Thursday, December 4, 2008

Moor Mud


It’s a common misconception that “Moor” is a company or brand name, when Moor is actually the name to describe a type of mud, or earth. Several companies, in Canada and worldwide, produce and sell Moor-based or pure Moor products.

A respected ancient healer, Paracelsus, understood healing to come from the earth and knew the healing properties of moor. Moor has been an important health and wellness ingredient for many centuries, and according to sources, one of the first users of moor was Cleopatra herself. Modern research was influenced by Professor Otto Stöber, a researcher who founded the Austrian Moor Research Institute in the 1940’s. His work has been continued by others, including Walter Kosmath in the 1950’s. He discovered tiefenmoor (a deeper deposit of moor near Vorarlberg, Austria). In most European countries today, Moor remains a respected and sought after therapy. A brief perusal of current clinical research reveals thousands of published studies in journals around the world on the therapeutic value of Moor.

Moor is a rich, organic mud, formed by time and composed of thousands of plants, which has been proven to be quite similar to the composition of the human body. Moor an ideal ingredient in body and skin care compounds, as its bio-availability aids in nourishing the body as well as assisting in its detoxification. This gives therapists a powerful tool to assist clients in reestablishing their body’s ability to heal. The anti-inflammatory properties of Moor assist in healing skin disorders such as psoriasis, and inflammation of the joints, as in Rheumatoid Arthritis. It is a natural antiseptic and works to balance hormones as well.

Every Moor Spa product includes the rich, black moor water as the signature ingredient. This water is extracted from the moor by a process of filtration which takes several weeks to complete. It contains most of the moor’s water-soluble nutrients and is therefore extremely nourishing to the skin and body.

For more information about clinical research involving Moor, and to receive copies of abstracts, please contact L’Moor.

Monday, December 1, 2008

The Myth of Free Shipping


Hearing the phrase “Free Shipping!” is enough to get any shopper’s heart beating faster.

You know what they say, though: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Any business that offers free shipping has somehow hidden the cost in the price of their products or services. They either absorb the cost of shipping products and reduce the services they provide to you, or they calculate the total cost of prior years shipping and come up with the average cost of shipping an order. This average shipping cost is “baked in” to the cost of the goods, and applied as an increase in the product price. Some go one step further and impose minimum orders as a requirement to receive free shipping. Yet, you never see a discount on the cost of your products if you don’t meet their minimum order, right? Yet, you have increased their profit as the shipping cost is already included their profit margins.

Shipping product is a cost of doing business, and is generally one of the top 5 expenses a business will incur. No business can ship without cost, even if they own the shipping company. Canada Post, Purolator, UPS, etc., make their living from shipping and they certainly don’t give their service away. So, unless Canada Post decides to give up on the idea of generating revenue, someone, somewhere, is paying the cost of shipping. The average cost of shipping products ranges from 5% to 15% depending on distance traveled and weight.

When free shipping is offered, then the customers who place the largest orders actually reap the least benefit, in terms of the percentage of what they save on shipping. Why would it be fair to make the ones who invest the most in us, save the least?


It seems to us that having everyone pay for what they actually use is the best option.

The occasional “free shipping” offer can be a legitimate way of driving sales - perhaps on products that are overstocked, seasonal or newly released. However, offering it routinely will cost the client in the long run.

We want to be upfront with you, and offer transparency about how we make money. We pay to have the products shipped to us, and we pay the carrying cost to keep inventory in Ontario - close to our clients until they are ready to buy. Of course, the occasional back order occurs as we grow and learn about the products our customers want and need.

The shipping cost on each invoice is the cost to us to ship to you via Canada Post, which has proven to be the most timely, cost effective way to ship to our clients in Ontario.

While free shipping can be a valid customer acquisition and loyalty tool, we generally prefer to focus our marketing initiatives by offering superior customer service, build face to face relationships over time, and supporting our clients to grow their businesses. This includes:



  • onsite training
  • providing well researched articles for clients to use in newsletters and advertising
  • offering personalized attention to helping our clients order the right products
  • guaranteeing the quality of our products
  • carrying an inventory offering multiple sizes to give our clients the choice to purchase sample, travel, retail, professional or bulk sizing
  • no minimum orders

In the end, given the choice between paying for your products and knowing the actual cost of shipping, or having the cost buried in the price of your order (which helps pay for someone else’s shipping), which would you choose?

Saturday, November 29, 2008

First post

Thanks for joining yet another newbie blogger.

This is my first post, and while I've spent a few days (yes, sitting on my couch in my pyjamas - we call that "working from home") researching what I want to do, I'm still pretty unsure.

I'm certain that most people, when they start a blog, wonder why anyone would want to read what they have to say. I'm in that place too.

That being said, one thing I'm not short of, is opinions. And I'm generally not shy about sharing them.

I hope you'll like my thoughts, and if you don't, at least I hope I won't offend you (too much).