New website has been up and running for about four months now, and apart from a zillion required plug-ins to make even the most rudimentary basics work, I’m pretty pleased with it. The shipping plug-in is a lot better than the old one, and I particularly like how shipping is handled. I hope you like getting clickable tracking numbers by email when orders are shipped. Another option I have with the new website is back in stock notifications, which was highly requested – and having sales. In regards to sales and marketing tactics, I’m not a big fan of FOMO (fear-of-missing-out), spamming and social media marketing – my strategy remains to have stuff I would buy myself available for easy purchase, in stock, with fast shipping.
That being said, if you buy something, posting a picture of it on Twitter or forums is greatly appreciated!
2022 saw the release of 3 new designs, which is frankly a bit too much. I hope to focus a bit more on firmware in 2023, and one or possibly two new products.
Stock levels are healthy right now, and I hope to have everything for quite some time. The IC shortage is still very much in effect, making it complicated to re-stock and to work on new designs. Even when parts are in stock, everything seems to have gotten more expensive lately, including shipping, parts cost and fabrication.
Since Irken is 100% my thing, nobody can stop me from publicly stating that I support Ukraine, and I hope all of you reading this is doing so too. A donation was made by Irken to the Ukrainian Red Cross in 2022, and I hope being able to repeat this in 2023.
Lastly I would like to thank all my customers, it really makes me happy when I see repeat orders as it tells me I’m doing something right.