BLOG ENHANCEMENTS

I admit I am a total blog newbie. Any advice from seasoned veterans out there would be appreciated. I emailed a blog expert who regularly writes columns on WebProNews, Neville Hobson, and he had some helpful advice. This directly led to me learning about HaloScan, which I am now using for posts and trackbacks. I also added a fun little survey at the bottom of the right column using Bravenet. I'll continue to add enhancements to make this blog more exciting and interactive, and again, any words of wisdow would be appreciated.

Categories: Site News

GUEST BLOGGER - The Soldiers' Angels Love Minimus.biz!

The following entry was submitted by Dianne of the non-profit Soldiers' Angels organization:

Have you ever eaten an MRE? For those of you who don't know what that is, MRE stands for "Meal: Ready-To-Eat" and they make up the primary diet of many soldiers currently serving our country in the war against terrorism. These vacuum-packed, chock-full-o'-preservatives type of instant meals are high in calories... but rather low in taste quality. I'd heard through many correspondences with these military heroes via my work with Soldiers'Angels just how difficult these meals can be to choke down day afterday, but assumed that a bit of exaggeration was to blame for theMRE's reputation... until one day a soldier actually gave me a couple of these meals to taste for myself. Not to say that the military doesn't feed our guys & gals in uniform substantially... but I have to say, the taste-factor (or lack thereof) was no exaggeration. lol

Thus, I soon began a quest for condiment packets to help my soldiers break up the monotony of their daily rations. I began by raiding the bins of fast food restaurants that I regularly patronize, but they offered little more than your basic ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Then in searching the internet for more of a variety, my quest led me to Minimus.biz where I struck gold! I found various types of condiments there that I never even knew existed in packet form! While it might sound strange, the 1st soldier I sent a cornucopia of condiments to, wrote back in response to receiving his package by telling me it was the best care package he'd ever gotten! He said he'd never been so happy to see little foil packets of barbeque sauce, chopped onions, and apple jelly in his life! lol

Of course, the more I viewed the Minimus.biz website, the more types of items I saw that were PERFECT for sending to soldiers...everything from hygiene items to snacks... all in a convenient size to fit in their backpacks. And the free shipping incentive for purchases over $20 was just the icing on the cake, since as a regular shipper of goods to troops overseas, I know the expense of just the postage alone!

So from this first humble experience with the condiment packets has grown the foundation of formidable and inspiring working relationship between Minimus and The Soldiers' Angels Foundation in supplying our military with some comforts of home. My first order led me to inquire about a discount for our organization (which was granted)...then to a means of combining Minimus' wide variety of products into kits that would become their very own line of pre-made care packages... and has now resulted in a regular flow of product and merchandise fulfillment between the two entities on a daily basis.

I think somehow fate just led me to type in the words "travel sized"into that search engine a few months ago. :-)

Dianne,

Soldiers' Angels

Categories: Food, Culture, Military, Iraq

TASTE TESTING - BBQ Sauces

A little while back, I did a taste testing of our various barbeque sauces that we carry. My dipping instrument of choice was the French fry procured from a local fast food establishment. I tried the following:



The Heinz was more on the smoky side, good if you are more the mesquite kind of bbq person. The Kraft was sharper, with a more vinegar kick to it. It was remeniscent of a lot of fast food bbq sauces (not necessarily a bad thing). The Bullseye, always a classic, had a nice all around, yet strong, flavor. The Chatsworth is probably the second cousin of Bullseye, nice all around sauce, but a little less bold on flavor. The best, by far, was the Sweet Baby Ray's. This is assuming you prefer sweet to smoky. It is very sweet. It has become my new favorite dipping sauce for French fries, as well as a great burger-topper. While this is not a paid endorsement, I urge you to check it out.

I'd like to welcome any of our customers to do their own taste testing with any of our products - salad dressings, mayos, sweet & sour sauces, teas. Write up your own taste testing review, email it in, and we might post it here!

Categories: Food

SITE ENHANCEMENTS

We continue to work to make enhancements to our website (beyond slowly increasing our product offerings). We’ve recently added an automatic cart-saving feature, gift certificates for purchase, a random customer quote of the day on the homepage, as well as several behind-the-scenes modifications to increase functionality and streamline the order, packing, and quality control processes. We’ve also recently received our own Thawte security certificate.

Categories: Site News

STORIES FROM OUR CUSTOMERS

Happy Valentines Day! I have to say that I have been amazed at some of the stories I’ve heard back from our customers as to where our products are headed. Not only have we shipped things around the world (we recently sent an order to a customer in Iceland), but customers themselves are purchasing items from us and then shipping them to interesting places – Peace Corps volunteers in Africa (they’ve requested various condiments to spice up their food), missionary workers abroad, an orphanage in Nepal. We’ve had numerous charities purchase items from us (mostly personal care items for the homeless), including the mayor of one of the largest cities in the country. We even had a wealthy businessman purchase case lots from us so that his kids could learn about charity by assembling the items (personal care items) into packages to give away to the homeless. Many corporations purchase items from us in case lots, either for their own lunchrooms, for their employees (several companies put together their own flu kits), or for giveaways for events – or even to send to soldiers in Iraq. Many even purchase at discounted rates for resale, or for inclusion into other products. In the future, now that the new blog is up and running, I hope to provide more detailed stories and perhaps even include letters and such from customers themselves.

Categories: Blogging, Customers

INAUGURAL BLOG ENTRY

Welcome to the inaugural blog entry for Minimus.biz. For those of you not familiar with a ‘blog,’ it is a fairly new phenomenon that is essentially an online journal. It is primarily being used by individuals, but is catching on in the corporate world as well. We’ve chosen to add a blog to our website, as a blog offers a great way to have a more personal and informal connection to our customers – and we get to share exciting stories we encounter in our business.

A brief note about myself, Paul Shrater, who will be making the majority of the blog entries on the site (from time to time we’ll bring in company employees or special guests to post on here). I am one of the founders of the company and also double as the VP of marketing. I’ve got a lot of exciting things to share already bottled up inside that will be flowing out to you over subsequent postings to the blog, so check back often. That’s it for now… I’ll be back soon.

One more thing... Since this blog will be replacing our “News” section on our site, I’ll post to the right what is currently in the news section (a timeline of our selected mentions in the press) and will update in the future.

Categories: Blog, Weblog, Business