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Think about online buying in general.  Your order arrives, everything is as you expected, why on earth would you leave a review?  I don't review Tesco's home delivery every week! Now suppose something goes badly wrong.  You can't wait to get onto Facebook and tell them what you think.  And, surprise surprise, most of the customer comments there are from people who have had things go wrong.  Of course, because you don't leave a review every time something goes right. If something goes really badly wrong, you might even seek out online review sites and tell people there what you...

At the moment I am too small to need to register for VAT.  That has advantages and disadvantages.  The advantage is that I can supply goods a little cheaper than larger retailers (which doesn't compensate for the huge economies of scale the very large ones have, but yes it does help).  The disadvantage is that I cannot offer AIPS.  I expect this to change in November. A couple of quick explanations about VAT which you might not be aware of (don't feel too bad if you weren't, I have known LEA purchasing departments to get this wrong!).  1. The saving...

It happens every year before Christmas and before the end of the summer term.  Parents want a Gliga for next term (or for Christmas) and assume that a couple of weeks is plenty of time to order. Here is the good news: IF IT IS HERE IN STOCK, I can turn orders around very quickly indeed - certainly the next day, sometimes even same day if you order early enough. Here is the bad news: demand for Gliga far outstrips supply.  Here is a second piece of bad news: demand for small sizes is much lower than for full size...

I have recently remembered an incident where I sold a 3/4 size violin to someone in Lincoln.  It was a good Chinese one ("Marlborough" from The Soundpost) which isn't sold in the UK any more; this was more than ten years ago.  It was £350 then, but because it was the end of the line we got it cheaper than usual and so did the customer, still it cost her about £250.  She mailed me in a state of panic saying that the violin had collapsed.  All that had happened was that the tailpiece had come off and so of...

Thanks to Facebook I have found the account I wrote at the time.  Here it is.  There are references to collecting a cat - he's the one on my picture. We've wanted to go to this event (it is a large trade fair) for several years but until this year have never been able to afford it. And this year we were really too decrepit to go. However, we went. We simply could not face the thought of sardine class in an aeroplane, even just to Germany, so the plan always was to go by ferry and then drive, but...