are back in stock. But I don't know how long that will last because they continue to be very popular. ThinkGeek has just placed a third, bigger order. Our high school student employee is being kept very busy! He's spent the past 2 days working on fulfilling the order. And it will likely take a few more days.

Anyway, we are tremendously excited about working with ThinkGeek! The next step is to see SleepPhones in their paper catalog. :-)

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Social Media Widgets

After attending a CEA webcast about social media networking, I've taking a fresh look at the big ones - Facebook and Twitter. We had played with their widgets in the past, but they were not very customizable. Now that they have great widgets, I've decided to put them on the website! I just hope that they don't slow down the site significantly. Here's the twitter widget.




And here is our Facebook widget.

SleepPhones - The Only Headphones for Sleeping

Promote Your Page Too

Monday, May 10, 2010

PR firm Lotus823


SleepPhones is excited to begin working with the public relations firm Lotus823. They contacted us last week after finding out that we will be at the CEA Linshows. The managing partner and I talked for a while, and it seemed like they could really help us out. We just had a great conference call with all of the parties involved, and we're very excited about the help they will provide!

We plan to continue working with Happy Valley Communications (HVC) as well, the Penn-State student-run PR firm, when they start up again in the fall.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Baltimore's first B'More Healthy Expo

SleepPhones had a booth at the B'More Healthy Expo this past weekend. We screened people for Excessive Daytime Sleepiness using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. And we also demonstrated how SleepPhones can help with sleeping problems.


Montel Williams was there, and he told us his story about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and how he lives with this chronic disease. He eats many fruits and vegetable every day, in a juice. And he uses his mind to block the pain from his feet, legs, and right side of the face. He was told he would be in a wheelchair 7 years ago, but he continues to function quite well, walking around during the entire speech. I did notice that he had a limp because his right leg was stiff. He had us do some interesting experiments with our mind to show just how much the mind can control the body. I really enjoyed his speech.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Dr. Puff Enjoys Wearing SleepPhones for Meditation!

Our new affiliate Dr. Robert Puff makes a great meditation podcast. We are sponsoring his episodes and hope that the podcasts will become more popular. He also produces a TV show called the Holistic Success Show, which will be part of the Fit.tv network soon! His partner is Elizabeth Lozano.

Dr. Puff likes to listen to meditations before going to bed, and he loves his SleepPhones for that purpose, just in case he falls asleep.