Well, the much-anticipated VS6 is finally within your grasp. Chock full of goodies, including some SXSW 2007 schwag, we hope you’ll love it. There aren’t too many to go around so we wanted to give you a head’s up here on the blog ahead of time.

We thank you for your patience and loyalty. And we wish we could keep bringing you all the schwag your hearts desire, but alas, we’ve found that acquiring THAT MUCH SCHWAG is really really hard. But thanks to Valleyschwag and all of you we’ve been inspired to do our part in bringing better customer service to the world. Be watching in May for our beta release of Satisfaction [getsatisfaction.com] and check out our blog now at blog.getsatisfaction.com.

So for those of you wanting to snatch up a VS6 or Mystery Grab Bag, check back in to the General Store later tonight - Pacific time.

Hugs & Kisses,
Amy, VS Whipcracker

We apologize for the radio silence. We’ve been busy working on a new product that was inspired by Valleyschwag and all the challenges (and joys) we faced handling a good-sized and passionate customer base. We’ve been blogging about our new project at blog.getsatisfaction.com.

We head off to SXSW Interactive in Austin tomorrow — the birthplace of the idea for Valleyschwag one year ago. Who knows what hare-brained idea we’ll come up with this time?

And if any of you are going to be in Austin this weekend, come by our party, “8-Bit”, that we’re co-hosting under the name “Satisfaction” with Rocketboom and 30 Boxes. 10 pm, Scoot Inn. The outdoor area where the main party will be is private for SXSW badge holders only. If you live in Austin, but aren’t going to SXSW email me (amy [at] rubyredlabs [dot] com with the subject “8bit guest list”) and I’ll get you on the list.

Update on the status of Valleyschwag to come.

Yee-haw!
Amy

Our good friend Scott Beale of Laughing Squid shot a few photos of the local printing shop, Ape Do Good a great, independently owned traditional silk screen print shop located in San Francisco’s Mission District. They do an amazing job and have printed many of the shirts that have been featured in Valleyschwag. As Scott says “In a world of digital printing and publishing, it’s great to see good old silk screen printing in action”.

Laughing Squid, run by primary tentacle Scott Beale, focuses on art, culture and technology from San Francisco and beyond. A big part of what Laughing Squid does is connecting people and organizations with other people, organizations and resources in the community. A lot of connecting happens at the huge, insane parties they throw each year to celebrate.

The Valleyschwag General Store is excited to offer this amazing set of four, full color event posters, previously only available at the anniversary shows.

Happy 2007!

(VS 6 is coming soon!)

With a special seasonal twist, these special schwag bags make a great gift for the geek in your life, or it may be the perfect time to indulge your secret schwag addiction. You need something to get you through these short, frigid days…

Order now, because we really don’t have that many.

Just In: We now support shipping to Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia and Ireland.

Cheers!
Your Pals at Valleyschwag

The good news is that we’re figuring this out and we’re going to add more countries as quickly as possible. We’ll probably add countries that support Global Priority Mail first, since there postal rates & regulations are standardized. Other countries will be added as we figure out the shipping rates.
Some commenters also asked about our billing system. After a lot of research and work we decided to stay with Paypal. TrustCommerce promised a lot but could not deliver for us. While their API worked well and we got the technical side set up easily, the financial side and the customer service didn’t meet our needs. Basically we were having trouble finding a merchant account provider who would allow us to 1) ship to all the countries we wanted to ship to, and 2) sell packages without saying exactly what was inside. I think if we had spent more time filling out forms and waiting weeks for approvals we might have been able to work this out, but Paypal ended up being so much easier that it was worth abandoning the work we had done. Our trouble with Paypal involved the inflexibility of their subscription service, which seems great for software subscriptions but less-great for irregularly scheduled schwag delivery. Since we’re not using the subscription engine anymore I think it will work well.

We’re still alive, and we’re still putting together the store. We’ve been spending most of our time on our core business of building cool web products, and I (Jonathan) can take full responsibility for not posting here in the interim. I’ve checked in on the comments, but there’s not much I can say to so many people asking “what’s up” besides “yeah, we’re working on it.”

At least some people are funny about it. Here are some samples:

“Reminds me of a medical show with the patient on life support, the heart monitor beeping. Patient Valleyschwag is definitely in a non responsive coma and i am wondering whether they are going to flat line. Quick Valleyschwag, some sign of life Stat!”
[Oh, I see you have the machine that goes PING. That’s my favorite.]

“I don’t need to wait for the store to know that it will not be what I want.”
[Great, that makes things easier for everyone.]

“I received a package from Valleyschwag today containing only a tee shirt for an Indiana-based pest extermination business!”
[I think this guy got a bonus shirt, and I’m pretty sure ‘bug’ referred to software bugs in this case. Rare shirt, too.]

“awww well I was rather gutted when i got the email saying its no longer a subscription service. What can i say? i’m just lazy and forgetful.”
[I guess you could order something, then forget you ordered it, and when it shows up a week later it will be a complete surprise!]

And, of course, most commenters are super cool, excited, and encouraging. Kat is our hero, Chad remains loyal, Adamski is snarky but ever-present, Rikostan is always supportive…

This store replaces our subscription service altogether. We will notify people by email when a new issue of Valleyschwag is available, giving them the first opportunity to place an order at the General Store.

We’re confident that this is the best way for us to keep the quality of our schwag high, and give the maximum number of folks access to the items they covet.

Stay tuned for the official unveiling.

UPDATE:
To clarify, each new issue of Valleyschwag will continue to be made up of surprise contents. The primary difference is that they will be released and sold as they become available.

Now, we’re not saying that sending out shirts in Valleyschag will get you millions of dollars or make Yahoo buy your company. We’re just pointing out that it keeps happening.

;)