The Earplugs Files – News from Snorestore

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Sorky Surfing Earplugs

This last week saw the arrival at Snorestore of two new earplugs, both of which we are delighted to be stocking for the first time in this, our tenth anniversary year.

First up: Sorky Earplugs. Designed primarily for surfers, they hail from France and as you can see from the picture, are of a unique shape and configuration. They’re specifically designed to keep water out, but to allow the wearer to hear what is going on around them. The reviews speak for themselves – don’t go in the water without them.

Mighty Plugs

Our second new brand are Mighty Plugs. We’d seen these over the years and wondered how the manufacturers managed to get such glowing testimonials for their product without apparently having to advertise them at all. Now we know. They are AWESOME. Best for sleeping and general noise reduction, it took 24 hours from them appearing on the Snorestore website to the first review coming in. We’ll reproduce it here in its entirety:

“I just wanted to let you know that I am so grateful for your Mighty Plugs earplugs.  For the first time in ages I get a good nights sleep.  A wonderful invention and I can’t imagine how I used to survive before Mighty Plugs entered my life.  I’m even more delighted that you exist in GB now and I can cut down on the shipping costs.  Keep up the good work!”

Click the images for more details and to buy now.

Well no actually. It’s just that we’ve moved our old blog from standard WordPress hosting to our own Snorestore servers. So if you want to keep up to date with what’s new on the earplugs front, book mark this link now: http://www.snor.in/u/blog

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Sexist Earplugs from Snorestore

We had someone call us today (020 8861 3149) who wanted advice on which type of earplug would be best for them.

This is always a tricky one for us at Snorestore, as, with the best will in the world, we don’t know without seeing the person in situ what the noise level is they’re being exposed to, how sensitive they are to noise, or how big (or small) their ear canals are.

Undaunted, we will do our level best to come up with a solution. Makes sense, huh? We’re a business after all.

Today Fred suggested to our caller that a Women’s Sample Pack would be the best place for her to start her quest for a suitable earplug to drown out the noise of her partner’s snores. Her response? “Earplugs for wimmin? That’s soooo sexist!”

*snort*

If it’s sexist to say that most men are stronger than most women, most men are taller than most women, most men weigh more than most women, then yes, dear caller, it’s absolutely sexist to have a sample pack of earplugs designed for women, by women. Because like it or not, most women have smaller and shorter ear canals than men. And not surprisingly, the Women’s Sample Earplugs Pack is the first port of call for any woman coming to the Snorestore website who’s fed up with her noisy partner depriving her of her sleep.

Sexist, my arras.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Received order.
Date:     Tue, 7 Jun 2011 11:09:03 +0100
From:     x?!xx@msn.com
To:     Snorestore

Dear Sir/Madam

I placed an order on 6th June and it arrived the next day as I paid £1.25 for first class postage. When the item arrived the next day it had postage paid 55p. I would like to know why this is please & am I due the difference back?

Order number SNO262722

Regards

Mr x?!xx

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: Received order.
Date:     Tue, 7 Jun 2011 11:17:52 +0100
From:     Snorestore
To:     x?!xx@msn.com

Hi

The £1.25 includes not just the postage, but also the cost of the envelope and taking your order physically to the Post Office. There is also the fees we pay for the franking machine and of course, VAT which while not applicable to stamps *you* buy, when postage is provided as a service, which it is in our case, then it is applicable.

Thus there is no refund due to you.

Regards,

Glyn
Snorestore

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: RE: Received order.
Date:     Tue, 7 Jun 2011 18:46:31 +0100
From:     x?!xx@msn.com
To:     Snorestore

Thank you for the sharp reply. this info should be placed on your site so customers do not get confused with postage prices. I will be looking for clearer info when buying in the future.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject:     Re: Received order.
Date:     Tue, 7 Jun 2011 18:59:22 +0100
From:     Snorestore
To:     x?!xx@msn.com

It absolutely is on the website: home page, shipping page and at the check out. Amazed you didn’t spot it. Also amazed that you complain about shipping charges (which we make a loss on) of, er, a massive £1.25.

By the way, we seem to have missed the “thank you for your excellent speedy delivery” message in your emails. How many online companies do you know that deliver in 24 hours for, er, a massive £1.25 ?

The customer is not always right. However, In our experience, 99.999% of customers are lovely and we value every one of them. The remaining 0.0001%? Well, we leave you to make up your own mind.

Regards,

Glyn
Snorestore

Businesses which run exclusively online, like Snorestore, have to work extra hard to keep their customers happy. Unlike a bricks and mortar store, we can’t just re-dress the shop window, or put posters up in uncompromisingly garish colours proclaiming that we have a sale on. Online stores have to work harder to keep people informed, and we have stricter codes to adhere to when it comes to customer service.

Returns, for examples, are bound by the Distance Selling Regulations. These are an unwieldy set of legally-binding rules which mean, for example, that you can return an item or cancel an order without any penalty to you, the customer (well, pretty much anyway*). Just recently, the UK advertising code was extended to cover websites, meaning that the promotion of products online must conform to Advertising Standards Authority rules. Snorestore’s website and Twitter feed already do. Of course.

Similarly, paying by credit card online puts the onus for keeping your details safe firmly on the shoulders of the website you are buying from. After all, you can’t simply cover the keypad to obstruct the view of prying eyes, as you would in a shop or at a cash machine. So online businesses like Snorestore have to prove that they aren’t putting your sensitive financial details at risk – even if we use a secure third party to process our card payments. Which we do, naturally. Penalties for allowing hackers to get at your information run into the tens of thousands of pounds.

As you might have read in our last post, Snorestore suffered a few hours of mayhem a couple of weeks ago when our hosting provider made ahem a mistake when they “upgraded” their hardware. Or software. We’re not sure – they never told us. Anyway, we decided we should look at alternatives as it’s not great if a shop has to put up a “Sorry we’re closed” sign through no fault of their own.

The outcome of our online house move will not be immediately obvious to anyone. But to us and to you it makes all the difference in the world. It’s like moving from a nondescript complex housing dozens of shops, to a standalone building on the smartest High Street. Yes, we are now proudly in “dedicated server” country.

You should find that Snorestore’s website is faster to navigate, that the pictures load more quickly, and that your progress through the checkout is faster. This is because you’re not competing with other online shops for online space and time. When you visit Snorestore, you’re in a pipe which leads only to us, with no blind alleys to other stores who you’ve never heard of and wouldn’t want to visit even if you knew they were there.

One of the other benefits of being in our own little corner of cyberspace, is that we can validate the security of our online presence much more easily. Ever since it became an industry requirement a few years ago, we’ve made sure that we have done more than was required to keep you safe online. We’ve had an SSL certificate on our checkout for years, even though you’re only putting your name and address details in at this point. We’ve also had regular scans of our business network, to ensure hackers are kept out. Our firewall is set up to repel all unfriendly boarders.

Now, though, we can go one step further still. Even though we never see your credit card details (and wouldn’t want to), we pay a renowned security scanning company to check the physical piece of kit – the server – where Snorestore’s website is hosted. Pleasingly, the scans show that Snorestore is as safe as it can be when it comes to processing your details. As a result, we’re allowed to display a discreet banner on the website proving this:

We hope we have helped you feel more comfortable about buying from Snorestore online. If you have any questions, use our Contact page to get in touch. We promise we won’t ask you for your PIN number

*There are time limits for returning items and while there are very few products which are exempt from the DSRs, most earplugs are exempt. Just as you wouldn’t return a pair of used knickers to M&S, you can’t return a set of earplugs unless they are faulty. And can be proven to be faulty