Land of Odds

ABOUT LAND OF ODDS PROGRESS REPORTS Sixth-Months Twelve-Months Fifteen-Months Twenty-Nine Months Forty-One Months Sixty-One Months Sixty-Nine Months Eighty-One Months Seven Years, Seven Months Eight Years, Three Months Nine Years, Three Months Ten Years, Seven Months Eleven Years, Seven Months

ABOUT LAND OF ODDS CATALOG JAMES, WARREN, Rosie, & DOTTIE  ...and now LILY, DAISY and MAGGIE A Farewell To Rosie COPYRIGHT & TRADEMARK DISCLAIMERS & UNDERSTANDINGS ORDERING INFORMATION & TERMS

Warren  Welcome to the Land of Odds.  You may browse our catalog at your leisure.  A visit with us is a perfect opportunity to settle in with your computer, friends and family, have some fun, and indulge your shopping pleasures.  Each wonderful and imaginative alcove in our shop is chock full of interesting "what-is" and "how-to" information and insights, as well as great selections of merchandise.   James and Rosie Land of Odds specializes in beads and jewelry making supplies . Land of Odds is one of  the most complete sources of bead and jewelry-making merchandise you'll find anywhere.   At Land of Odds, you can find glass beads, seed beads, semi-precious stone beads, cords, chains, filigrees, sterling silver components, earring findings, pin findings, clasps, charms, stampings, castings, stringing supplies, austrian crystal beads. Land of Odds provides the supplies you need for designing jewelry, decorating clothing and costumes, or enhancing furnishings and decorative accessories. It's all gotten through here! If we do not have a product in stock, we can get it for you quickly.   Your product and design needs are our priority! Retail or Quantity Discounts and Wholesale.  Whether you want small or large quantities, you can find it at Land of Odds. Open 7 days a week. 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. Land of Odds is located in Nashville, Tennessee.      This Web-Catalog has been a very BIG! project for us, to say the least!  We're a small store. Beginning in 1995, it took almost 2 years to assemble the pieces. We had our first on-line order in March 1998. We're very pleased about our catalog, and very excited about our contining plans and efforts to upgrade and expand it.   After our first 1 1/2 years on the Internet, we made some major changes.   First, in the fall of 1999, we made Land of Odds an internet-only store.   We chucked the high overhead of our downtown store, and relied primarily on on-line sales.   Second, we've opened up a small bead shop -- Be Dazzled Beads -- in a suburban area of Nashville.   We operate our catalog warehouse operation next to Be Dazzled Beads. The two businesses are run separately, but we coordinate our inventories.   As you can tell, our internet catalog and experiences have come a long way.  At first, our idea for a catalog was in the form of a print catalog.  But the feasibility, the effort involved and expected economic return on such a catalog weren't quite right.  The print catalog idea didn't keep us motivated.  The internet, we felt, would enable us to reach more people, update the product information more easily, and could keep up with changes in the store more easily, as well.  But how to proceed with an internet catalog?

Initially, we were only going to do a bead catalog.  We were going to offer great prices, no pictures.  Our goals evolved.  As we researched other catalogs on the net, and e-commerce in general, "beads", we felt, weren't enough.   "No graphics at all" we felt wasn't right either.  We discovered that it took great effort and determination on the part of anyone to link up with a catalog and peruse it.  Even if the initial impressions of the customer were great, what would motivate her or him to come back again, and make a purchase?  There had to be more.  There had to be more product, more information, more content, and images of the product.  These had to be laid out over many, many short pages, -- not over several long pages. Then SUCCESS hit.   There were too many products to manage, and 5 years later, we are back to concentrating on beads and jewelry findings.    We did retain, however, the Michael Parkes line of posters, which are very special.   In our content and design decisions, we came to understand this web catalog project in web-relevant terms.  Our catalog was not an "advertisement", but rather an invitation into our store.  We did not want something "slick," but rather something very personal.  We were not about "hype", but rather about things reflective of our tastes, our experiences and the experiences of our retail store customers.   Our catalog was not a "compendium of products", but instead was a tool for education, information, how-to and what-are insights.  We hope you'll agree that sitting down perusing our on-line catalog is more like sitting down with a good book.   More like an old friend.  More like having a good chat.  More like learning while shopping. After the catalog came on-line, we quickly began to re-think our commitment to bricks and mortar retail.   In September of 1999, we became an internet-only business.   In this form, we began to narrow our merchandise focus to what was working best for us -- beads and beading supplies, some basic jewelry, posters and a few gifts.   We also found it necessary to considerably upgrade the technology underlying the catalog, and this has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride.     Welcome to the ever-evolving "outcome".   We THOUGHT BIG!  And our catalog is very complete and full with many items and insights just for you.  Land of Odds was a neat "real" store.  Value at a reasonable price is our motto.  Serving the needs of our customers is our goal.  We believe we've translated some of this Land-of-Odds-neatness into our on-line "virtual" shopping experience for our customers.  Shop, learn, explore, indulge.  At your convenience.  At your leisure.  At your pleasure.     Website Ranking The table above shows our overall web-ranking on the internet, and our web-ranking among "shopping/crafts/beads" related sites on-line. Also feel free to read our newsletter -- The Oddsian.  In it, you will find articles about the healing properties of the different gemstones, how to play a gemstone tarot, how to purchase crystals, what the birthstones are, what the zodiac stones are, what colors mean, wedding anniversary stones, figuring out how many beads there are on a strand,  what shapes mean, as well as various tips and guidance on making or pricing jewelry. Rosie Read about our continuing internet adventures:

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