We are always fine tuning our site design to make it easier for you to shop. On CosplayCostumeCloset.com we’ve always given you 3 ways to browse products - Shop by Type (costume, mask, wig, etc), Shop by Theme (Patriotic, Pirate, Harry Potter, etc), and Shop by Size (Adult Mens, Childrens, Infant, etc). As we’ve added more and more costumes though, our Shop by Theme section has been getting longer…and longer…and longer. So to try to make things a bit easier and more compact, we’ve changed that section into a dropdown box (see image). Now all you have to do is click the down arrow to the right of “Pick a Theme”, scroll thru the list and click on a theme such as “Patriotic” and boom! That category loads for you!

This will give us the ability to add more filtered categories over the coming months to hopefully make things a bit easier.

The theme categories include mens, womens, and childrens style that fits the theme - so if your entire family wants to dress up as pirates for example, you can select the pirate category and find something for each member of your crew.

As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for making the stores easier to use. Just email us at ideas@labeshops.com.

Happy Shopping!

I don’t know what spammer list I managed to get onto, but the last 3 weeks I have been bombarded with spam in the main orders@ email address! Over 6000 messages in fact! Think my web hosts finally got most of it blocked on the server level and I’ve been trying to block more in Outlook, but I’m still weeding thru a ton of spam looking for the good messages in all the clutter!

My apologies for delay in responses - I’m trying to catch up as soon as I can. My inbox is down to 800 messages now to go thru and I’m responding to new emails immediately (or close to it - at least within 24 hours as normal).

It’s spring which means new catalogs! Which means items that have been discontinued being taken off the stores and new items being added. Take a look at our Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for new product announcements.

We always add new clothing items first to Sensual Elegance, new Alchemy Gothic and other goth items including clothing to Gothic Plus, new candles, jewelry, etc to Mystic Convergence, new Egyptian pieces to Egyptian Marketplace, and new costumes first to Cosplay Costume Closet. Not all products appear on all our sites, but the ones that are appropriate will eventually migrate to its proper site (such as new clothing that is appropriate going tos Crossdres Fashions). New shoes go first to Sensual Elegance or Gothic Plus (for Demonia) too.

In theory, return tickets seemed like a great idea and a way to keep track of the few returns I get. But in practice, it isn’t working. For one thing, the stupid ticket program doesn’t always send me notification that a new ticket has been placed, so suddenly I’ll discover a 2-week old return request Or it doesn’t send the email to the customer properly so they don’t get my response.

I only get probably 3-4 returns or exchanges a month so you would think this would be easy to track. But with everything else I do and trying to keep up on orders, I find they slip thru the cracks way too much.

So time to rethink the system and see what I can come up with. For now, the current system will remain until I come up with something better.

You know, I really love working for myself and by myself. I’ve always been the “tell me what needs to be done and leave me alone to do it” kind of worker and always worked for small companies - often where it was just me and the owner. I really do prefer it that way…most of the time.

There does come a point though where I realize I need help…and I’m not good at admitting it or asking for it. I have 2 great friends who both have offered to help, but…most of the time, I don’t ask. I think because it means I must have messed something up…did something wrong or am just not good enough to handle everything I need to do. Now intellectually, I know that’s not true - it’s just the that business is growing and more to do in the same amount of time means things get forgotten, messed up, or not handled as quickly as they should have been. Last night I finally finished step 1 of posting orders (every order goes into Quickbooks for accounting purposes and Quickbooks Customer Manager (for lack of a better program) to track them) and found a whole group of ones from EARLY FEBRUARY that should have been shipped by now! But with them not in QBCM, they weren’t in my “to order” list of items so the pieces didn’t get ordered from the manufacturers

So today is my catch up, contact those customers, and try to make it right day. All because I messed up and buried paperwork that should have been done already. Tomorrow will be my massive order those items from the manufacturers and try to get them in asap day.

I wish I could say this never happened before…but it has. And every time it has I think to myself that I’m going to stay caught up - I’m going to enter those orders in as soon as I process them! Every day! Without fail! And then things happen…like getting 10 shipments in all at the same time so I spend 2 days shipping and not getting anything else done. Or I get a super rush order that has to be taken care of NOW so everything else suffers. Or I just get so many orders at one time I cannot get them all done. Or I’m not feeling well, I get a flat tire, my cat has kittens, or something to get in the way and make me get behind again.

So then I promise I’m going to get caught up - and usually say Sunday is the day since there are no shipments that can go out that day so at least 4 free hours to do something else. But in the back of my head is my mother saying “Sunday is the day of rest” and you are supposed to take it easy, not work your ass off! So I find myself reading, or gaming, or just adding new items to the stores (vital work yeah, but not the most productive use of my time).

So what am I doing this Sunday after thinking about all the above? Blogging! Okay, I did clean the kitchen already today and its only 9:30 am so I still have a lot of productive time ahead, but … hopefully I’ll finish the day with everything done. I have to post all those orders I found last night into QBCM so I make sure everything gets ordered tomorrow. I have new orders I have to process (and post!) and an office that I really need to straighten up with some random pieces from manufacturers sitting around I have to match up with customers or put them in the warehouse til needed. I have to recheck stuff I ordered last week - some of which I have to email the manufacturers and say where the heck is it! And oh yeah…clean the rest of the house

Wonder if those friends want to see a movie?

The office is having internet connection problems (Thank you, Brighthouse Cable) with downtime lasting several minutes to 30+ minutes at a time several times a day. Making it hard to get everything done and my apologies for processing or email delays. Our phone service routes to my cell phone when the internet is down, so that should have the least disruptions right now.

Hopefully, they will have the problem solved soon, but it is totally random and unexpected - will be fine one second, the next just gone

Always interesting I guess!

I just discovered that due to a spammer trying to use our email accounts, our sites and email servers were offline much of this weekend as our hosts were working to correct the issue. All but MythicDecor.com is now back online and we apologize for the inconvenience and confusion. No customer information was compromised and all credit card information is stored on a separate, secure server that was not affected.

MythicDecor.com was the most damaged due to this attack and is being rebuilt over the next few weeks.

Several manufacturers are doing their year end inventories this week and several are not shipping anything at all, others not shipping anything but rush orders. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Managed to get my accounting files, photos, logos and other documents off the hard drive of my dead laptop! Yeah! Still trying to get the older email (its on the other drive), inventory, and some other data, but I am improving again! Hopefully will eventually be able to get that one back to life as a backup computer.

Gotta say having to get a new computer was a blessing in disguise. The new one is much faster with more RAM, dedicated video RAM and Windows 7. And of course it was cheaper than what I paid 3 years ago for the one that died! Amazing how that works.  (For those techy minded folks, the new one is an HP Pavilion dv7-3060US.)

I’m a big multi-tasker - right now I have 9 programs and 10 browser windows open for example. I’m constantly switching back and forth from email, to the stores, to my credit card terminal program, to inventory, to Quickbooks, etc. And I am amazed how more RAM (4 gigs versus my 2 gigs befor) and dedicated graphics memory improves my ability to multi-task. Windows 7 even wakes up properly from hibernation - something I could never do on my Vista laptop!

So except for the disruption in losing a day of work and (temporarily) losing data and emails, it was a blessing in disguise. Of course I’m sure within a few months I’ll be complaining how slow my computer is again…but for now, I’m loving it!

Please note that we cannot guarantee delivery by Christmas for any items at this point. Even those we have in stock should reach you by December 24, but it is not guaranteed due to the post office mail volume. We will try our best to get all orders our our door by Monday, December 21, but regretfully we just cannot guarantee delivery in time for the holidays. For best delivery time, please choose “Express Shipping” when ordering.