We are a small family run business and we intend to keep it that way. Although this is possibly not the best business practice for building a successful and highly profitable company, it does afford us the luxury of being able to adjust to our customers’ needs rather more efficiently as we are made aware of these needs very quickly.
Our aim is best described by the words of Seth Godin “To turn strangers into friends and friends into customers”. Oh yes we are a business and do need to make sales in order to be able to afford the various costs involved. When starting this company we set ourselves the task of building a great reputation for our company and our products. The method of doing this can be condensed into three key words, Sincerity, Transparency and Consistency.
Sincerity – We want and look forward to hearing from our customers, as we believe any feedback (negative and positive) to be key in our ability to provide a more positive experience, in the future, for all our customers. So if any aspect of our site is a problem or just plain silly please let us know we will be very grateful.
Transparency – We have tried, whilst building this site, to avoid certain pitfalls that annoyed us when we shopped online at other stores. First we installed the UPS shipping calculator so that our customers would know exactly what an item would cost when they read the description. Secondly we chose to photograph all our items (much to the disappointment to our very creative photographer) on plain backgrounds with no extra props. We believe that it is important for our customers to see as much detail as possible in order to make an informed decision before purchasing.
Consistency – We are happy that our products are some of the best available and strive to keep that quality consistent. We will not knowingly send any items that do not measure up to our high standards and should an item slip past our controls inadvertently then we will take every step possible to replace or refund such items immediately. Happily we have only had to do this twice in nine years.
We believe that being honest, 100% transparent and consistent are important both on and offline and make every effort to do so even if it means losing a sale, and we hate losing any sales.
Whilst we do rely on some help from website gurus we also spend much time reading and learning about online selling and website management/building so that we can better appreciate the needs of our customers.

Charities We support: National Women in Blues Festival which is in support of:
1.Rape Crisis - NC - USA - UK - Wilmington NC, through Coastal Horizons.
2.CARE of UNCW,
3.Domestic Violence Shelters and Services NC (Wilmington) – USA,
4.The Fully Belly Project - World Wide).
We also support the “Officer Down Ride” a charity for Police, Sheriffs, State Troopers and Firemen.