In a March posting, the SOHOBE Newsletter reported that the LaserMonks are back. LaserMonks is being run as a new venture by a company that has bought their assets, including their customer database.
Well, LaserMonks is showing an act of beneficence towards old and new customers. In an act of benevolent generosity, customers can get free shipping! When placing the order, simply use the code “freeshipping” during the checkout process. But hurry, this magnanimous gesture ends Thursday, May 10th.
TechSoup has announced the availability of QuickBooks donations from Intuit. Prices are deeply discounted and typically run $25 for the Macintosh versions to $99 for the 3-user Windows version. The Windows edition also includes a nonprofit-specific version with built-in features for grant tracking, financial reporting, and IRS Form 990 data. There are restrictions guiding the eligibility for the donation and its purchase, and only one product may be requested per fiscal year. Please remember that availability of QuickBooks is not guaranteed. In past, this has proven to be a very popular donation, and product ran out very quickly. If your nonprofit is interested in upgrading their QuickBooks, please act as soon as possible. As always, SOHOBE’s SOHOMike can help you with your issues regarding this donation.
The LaserMonks are back—except they’re not. If you’ve ever ordered from The Cistercian Monks of Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey, known by many SOHOBE readers as The Laser Monks, you may have recently gotten in an e-mail from them announcing that they’ve reopened their business. The Laser Monks had gone out of business some time near August of last year, citing a downturn in orders and an upturn in competition as the main reasons for their decision to close their virtual doors. The Laser Monks were known for cheap pricing on ink cartridges and toner for printers, and for their very personalized, if not always stella, brand of customer service.
So, the Laser Monks are gone, but the LaserMonks (I noticed that the name is now rendered as a geekish compound word) have bought their assets and are starting as a new venture. According to their e-mail:
We recently acquired the domain and the rights to the customer database. We have no affiliation with the previous owners.
This is correct as the new company is headquartered in California, rather than in Wisconsin. As such, the new company doesn’t use its profits to benefit the community as its primary goal. However, the new LaserMonks, aware of its heritage, has indicated that in the future shoppers will be able to designate a cause, which will receive a donation from the purchase.
Perhaps, even more telling of the speed at which the original Laser Monks collapsed, is the paragraph instructing customers with customer service issues never resolved by the prior company to contact them. Although no guarantee is made as to a resolution, the new LaserMonks does indicate that they will try their best to resolve the old issue.
I have been known to point out numerous significant holiday events which I feel would be of value for my clients to be aware of. After all, why would anyone want to miss American Chocolate Week (March 18 to 24)? However, there is another observance that all my SOHO clients should know about.
National Consumer Protection Week is March 4 to March 10, and this is the 14th year of the observance. Consumer Protection is a broad term that can encompass much legislatively. However, the reason I thought it was worth writing about is because the NCPW agency is offering events that can help protect the privacy of my SOHO clients.
It would seem that, even in this day and age of inexpensive paper shredders, there are still people who are throwing paperwork out with the trash without first shredding it. Perhaps the glamour of cyber identity theft has caused people to let down their guard. So the NCPW and the Rhode Island State Attorney General are hosting a series of Shred-a-Thons. Doc Shredding Corp. will be shredding paperwork, and issue certificates of destruction as proof of the paperwork having been destroyed.
Various sites throughout Rhode Island will host the event. The first is slated for Tuesday, March 6th at the Warwick Mall from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM. For a listing of other locations and updates, please visit the Secretary of State’s NCPW webpage. The Shred-a-Thons are apparently free, but a donation of foodstuffs to the Rhode Island Food Bank is requested.
They’re gone! The Cistercian Monks of Our Lady of Spring Bank Abbey, known by many SOHOBE readers as The Laser Monks, have gone out of business. The Laser Monks, for those of you who aren’t aware, weren’t something from the latest SciFi-TV show. They were an order of friars that found out they could generate money for their abbey by selling laser printer toner and printer ink cartridges. They were a rags…, well, perhaps, robes to riches story. According to an often quoted Associated Press story about the ministry, annual sales grew from $2,000 the first year to $4.5 million, with all proceeds going to charitable causes. But apparently the economy and a competitive market caught up with them, and sales fell off sharply. (more…)
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