Hello folks,

Being the romantic that I am, I decided to make my missus a personalised Valentines Day card. Now, I could obviously have done this myself at home, but as this potentially would have involved cutting things up and sticking them to paper, coupled with the fact that I’m a clumsy left handed baffoon, I thought it best to stick to what I know and order one over the web - hence my visit to Moonpig.

I’ve never purchased from them before but after seeing one of their …erm… slightly annoying… adverts thought I’d give them a shot.

I have to say their site is fantastic. It’s easy to navigate, their range is splendid and the functionality is brilliant. You can design your card in real time and then see it come to life on the design in front of you. Where as I would normally fly through the purchasing process, I actually spent a lot of time designing and playing with their functionality and thoroughly enjoyed myself on the site.

Checkout was straight forward, delivery costs pretty competitive and it was an overall good customer experience. 

Likewise their service is excellent as well. Card was ordered on Tuesday and arrived the following day.

So, hats off to the chaps at Moonpig. They’ve got a very impressive business and it’s no wonder they are top of the hit (wise) parade.

Ten ten. Over and out.

Zak.

Grrrrrr, I’m in a bad mood.

Prezzybox, like loads of other websites, gets a large number of people trying to place fraudulent orders on the site.

These people really make me sick and angry and if I wasn’t a peace loving hippy, I’d advocate beating them with a particularly big and sharp stick. With spikes on. Lots.

Basically it goes something like this….They tend to order gadget type products, the delivery address is different to the card holders address, the email address is something none-descript (yahoo, hotmail), and they tend to use a mobile phone number. It’s pretty easy to spot a fraudster.

The way we combat this (sorry scumbags) is that initially we use CV2/AVS checks, which basically ensure that the card number matches the senders address. If an order manages to get through this system, we write to the card holder address with a reference number and will not process the order until the card holder phones up and quotes the reference number to a member of our team. It therefore works pretty well.

However, this doesn’t stop chancers trying their luck. As you can guess, this has happened today. Normally we just delete the order (I’ll tell you why shortly) but this time - as the scumbag had tried to place 3 orders using 3 different identities for the same item - I thought “no, I’ll do the honourable and report it to the Police.

So why don’t we report every fraud and just delete the order? I’ll tell ya…

Basically, We are based in Warwickshire. The Fraudster, in this instance, lives in London and the card holder, lives in Aberdeen. So, I’ve reported the crime to our local police station and they tell me “the crime has been committed in London, as this is where the fraudster lives so you need to get a crime number from the London Met”. I then phone up the London Police station and they say “no, you need to report, it to your local police station as you are based in Warwickshire to get a crime number”.

Grrrr - it’s at this point that I’m starting to get a tad miffed.

Historically in a different case, I’ve even been told that I needed to phone up the Aberdeen Police Station because the victim (the card holder) is in Aberdeen. Aaaaaaarrrrgggggghhhhh

So, it’s no wonder that sooooo many fraudsters are turning to Internet fraud and identity theft. Basically, it’s chuffin easy, and the Police either aren’t bothered or don’t have the infrastructure in place to deal with it. Either way, the crims seem to be getting away with it scott free.

Fear not though bretherin. The Bearded Warrior pledges to fight on in a ‘Shaw Taylor-esq’ - one man battle against Internet Fraud. I’m off to find the details of my local MP and see if he fancies a chin wag…

I’ll keep you posted.

Ten ten. Over and out. Keep em peeled.

Hello folks,

Happy New Year to you all. I hope this year is a cracker for you!!

I’m going to make a concious effort this year to be a better blogger (famous last words). Part of the reason for my blogging demise towards the end of last year was that little event plonked towards the end of December - namely Christmas. So, I thought it would be nice to share some of our ramblings and give you a little insight into the typical day at Prezzybox.com during December and how much fun (!!!) it is…

5.45am - get up.

6.00am - Get to work (I live very close to work hence, the speed. Don’t worry, I won’t smell - I’ll have showered the night before).

6.05am - Start processing orders from the previous night. Historically we’d have processed all orders manually which was a very ssslllloooowwww process. In fact in the very old days, we used a PDQ machine (like the ones you get in shops) which used to take chuffin ages. Now, thanks to our super techies a lot of orders are auto-processed and ones that aren’t take seconds to process. We can therefore process 1000’s of orders a day.

7.30am - 8.30am - Staff start rolling in. Everybody is pretty much customer services focussed in December so its computers on, and then busily beavering away answering emails, quiries, doing refunds till we hear the dreaded ring of the phone starts at 9 bells…

 9.00am - Phones go on… Literally within a nano-second all of our lines light up with customers phoning up with such gems as “When is my order going to arrive”, “You’ve sent me a pole dancing kit instead of a pet plant”, “If I order now will it arrive before Christmas”. You get the idea…

 We also manufacture our own Personalised Calendars and Father Christmas Letters so we have to start the big old print machine running and print off the plethora of Calendars that have come in from the night before.

 9.00am-1pm - It’s just a matter of keeping on top of everything. This sounds easy, but it’s not, I assure you. Basically our orders increase by a factor of 15, which basically means we are 15 times busier in every single way - from customer emails, to stock orders coming into the warehouse, to phone calls, everything is multiplied by a factor of 15. This is compounded by the fact that 99.9% of your customers want their order for the same day. Yep - you’ve guessed it, the 25th. Consequently the nearer to Christmas it gets the more people start to panic that they are not going to get their goodies. So it’s our job to reassure them that everythings fine and not to worry as they’re order will be with them before Santa comes…

1pm - Time for lunch (ordinarily a take away pub lunch - we’re based in a farm house and thus don’t have such luxury as Maccy D’s), and also to have a meeting with our head of security - OK,  time to take Polly - the office retreiver and canine who sends out all of our emails - out for a walk and a 10 minute break from the computer.

1pm - 6pm. More of the same really… It really is mayhem. True, it’s not as bad as when we used to pack all of the orders ourselves - that was Pandemonium, but is still really hectic and pretty stressful. The constant ringing of the phone gives you a headache, whilst customer services staff members shouting across the office to see “when stock is going to arrive”, through to “don’t worry, I’ve sorted out that customer” adds to the tension. This combined with the buyers trying desperately trying to buy a few hundred more of this and that always add’s to the mix.

4pm - Royal Mail arrive at 4 (on the dot every day!!) to collect our sack-fulls of Calendars. It always puts a smile on my face to see a product that we’ve manufactured from scratch being sent out to a customer. 

 6pm-Close. At 6pm we turn the phones on to answer machine. Phew! In an ideal World we’d leave them on, but we always like to use this time to try and tie up a lot of loose ends.

8pm - Teatime (and beer time). Time to relax and then invariably time to fall asleep on the settee during Ramsey’s kitchen nightmares…

All of the above combined with various other traumas such as our servers going down, through to a number of our orders being sent out twice, all makes for a pretty stressful few weeks. And then as soon as its begun, it stops. 3 Weeks of madness and then it’s back to normality. It’s a real shock to the system.

And then it’s back to work in January… and the first meeting of the year… Christmas 2008 planning. Eeek!

Hello folks,

Just a quicke. We’ve been approached by our PSP - Payment Service Provider - who basically are the facility which allows us to take the money for our customers orders. They’ve set up a deal with Paypal, which in short means we can integrate Paypal into our checkout.

I can’t think of too many disadvantages and the advantage is that we can open ourselves up to customers who don’t necessarily have bank/credit cards or those who prefer to pay through Paypal.

As long as this tracks for our marketing partners and affiliates, and as long as the costs are not too prohibitive, then it sounds like a decent idea. However, I could be wrong…

What do you think? Your comments would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Zak.

Now. Everybody should officially know about 3D Secure/Verified by Visa by now. However, I’d wager that not many people actually do.

Also known as ‘Verfied by Visa’, In short, 3D Secure is the online version of  ‘chip and pin’ card security. All ecommerce websites were meant to implement this by the 1st of July. “If they didn’t” warned the banks, then “they would not be able to accept Maestro (switch) Cards after this date.

The way it works is simple. A consumer visits the website, purchases a product and then enters their pin number when prompted on the merchants website. However, if the consumer has not registered for Verified by Visa/3D Secure an advert will ‘pop up’ asking for the consumers bank account details and asking them to enter a password which they can use futuristically.

Would you do this if you’d not heard of 3D Secure or would you think something fishy was going on?

Because the implementation  process has not been pushed through by the banks then it has left a merchants in a state of flux. Some merchants (such as ASOS and Tesco) have implented Verfied by Visa. Some websites have not bothered launching it (too many to mention) and others (like our good selves) have done all of the technical work to implement it, but have held off launching it because of the lack of consumer knowledge of 3DSecure.  

So why havn’t we launched yet?  

It’s our concern that this will potentially stop consumers going through with their order if we ask for some personal information which they have not previously been asked for whilst placing orders on the internet.

What do you think? Should we launch 3D Secure, or should we wait until UK consumers are more knowledgable about the situation?

Answers on a postcard…

 Zak.

Tony was round at our house last night.

He said “it’s a bit of a shock about Bernard Manning dieing isn’t it”.

To which Bianca replied…

 ”Is he dead?? Do you think it was all the stress of that Bird Flu situation a couple of months ago?”.

You couldn’t make it up.

Morning peeps.

I’m off to Hamburg (stag do) tomorrow and then off to Portugal (Marketing meeting) on Monday, so it’s been a hectic week here at the Mighty Box trying to plough through all my work - hence the lack of blogging action.

Vicky and Craig, the new staff are settling in very nicely and are both great additions to the team. Welcom aboard.

Craig, has made the first faux par which I feel I need to share with you. In a bid to integrate with the techy team, he got involved in the tea round. The conversation went a little like this…

Craig: “Would you like a drink Tony?”

Tony: “Yes please. I’ll have a decaf coffee. With 3 spoonfuls of coffee mate”.

Now, this is where the confusion lies… Tony, not being a big fan of milk, has coffee mate in his cuppa to accompany his decaf coffee. Craig, not being aware of Tony’s beverages parlance, nor understanding his broad Black country twang, lumped 3 spoonfuls of coffee into his mug as opposed to a spoonful of coffee plus 3 spoons of coffee mate. We are currently trying to prise Tony down from the ceiling…

Welcome aboard Craig.

Hello folks,

It’s now become traditional for the staff, friends, marketing partners and customers to get involved in the Prezzybox.com Dream team Mini League.

Well, the league has finished and it’s been a close run thing…

Your’s truely made it on to the podium, whilst some of the staff (Scoopers not so doopers) we’re within touching distance of the Wooden Spoon.
Congratulations go to my buddy Paul Wheatly (AKA Moosehead). Reminiscent of a 1980’s Seb Coe, he played the race like a dream, waited till the final bend and then snuck in to take the honours. Gyt.

Here’s the final table….

1 Toby’s Giraffes Paul Wheatley Tottenham 1849
2 Fiver Down The Drain! Lee Keeling Aston Villa 1841
3 Apollo-music.co.uk Zak Edwards Aston Villa 1816
4 Make That a Tenner! Lee Keeling Aston Villa 1805
5 Kez’s Kangeroos Paul Wheatley Tottenham 1804
6 Big Lads XI Carl Wilkes Liverpool 1702
7 Tamarah’s Penguins Paul Wheatley Tottenham 1698
8 Prince Xavier XI Adrian Hart Liverpool 1693
9 Lagos FC Paul Wheatley Tottenham 1656
10 Rubble’s Rockets Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1652
11 The Royal Rookes Arran Rooke Tottenham 1635
12 Julie’s Elephants Paul Wheatley Tottenham 1625
13 On The Buses FC Cherry Barrett Aston Villa 1624
14 Barney’s Bogies Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1602
15 Paul’s Mooses Paul Wheatley Tottenham 1586
16 matts wonderfool reserves Matthew Riding Aston Villa 1571
17 Ryans Express Zak Edwards Aston Villa 1570
18 Loquax Jason Dale Newcastle 1570
19 Homps XI Adrian Hart Liverpool 1567
20 Up The Ben Steven Coniff Aston Villa 1564
21 Ryans Slaughter Zak Edwards Aston Villa 1561
22 Eddie’s All Stars Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1560
23 PAFC til i die Mark Russell Tottenham 1559
24 Gunit Ben Herbert Manchester United 1531
25 Amanda Athletic Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1515
26 Rubble’s Reserves Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1510
27 Jude’s Team Jason Dale Newcastle 1504
28 Chillies Rat like armpits Zak Edwards Aston Villa 1494
29 Rookie’s Rovers Arran Rooke Tottenham 1480
30 Barnet Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1455
31 Josh Cowell Michael Roberts Aston Villa 1447
32 Barney’s Bodgers Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1446
33 Melon Ball Neil Mitchell Chelsea 1424
34 Eat My Dust Arran Rooke Tottenham 1407
35 Lyno 2 Simon Lyons Aston Villa 1401
36 Magic Robert’s all stars Michael Roberts Aston Villa 1393
37 Lyno 1 Simon Lyons Aston Villa 1365
38 Bim Utd Mark Russell Tottenham 1361
39 return of the yays Zak Edwards Aston Villa 1350
40 Loquax 4 Jason Dale Newcastle 1326
41 Allfox United Arran Rooke Tottenham 1322
42 Barmy Green Army Mark Russell Aston Villa 1321
43 Barnstormers Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1288
44 Alex’s XI Julie Hegarty Newcastle 1281
45 Jonsey’s Giant’s richard jones Wigan 1275
46 Holly Roberts Michael Roberts Aston Villa 1264
47 The Old Gits John Edwards Aston Villa 1246
48 Arran’s Allstars Arran Rooke Tottenham 1220
49 Super Greens Mark Russell Aston Villa 1195
50 Burnsys massive swede Paul Byrnes Aston Villa 1188
51 Can’t you see I’m burning Paul Hudson Watford 1174
52 The french Connection John Edwards Aston Villa 1133
53 Eddies Eagles Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1125
54 Adam roberts Michael Roberts Aston Villa 1116
55 Green Army Mark Russell Chelsea 1113
56 Biancas Belters Zak Edwards Aston Villa 1108
57 Harris Harriers FC richard jones Portsmouth 1100
58 Rubble’s Rovers Barney Edwards Aston Villa 1068
59 Scoopers Doopers Sharon Hall Sheffield Utd 1023
60 Steve Roberts Michael Roberts Aston Villa 847

Hello good people of Blogsville,

I hope you are all well. It’s been quite exciting this week at prezzybox. Nothing particular has happened, however there’s lot of things on the horizon…

New Staff

We’ve got a couple of new staff starting next week. Craig, will be assisting Tony (T-Bone) in the IT Department, and Vickie will be assisting Ben in the Marketing Dept. To be honest we normally employ people in June and this is to enable us to start getting prepared for the Christmas rush! I know this sounds daft, but we really do have to start getting prepared for Christmas early (fail to prepare, prepare to fail).

Project Y

Project X has had to be put on the back burner for a little while, so I thought the sensible thing to do would be to bring out project Y!! I can’t say anything about this yet, but this is the project I’ve been most excited about since the formation of Prezzybox. I’ll keep you posted.

Goats

Myself and Barney - aka ‘Victor Meldrew’ Judith Chalmers, I am Gor -  have been locking horns over the issue (pun obviously intended!!).

To cut a long story short… the end. However, to cut a short story that little bit longer…

You may or may not know that we are based in a farm house. Outside we have a paddock and a garden which obviously needs maintaining. So, Scoops, came up with the ingenious idea of getting a couple of goats to chomp on the grass to their hearts content. Everyone is very excited about this (especially Polly) with the exception of Barney who really doesn’t want them. So, what do you think? Should we rock the boat and get them anyway?

Being a goat friendly company, we are obviously looking into the rearing of goats and Barney goes on holiday for 2 weeks on the 11th, so watch this space.

As always, I shall try and blog more frequently.

Toodlepip.

Zak.

Not a phrase you can say when you’re half cut!

Morning folks,

Scoops - our Customer Services manager - has her own blog called Shopping Scoop. It’s a really good read and we’re all very impressed it.

The latest piece she’s written asks the question

“are there any celebrities with 9 syllables in their name?”

Easy so you’d think… In practice this isn’t the case. There’s Leonardo De Caprio (8) and various other 8 lsyllabled A listers, but for the life of us, we couldn’t think of one with 9.

Can you?

Barney - who surprised everyone in the office by turning up to work yesterday - was disqualified from the competition for citing “The Artist formerly known as Prince”, but obviously we all know his real name is symbol!

If you can think of anybody please comment below as it’s driving us nuts!

Cheers,

Zak.