#ShopSmall this Prime Day!

If you've ever shopped on Amazon before, you surely know by now that they are hosting their 2nd annual Prime Day today, July 12th. You really can't miss all the ads on the sidebar of every website ever. Last year's Prime Day was met with high anticipation from customers hoping to score an awesome deal, only to find that most of the products offered were things they didn't really care to purchase, even at 40% off. The #PrimeDayFail hashtag was quite a fun one to follow, and begs the question, will this year be different?

We were actually asked to apply to have a Prime Day deal on Spray Pal products, but our products weren't selected this year. My guess is that 1) we weren't able to discount our items as deeply as they would've liked, and 2) after last year's #PrimeDayFail fiasco, they're probably looking for items that are considered more "mainstream" and "exciting" to the average customer.

So while there are plenty of cloth diapering moms and dads who would be THRILLED to take advantage of a discount on the greatest poop splatter shield on the market, Amazon probably just didn't see it that way. Which actually worked out well because we wanted to provide a sale or discount but we didn't want to undercut our retailers. So, we decided, instead of a discount on Amazon, how about we support our small business retailers with a sale instead?? For this year's Prime Day, we'll be sharing a list of retailers who are offering an approved sale on our Spray Pal products. Stay tuned on social media for this list!

Running a cloth diapering store is hard work and comes with lots of overhead, especially if you have a physical brick and mortar location. But these stores are invaluable resources to their local communities. Just think how many families they can educate, support, and build a community with in their local area. Without these stores, cloth diapers wouldn't be nearly as mainstream as they are today. One of the best things we can do to help #makeclothmainstream is to support our local stores by shopping (and BUYING) locally. We hope you'll consider checking out their deals on Spray Pal and adding a few other cloth diapering items to your cart when you shop, because who really needs another cheaply made phone battery pack at 40% off anyways? ;)

Every day is a Prime Day to shop small. :)

Now that Prime Day 2016 is over, please check out our list of retailers to find out if you have one near you and support them by spending your dollars locally! You can find them HERE on our retailer map!

Spray Pal Down Under!

EDITED APRIL 2017 TO ADD: Every sprayer now includes a non-return valve at no extra charge!! You asked and we listened! :)

The time has finally come. After nearly a year of testing various sprayer adapters, we're launching the same great diaper sprayer that has gained massive popularity here in the USA, just with the correct fittings to easily install it on your Australian toilet! No more dunk and swish down under! No more spending extra money on liners that can damage your plumbing! The Spray Pal system makes nappy clean up so easy and mess-free, you'll be dancing in the streets telling all your friends and family how awesome cloth diapers can be...even when dealing with the poop! ;)

Cloth skeptics, beware...the cloth advocates now have one more tool up their sleeves to convince you that cloth CAN BE DONE. And easily, too. :)

We're mostly excited that we can start saying cloth nappies legitimately now!

Special bonus, when you shop on your website, your flat rate international shipping will qualify for anything else we carry on our website, so be sure to stock up on any other cloth diapers or accessories you need! Also, to make things easy, you can change the currency on our site to AU$ and it will automatically convert things for you. Happy shopping!

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Is it Worth Changing your Facebook Group to "Close Friends"?

If you’re in a group on Facebook, you may have noticed an influx of notifications over the past 24 hours letting you know that a group admin as deemed you to be one of her BFFs. In other words, she changed the setting of the group from something like “closed” to “close friends” in the hopes that you would see more of her posts in your news feed.

You likely also noticed that many of the groups that made this change are trying to sell you something (LulaRoe, anyone?!), so it makes sense that they’d want to get those posts in front of you to increase interaction and thus (in theory) increase sales.

Is this a good move? I suppose the jury is still out. As someone who is a Facebook groups shopper as well as a small business owner, I can see this from both sides. I completely understand the need for small businesses to get their message out there to the millions of daily Facebook users without wanting (or being able to) pay for ads or promoted posts. In fact, I’ve recently been testing out some theories on the latest Facebook algorithms over on our business page for this exact reason. But, I will admit, I haven’t tested any of these theories in our chat group…this was solely on our business page.

On the flip side, here’s what went through my mind when I woke up this morning to THREE TIMES the normal amount of notifications on my personal page:

“Whoa!! 25 notifications overnight?! Is it my birthday?? No…hmmm…something big must’ve happened. Let’s check…OK, so like ¾ of these are about LulaRoe groups. WTF? Wait…they’re all changing the groups to “close friends”?? Why?? Wow, how the heck was I in so many of these groups?! I need to clean up this list. Click. Leave group. Click. Leave group. Click. Leave group.”

So, as you can see, in my case it was not a great move for these admin to do this all at once because it brought attention to the fact that I was in way too many groups to begin with. But, you might look at that as a silver lining. The people who are going to leave are the ones who are done shopping and aren’t going to be your customers anyway. If changing the group setting increases your visibility to those who are actually going to buy your stuff, then it’s worth it to lose a few “duds” in the process.

Before you make any changes, decide what your end goal is. If your goal is to have higher numbers in your group, I say don’t mess with it. If you’re ok with losing some members in order to target those who are actually going to shop, then go for it! But, one more thing to consider before you make the switch it this: Does the setting of the group actually increase engagement? I’ve heard from some LulaRoe consultants that it has, but my thought is that it could just be residual from those notifications going through. If people weren’t (like me) just leaving the groups as they got notified, they may have actually clicked the notification to check out what was going on in the group and then interacted with a post. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the group setting change made the difference. Only time will tell. Of course, by the time we have this figured out, Facebook will probably change its algorithm again. ;)