A message from Eric of _Modern Ferret_ Magazine:
 
The big news:
_Modern Ferret_ is pleased to announce the launch of FerretMall.com
(www.ferretmall.com).  FerretMall is a totally free commerce site builder
for ferret clubs, shelters, craftspeople or any ferret-related business.
If you've wanted a commerce site (especially for the upcoming holiday
season), you need to check out FerretMall.  Listings at FerretMall are
free.
 
You get: free store hosting, free secure shopping cart, free store builder,
free auction tools, free traffic logs, free tax calculator, free shipping
calculator, free coupon creator, with unlimited categories, unlimited
products, unlimited traffic, and unlimited sales.
 
Once your store is ready for the public, just let us know and we'll add you
to the list of FerretMall sites (also for free).
 
The things you might need to pay for are:
1.  Online credit card processing: To process credit cards online you need
to get a merchant account.  If you already have a merchant account, you can
use it to process the cards manually offline.  If you don't have a merchant
account and don't want to pay for one, you can always just accept checks
and money orders.  Your customers will be able to fill a shopping basket,
have sales tax and shipping calculated, print out the invoice, and mail
you payment.
 
2. Domain name: If you want to have a "yourferretshelter.com" domain name,
you will have to pay to register that domain name.  That can now be done
for as little as $15 per year.
 
We hope that FerretMall will help clubs and shelters with their fundraising
efforts and encourage some of the excellent craftspeople out their to
start offering their crafts online.  It's a great way for them to have a
permanent web site at no cost (or minimal cost if they choose to get their
own domain name).
 
You can see the type of store that can be built by looking at our own
_Modern Ferret_ online store at
http://www.modernferretstore.com
 
We've been using the site for a while now and it seems to work just fine.
Mary was able to figure out how to use the point-and-click interface to
develop the store after I got too ill to sit at a computer.  Odds are,
you'll be able to figure out how to set up your store as well.
 
For more information, head on over to:
http://www.ferretmall.com
 
On a personal note:
This is one of the projects I had intended to finish well enough before
Christmas 1999 that clubs and shelters would be able to use it during the
holiday season.  My Crohn's Disease has truly caused me to lose nearly a
year of my life.  I am now out of the hospital and working to get stuff
done -- but there really is A LOT to do.  We had planned to do a whole
bunch of ambitious things in the year 2000, but my illness and our lack
of money due to no longer being available in pet stores put a big stop to
everything.  We're now working on the next issue of the magazine (#27)
which will be filled with some of the essays I wrote while incarcerated at
the hospital.  The original content we intended for #27 will wind up being
published in #28 (apologies to Bill and Diane Killian who put a lot of work
into what will now be the cover story of #28 instead of #27).  Right now I
am very jumpy, perky, and hungry (when I left the hospital I was on 60mg of
prednisone per day and I am still on a rather high dose) and can only sleep
about 4 hours a day before I need to get up and eat more.  I am trying to
use the awake time to catch up on everything possible.  We have no plans to
abandon the magazine, but we will be restructuring stuff in our lives a bit
and working on a few other projects (which is why I still haven't gotten up
to finishing issue #27).  Watch for other announcements soon.
 
Please note that we have always counted a subscription as 6 issues -- all
subscribers will receive all the issues they sign up for.  It's just going
to take us a lot longer to produce them than was expected.
 
Also note: When I got home from the hospital I had about 1000 e-mails to
sort through.  And they just keep coming.  I will do my best to respond to
what I can, but in order to start getting the magazine done, etc.  I need
to be working on the magazine rather than explaining again and again why it
is late.
 
In the meantime, it's nice to be able to play with the ferrets again -- I
had been too unsteady on my feet to even risk walking near them for fear of
stepping on them.  I'm hoping that next year I'll be able to get a dog for
my birthday instead of checking into a hospital.  I'd like to thank Mary
(who took such good care of me this past year and did her best to keep our
business afloat despite all the incredible difficulties) and my mom (who
has been with me both times in my life I was ever hospitalized -- my zeroth
birthday and my thirtyfourth).
 
--Eric & The Modern Ferrets
(Knuks, Trixie, Bosco da Gama, Balthazar, Cauliflower, Koosh & Gabrielle)
Modern Ferret Magazine
www.modernferret.com
[Posted in FML issue 3178]