Hurricane Katrina

First off, the good news: None of our partner bakeries have been closed by Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on the Gulf Coast this morning. That means that all of our products are available for delivery.

However, depending on where you would like things delivered, there may be some difficulties during the week, particularly east of the Mississippi River between today and Wednesday. We expect that deliveries to the hardest-hit areas will be impossible for the next 48 hours.

If you would like to send something to Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama this week, I recommend checking with the shipping companies ahead of time to ensure that they can make the delivery.

Change of Seasons

We got our first chilly night yesterday, a reminder that heat and humidity will soon be just another New England Memory. This is my favorite time of year in these parts, as cool nights settle in and the trees explode with autumn colors. There's also the fall harvests of apples, pumpkins, and native corn to enjoy.

The first sign of fall appears on the site today, in the form of Back to School Mini Cookies from our friends at Supercookie. Later this week, look for a preview of the many fall flavors from Supercookie, Divine Delights, and Bittersweet Pastries.

We'll also be discontinuing some of our summer items until next year. If you like Spring Mini Cookies or Golf Mini Cookies, they will only be available until August 31.

Links at Last

The great link migration of Ought-Five is complete. You'll find Gift Baskets nestled among the various Shop by Person categories. Now if I could just find a way to move petits fours to the top level navigation...might happen, might not.

The only task remaining in our cleanup efforts is to optimize all the product pictures so they look extra tasty. Those will roll out over the next week, and then something very big and exciting will put a final flourish on all the small changes that we've made since April.

Meanwhile, some British researchers have analyzed the way men and women look at Web sites and found that a majority of British university sites have a stronger appeal to men. I'm wondering if this isn't true of the Web as a whole, where modular design is the norm.

Good Time for Changes

Has it really been a week since my last post? It's been a little hectic here. August is a slow month in the baking business--between vacations and double-digit heat, most folks aren't longing for cake--so we're taking advantage of the chance to make a few changes to the site.

You'll notice our new Shop by Bakery category, which was something I introduced to make managing our catalog easier. Before I had to search through all our categories to find the complete product list for a single bakery. Now everything is in one place, which makes my life much easier. It's also good if you like a product from a certain bakery--now you can see everything they offer in one place.

Keep an eye out for a couple of changes this week. "Candies and Chocolates" will be renamed "Confections," and is now the home for our Chocolate Dipped Strawberries. Gift Baskets will be removed as a category and the baskets will be relocated into appropriate Shop by Person categories.

All of this is in preparation for our coming redesign. I reviewed the first draft of it yesterday, and it's spectacular. It should be online very soon, and it will make using our site even easier.

While you wait, you can check out the newly redesigned staples.com, which has been rebuilt based on the input of thousands of users. I do find it easier to navigate, but I'm surprised that they aren't displaying more products.

And finally, a little heads-up to a new competitor I've found in baked goods e-tailing: Don't let the Postal Service catch you shipping those matches by air with your Birthday Cake Party Kit. That's illegal.