Hey everybody! Welcome back to my blog! It feels a little weird to be writing again, since I haven’t been able to make a post all week due to the blog page being under construction. You might have noticed that it’s looking a bit different compared to the blog you’re used to seeing, but don’t worry! All the same information that was here before is still available for your reading pleasure – you just might have to look around to find it at first. I wanted the new website, the blog, and all other aspects of Lisa Bongean to be both visually and physically tied together, and easily accessed all in once place, so that has been the goal this week – aside from all the other website stuff, of course – to create a “landing page” that will take you wherever you want to go in Primitive Gatherings Land. Whether it be my blog, the shop website, tutorials, or pattern corrections you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find it all at lisabongean.com!
All I can say is that I am grateful that our website is finally up and running and that we can ALMOST quit talking about it already. They say the first week in a new site transition is always the hardest since to my knowledge, there’s never been a website launch in history that’s happened without a bug or two popping up after it actually goes LIVE. We’re hoping that after a solid week of troubleshooting and working out the kinks, we’re finally at a place where we can stop – for just a second – to maybe breathe a little over the weekend. It seems like the phone calls have died down and the flow of virtual electronic cries for help have slowed to the point where there are just a handful of people still having issues getting set up in the new system. If that includes you and you haven’t seen Jess’s list of FAQ’s and helpful tips to troubleshoot the issue, you’re in luck! I just so happen to have that information conveniently right here for you!
NEW WEBSITE FAQ’s and HELPFUL HINTS:
LOGGING IN:
- When logging in for the FIRST time on our new site you MUST go to the LOGIN IN page and click on FORGOT PASSWORD – follow the prompts. Then wait for an email from Primitive Gatherings regarding your password (it should be immediate – if you do not see it, please check your Spam folder).
- Create a NEW password (or use your old one, it does not matter to us). For nerdy, technical reasons that would take a while to try and explain, please TYPE in the password you would like to use – do not copy and paste.
- PLEASE REMEMBER to WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSWORD!!! Once you get back to the site you will need to enter it again to get logged in. If you would like to save it for login purposes next time, now is the time to do so (remember if you had already had it stored for the old site, you will now need to replace it with the new password).
- Once your new password is established, log in and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE double check your address and phone number to make sure everything is correct – this is extremely important! After you’ve done all that, it’s time to SHOP!
WHY CAN’T I SEE MY PREVIOUS ORDERS?:
- Previous orders could not be transferred over to the new site. Please note that if you have any outstanding or pre-orders, don’t worry. We still have access to the old ordering platform and have hard copies of your orders on file to fill as they become available.
WHERE ARE MY DOWNLOADS/PDFs?:
- Downloads and PDFs could not be transferred over to the new system. If you had one that you did not previously download, please let us know! We are able to send you the new download after we verify on the old site that you had made the purchase. Please be aware in the future you will only have 30 days to access any downloads that you purchase from the NEW website before it will disappear, so make sure you download all PDFs right away.
WHY DOES MY ORDER SAY SHIPPING CAN’T BE CALCULATED?:
- Please make sure that your address and zip code are correct on your account. When this happens, our system is most likely trying to verify your Shipping and Billing Information. This means it can not verify the information that you have provided. Please! If you’ve double-checked that everything is correct and are still getting that message, please contact us so that we can look into it for you.
I’M IN A SUBSCRIPTION BOX – DO I NEED TO DO ANYTHING SPECIAL FOR IT?:
- You DO NOT need to do anything with your current subscription. We are still using the same payment platform for subscriptions that we used on our old site. This means we still have you in our system, including your shipping and credit card information. You DO NOT need to do anything to have your subscription continued. With that being said, we do not have our Subscription Boxes up on the new site yet. We want to make sure that everything is running smoothly before we add the Subscriptions to the mix. Please keep checking… We hope to see them up by early next week!
WHY ISN’T EVERYTHING AVAILABLE ON THE NEW SITE YET?:
- If items did not have a barcode previously assigned, we were unable to load them into the system until the new site went LIVE. We are in the process of creating barcodes and will get everything on as soon as we are able to. Please remember, this is a work in progress that takes A LOT of time! We are continuing to add items into all of the correct categories as fast as we can (ie: patterns, books, quilt kits, etc)! We wanted to be able to get this site up and running right away so that we would be able to start putting up all the programs and products that we have had to hold back on because we needed the new site to do them! We thank you for your patience as we do this.
- If you are looking for any Primitive Gatherings Products, please put PRI into the search engine and it will bring up all of our products that we have available at this time. Please remember! There are some items that are not posted yet. If you do not see it, then it is not up yet.
- Wood Products/Swing Arms are not available at this time on our website, also due to lack of barcode. They will be up as soon as they get one.
IS THE NEW SEARCH ENGINE BETTER THAN THE OLD ONE?
SEARCHING FOR VALDANI:
- Please remember that if you are searching for a specific number of Valdani that is a variegated thread with letters in front of its number, you will need to put those in the search engine. Also, if you are searching for O575, etc, that is letter “O” – NOT a ZERO.
GIFT CARDS:
- We have realized that for some reason Gift Cards are currently not “talking” to the website. We are working hard on getting that fixed and we thank you for your patience! We did not realize it wasn’t working until someone contacted us a couple days into our new system. Unfortunately, this isn’t a switch we can turn on and off so it can not be fixed overnight. Once again thank you for understanding.
INVENTORY:
- Our new site will eventually have inventory status available so you will be able to know how much fabric yardage we have, how many kits we have in stock, when things are out of stock, and when items are available!
PRE-ORDERS:
- You are now able to put pre-orders and in-stock products into your cart and check out under one invoice. Your shipping will reflect the Flat Rate Shipping for both the ready-to-ship order and your pre-order. For example: If you have a pre-order item in your cart that is $36.00 and an in-stock product that is worth $105.00, you will see a charge for $7.99 for shipping due to the pre-order based on our Flat Rate Shipping Policy. In turn, if you have a pre-order item in your cart that is $36.00 and an in-stock product that is worth $36.00, you will see a charge for $15.98 for shipping due to there being 2 shipments that will be going out. One is your pre-order for $7.99 which will ship when available, and one is the in-stock that will go out right away for $7.99 based on our Flat Rate Shipping Policy.
PAYMENTS ACCEPTED ONLINE:
- At this time we only accept credit cards. Once we get a few months under our belt on the new site, we will integrate in PayPal as an option when placing your order.
ORDERING FABRIC:
- Right now our system only allows for full 1 yard cuts of fabric to be purchased. Our IT department needs the program to be LIVE in order for them to write a program that allows customers to order ½ yards of fabric on the website. We are told it will be about a month for that to happen. Again, we thank you for your understanding again as we work through some of the issues!!!
BLOG:
- There are many links tied to the blog that are now broken due to the new site being up. It will take some time to swap out old, dead links for the new, correct ones so please bear with us. If you are trying to find information you would otherwise be able to locate on the blog and are not having any luck, please try the search bar on the top of the blog page. If that doesn’t work, please feel free to email Heidi at heidin@primivegatherings.us and she will be happy to help you locate it.
QUILT-ALONG INFORMATION AND ARCHIVES:
- As you may have noticed, “Twilight Stars” is currently the only quilt-along information listed under the “Quilt-Alongs” tab on the landing page at this time. This will change! We just need some time to collect and post previous QAL info to the new blog page (Oh Say Can You Sew, Meet Me in the Garden, Moda Blockheads, Sewcialites, etc.). If you need this information before they are posted in that area of the site, you can still locate the correlating blog post by doing a search for it in the search bar on the blog.
Alright gang! It’s Friday afternoon and absolutely gorgeous outside. Amy and I just got back into town late last evening from traveling for a teaching event over the last couple days and let me tell you… We are SO ready to take a step away from work and relax a little that it’s getting pretty hard to sit here. That clearly means it’s time to get out of here for the night! If you have any other issues that these troubleshooting options did not fix, please let us know by emailing store@primitivegatherings.us and we will do whatever it takes to get things straightened out for you! PLEASE NOTE! Due to high volume, if you send a message to us via Facebook it could be many days before we see it. With so many comments and messages coming in, important messages have the potential to become “buried” and we may not see them for some time. The best option for a prompt response is to either email or call the shop at 920-722-7233.
Just a quick reminder before I go… In order to allow my hardworking staff a well deserved day off to spend time with family and friends in honor of Memorial Day, both Primitive Gatherings and The Gathering will be CLOSED this Monday, May 29th, 2023. We will be back open for regular business hours on Tuesday, May 30th at 10:00 a.m CST. just in time for our next episode of CommentSold, which is also Tuesday, May 30th at 10:00 a.m CST. This time around the theme is “All About Color.” Tune in via the Primitive Gatherings Facebook Page to see what it’s all about by clicking the “MEDIA” link (located under the main page photo and page title) and then selecting “VIDEOS.” You can also find them on the STITCH with Lisa Bongean Facebook Group Page by clicking the “MEDIA” link (located under the main page photo and page title) and then selecting “VIDEOS.” Have a SAFE and restful Memorial Day weekend and I will see you next week! Take care. ~Lisa
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