Olly the Siamese, Pet websites and Frampton Country Show - 12th September

This is the new office cat! Olly arrived in our lives last Friday- all the way from Epsom, he now lives in Gloucestershire and has got all of us firmly where he wants us. The dogs are coping really well with the new upstart and, apart from our lacerated arms and legs, we all love him! Just what a Siamese should be; fearless, naughty and adventurous- he is really great fun- pint sized, he thinks he is bigger than he is and nothing daunts him. Perfect, just the cat I have been looking for ...

On the subject of pets, we have recently had a flurry of activity linking with other pet websites and suggest it is worth taking a look at, amongst others, a particularly good video on the K9 Magazine website http://www.k9magazine.co.uk/ talking about White Cloud wool pet beds. Or take a look at the video below.

Other White Cloud news- we have been delighted by the number of visits to the http://www.sheerluxe.com/competition/157.htm website, it offers the chance of winning a £500 voucher and it is open to anyone to take part.

Just today we have sent an application for a trade stand at Frampton Country Show on September 12th- this is a lovely old fashioned traditional country show in Gloucestershire, with a definite emphasis on dogs, sporting events and rural life. We thoroughly enjoy it and will be going along this year with lots of wool pet beds, wool pillows and lanolin skin creams and if room allows, some lovely warm wool blankets. If you are local to Gloucestershire, please make a day of it and, even better, come and find the White Cloud stand ... http://www.framptoncountryfair.co.uk/ It is the 25th Anniversary Fair this year.

New photos for the website, White Cloud packaging progress report and the beginning of a trading link in France

At last .... we have found enough spare time to start adding some new photographs to our website!
Like a shop window, a website needs constant attention and constant variation. The tricky thing is maintaining "the look" already achieved, but to keep the content fresh and interesting.
These new photographs will form the basis of our new brochure in the next few months. We pride ourselves on offering a brochure for interested customers; so many companies seem to presume it is something that is no longer necessary and they can save themselves money by not offering one. We totally disagree and feel a brochure is incredibly important; there are still many, many people who do not wish to purchase from a website, they like to sit and study information and, in many cases, it gives a mail order/website company credibility.

Coupled with the new brochure will be our new White Cloud branding- this is a very big step towards establishing White Cloud as a brand of it's own. Within a couple of months we expect all of our duvets, underblankets and pillows to be labelled White Cloud- it has been a long journey, but hopefully a fruitful one! Tackling all of this during times of financial difficulty and recession is a challenge, but we remain confident in all of our products and feel that the time and money spent now, will pay dividends in the future. We hope you, our loyal customers, feel as excited about the "new look" as we do, when it starts to appear.

Our very first shipment to a chain of shops in France leaves New Zealand at the end of this week; we have had to brush up our French considerably and are very excited to be at the beginning of a new link with an entrepreneurial family owned company based in the South of France.

Magniwool Competition, May Prize Winners, Summer Newsletter and, last but not least, Price Increase coming soon!

Last week we agreed to run a competition with Sheerluxe.com for one lucky entrant to win a White Cloud Magniwool Underblanket. We are attaching the details to this blog and would recommend having a go, it is open to all visitors to the Sheerluxe website.
http://www.sheerluxe.com/competition/157.htm soft, warm and supremely comfortable these lovely underblankets ("Magicwool" as one customer has called them) dramatically increase the comfort of your bed and the magnets provide natural wellbeing whilst you sleep. These are our biggest selling item and most sales are through word of mouth and personal recommendation.


This morning we chose 6 winners for our May Prize Draw. White Cloud was started in May 2005 and to celebrate the start of our sixth year of trading we decided to give six lucky customers in May a £25 shopping voucher. Everyone likes to know that real people actually do win competitions, so here are the winning names:
Brenda Ellis in Somerset, Mrs Fraser in Hertfordshire, Twin Yen Lee in London, V Cockburn in Shropshire, Ron Bauer in London and Ms F Cornes in Oxfordshire.

We are putting together some details for our Summer Newsletter- this will go out to all our existing customers who opt to stay on a mailing list and the theme will be Improved Health through Better Sleep in Difficult Times and will have an exclusive offer aimed to beat the forthcoming price increase. A combination of a rotten exchange rate, increased purchase costs and the likelihood of an increase in VAT means we will be raising our prices from 1st August- if you are considering purchasing, we strongly recommend you do so very soon. Not only will you benefit from current prices, but you will also join our Mailing List and be included in the Special Offers we do for existing customers only!