Monday, July 27, 2009

Thank You!

We plan to post our first reviews on Tuesday, August 4th!

Before we post any reviews I want to take this opportunity to thank Jerry Emerson of Art of Caricature for the fabulous job be did drawing each of us Blogger Mommies and creating that fun heading for us. He was able to accommodate our individual insecurities and hide our little imperfections, that I am sure only we see, while still making our caricatures look enough like us that my 2 year old granddaughter could easily identify each of us. He also kindly gave us all great figures that we wished we really had. Jerry has all the qualities you would hope for in a caricature artist...totally reasonable prices, the patience of Mother Teresa, and the attention to detail that would make any perfectionist jealous. Thank you Jerry!

The other person I would like to thank is Sheila of Blog Designs by Sheila. She created the page as you see it now, and she made it look so simple...although I know for a fact it isn't that easy. I considered building the page myself because I consider myself adequately knowledgeable about such things but I soon discovered I was in over my head. Not to mention that I had a bit too much on my plate with organizing the administrative part of setting up a review blog. After looking at her impressive portfolio I decided it was time to delegate the task of creating this page to someone who was better qualified for the job. I am so happy with that decision.

She walked me through the process with such patience and skill. I felt like our page was in good hands. I didn't have to worry about anything. She gave me samples of colors, textures, layouts, and asked me all the right questions that she would need to know to build the page, then she just got busy. I know that she works around her husband and children's schedules but she was able to get the page up and running even before I was ready. She was always available to answer any of my silly questions and concerns, that I am sure she has heard a million times. We are very impressed with her professionalism and just Love our new blog...Thank you Sheila!

Sheila and Jerry will forever remain on our Fave's List!

Anna D, Anna L, Jennifer, Katy, & Whitney

About Us

The Baby Store Plus BloggerMommies is made up of five women in varying stages of motherhood. These stages range from at least one of our moms being currently pregnant, several of our moms currently have 2 & 3 children each, and go all the way to myself -grandmother of two.

A brief history...I am the administrator of this group and owner of The Baby Store Plus, a baby & maternity shop located in SW Colorado. I formed a Focus Group to help me decide what products should be carried in the store. The Mommy Focus Group quickly realized that we could help other mom's by making our product reviews public...and the review blog idea was conceived. After much discussion and behind the scenes labor, the BloggerMommies was born.

The benefit of our retail roots is that the product suppliers can get more than just a review by and for mommies, because they also get the bonus of feedback about their product packaging, presentation, retail price point, and general sell-ability. Plus, if our mommies just love the product and feel that it is a must-have item in our community, then I may want to place a wholesale order myself.

In order to bring as much attention and publicity as possible to the great products that we review, we use every outlet available to us, some of which is our two Twitter accounts (BabyStorePlus & BloggerMommies), Facebook, LinkedIn, Mom Blog Directories, our weekly emails to our store customers, and various mentions on our store website. We include free ads with each review and also host Giveaways to bring more excitement about the products that we review. We also encourage the product suppliers to offer special discounts to those who don't win the giveaway, that way everyone wins!

Blogger Integrity has become a hot topic lately, especially for bloggers like ourselves who receive free products in exchange for a review. Let everyone hear me loud and clear... We only post our honest thoughts and opinions in our review posts. Yes, it may be possible for us to be 'slightly' influenced by the fact that we get the product for free, but that will in no way make us write a positive review for a negative product. The point of this blog is to bring you news and reviews of great products that may make your life a little bit better so posting a negative review would be counter-productive. We have had products that did not meet our minimum rating requirement and we have refused to post a review for those products. My grandma always told me, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all", and that is our position with regard to reviews also.

We hope that the BloggerMommies blog will be a valuable resource for parents everywhere!

Read our Terms of Use

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Product Submission & Review Policy

Product Submission & Review Policy
"K.I.S.S. (keep it simple silly)"

The following is an outline of the review submission, acceptance, posting, and giveaway policy by and between the manufacturers, sales reps, product owners, and/or suppliers and the BloggerMommies group and should be read thoroughly, as completion of Step 1 serves as an "implied" agreement with the policy in it’s entirety.

Getting BloggerMommies to review your product is quite simple. Just follow the outline below.

Step 1) Send an email to BloggerMommies@gmail.com to request a review of your product. In this email please include a picture of the item, a brief description of it’s purpose, a link to your website, and your contact information.

Step 2) I will reply within approximately 7 days to let you know if we decide to review your product.

Step 3) You will need to send us the following:

A) at least one, full-sized product (or full access to your service) for at least one of our mommies to test. Send the BEST example of your product, not a "substandard, irregular, demo model" because a substandard product will most likely result in a substandard review.

B) Complete product information materials.

C) A button-sized digital image ad of your product or logo and the URL of the site you would like linked to this button ad.

D) A note to let us know if you would like to also offer any discounts for moms purchasing your products through a link from our site with a discount code or by mentioning the review on our blog.

E) Let us know if you would like the entrants restricted to the US only, US & Canada only, or Worldwide. If you currently offer your product to countries outside of the US then you will want to also open the entries in those countries also, as it will bring more attention to your product in a larger area. However, remember that you will be responsible for shipping the prize to the winner, in whatever country you allow to enter.

Our Mailing address is:
The Baby Store Plus
ATTN: BloggerMommies
28 W Main Street
Cortez, CO 81321


Step 4) Once we receive the items specified in step 3, our mommies will begin to test the product. We should have our testing completed and a review prepared within 3-4 weeks.

Step 5) Once our review is prepared we will email you a link to the live review post. We will NOT modify our review to please anyone, so please do not ask. If the review is less than positive we will not post it on our blog.

Note: If we decided to Not post the review due to it not meeting our minimum rating requirement, then our business relationship will be terminated and there will be no further obligation on either parties part.

Step 6) We will post your review (if it meets our minimum rating requirement), your button-sized ad, and any specials that you offer our readers, within 2-3 weeks after we complete the review process. The review will include contest rules & instructions.

Step 7) At the end of the approximate 14 day run of your Review, we will close the contest and pick a winner using random.org (or other similar random selector service). The winner will be notified by email and given 48 hours to reply to claim their prize. If they fail to respond within that time period a new winner will be selected.

Step 8) Once we email you the name, address, and the color, size, pattern, etc choices of the Giveaway winner, you have 2 weeks to deliver the item to the winner. Please ship promptly (by a trackable method) because an unhappy winner will not be pleased if they don’t receive their prize and negative publicity spreads faster and farther than any positive publicity.

Read our Terms of Use

Disclaimer

Now for the Legal Stuff...

~~~~Legal Disclaimer~~~~

The Baby Store Plus BLOGGERMOMMIES TERMS OF USE

PLEASE READ VERY CAREFULLY THESE TERMS OF USE BEFORE READING, COMMENTING ON, DOWNLOADING, COPYING, REPRODUCING, ALTERING MATERIALS OF ANY KIND, SUBSCRIBING TO, AND LINKING TO (COLLECTIVELY “USING”) THIS BLOG. USING THIS BLOG INDICATES THAT YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS OF USE. IF YOU DO NOT ACCEPT THESE TERMS OF USE, PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS BLOG.

Introduction. This agreement (”Agreement“) between You and BloggerMommies (”the Author“) consists of these BloggerMommies (the “the Blog“) Terms of Use (”Terms“). “You“, “Reader” or “Commenter” means any entity identified by its comments, e-mail, registration information or IP address. If You use this Blog on behalf of your employer, organization or company, they shall also be bound by the terms of this Agreement.

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Blog content. All the contents of the Blog, EXCEPT FOR COMMENTS, constitutes the opinion of the Authors, and the Authors alone; they do not represent the views and opinions of the Author’s employers, supervisors, nor do they represent the view of organizations, businesses or institutions the Author is a part of. The Author is not a medical professional, and you should never substitute information from this Blog for information obtained from a licensed medical professional; always consult your doctor before using any prescription, drugs, supplements, or undergoing any treatments. This Blog is entirely written in English. The content of this Blog is not intended to cause harm, but if You have any concerns about the contents of this Blog, please contact the Author. Disagreeing with the content of the Blog does not constitute sufficient ground for You to ask the Author to remove or modify any parts of this Blog. The Author is not being paid to write content on this Blog or to manage and in any way operate this Blog.

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Changes to the Terms.The Author reserves the right to change these Terms at any time. You will not be notified of these changes in person. It is Your responsibility to make sure that you agree with any new Terms before using this blog for any purpose. Changes to the Terms will be effective immediately. If You do not agree with the Terms, DO NOT USE THIS BLOG.

No Guarantee. The Author makes no guarantee regarding the validity of the content of the Blog. In addition, the Author does not guarantee that the Blog will be accessible at all times or during any down time (i) caused by outages to any public Internet backbones, networks or servers, (ii) caused by any failures of Your equipment, systems or local access services, (iii) for previously scheduled maintenance or (iv) relating to events beyond the Author’s control such as strikes, riots, fires, floods, explosions, war, terrorism, governmental action, labor conditions, natural and/or man-made disasters, or interruptions in Internet services to an area where the Author or Your servers are located. Although the Author will try to moderate comments quickly, the Author makes no guarantee to the Commenter that its comments or trackbacks will be displayed promptly, without modifications, or that they will be displayed at all, as all comments will be published at the discretion of the Author.

No Warranty or Condition; Links. The Author makes NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. If you choose to access the Blog, you do so AT YOUR OWN RISK. To the extent links and external content are based on or displayed in connection with the Blog, THE AUTHOR SHALL NOT HAVE ANY LIABILITY IN CONNECTION WITH THE DISPLAY OF SUCH LINKS AND SEARCH RESULTS, whether this external content is breaking the law in this or other jurisdictions. YOU AGREE TO USE THE BLOG AT YOUR OWN RISK, and that You will not consider the Blog’s content to be a suitable substitute for professional advice.

Limitations of Liability. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE UNDER THIS AGREEMENT FOR ANY DAMAGES OR LOSSES. Each party acknowledges that the other party has entered into this Agreement relying on the limitations of liability stated herein and that those limitations are an essential part of the Agreement. Without limiting the foregoing, the Author shall not have any liability for any failure or delay resulting from any condition beyond the reasonable control of the Author, including but not limited to governmental action, labor conditions, power failures, natural and/or man-made disasters. The Author is not liable for the content of any comments the Commenter might leave on this Blog (see Comment policy).

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Legal notices and Contact information. If You are intending to carry out legal action of any kind against the Blog or the Author, you are required to contact the Author SEVEN BUSINESS DAYS before any legal claim is made. Please remember that the Author means to DO NO HARM to You or anyone else by writing this Blog. If You feel that your rights have been infringed, please contact the Author, and allow seven business days for the reply to be received. The Author will do whatever possible to address Your concerns.

To know more about why you need a disclaimer, and finding a useful template, you can visit Giovanna Di Sauro’swebsite.

How to Enter Our Contests

These are the general instructions for entering any of our contests. See the bottom of each review for specific links to product websites, entry restrictions, and specific post requirements.

To Enter any contest you must FIRST follow the instructions to enter as posted at the bottom of the review. Be sure to include your email address with your first comment so that we can contact you if you win. To prevent robots from picking up your email address, and sending you spam, enter your email address like this: bloggermommies at gmail dot com, I will hand type your email address to notify you if you are a winner.

For additional entries complete any or all of the following tasks:

2.) Follow this blog. Then post in the comment box to say you are now a follower.

3.) Follow us on Twitter. Then come back here and post your Twitter Name in the comment box.

4.) Tweet about this review & giveaway, include the following in your tweet: @BloggerMommies http://tinyurl.com/lkk9n8 (Copy & Paste as it is here.) You may tweet this up to 3 times per day but not all at once, be sure to post a comment after each time you tweet.

5.) Become a Fan on Facebook then come back here and post your facebook name in the comment box.

6.) Post a comment on Facebook telling everyone about the product review & giveaway and why you would like to win one. Include this link in your post http://tinyurl.com/lkk9n8 , then come back here to post a comment telling us that you wrote on your facebook wall.

7.) Subscribe to our Post or Comments, then post that in the comments box.

8.) Link to Us: Grab our 'Button' in the right-hand column and post it somewhere on your blog or website. Then copy the exact page address from your browser window and post that in the comment box.

9.) If you have positive experience with this product please share your story!

*NOTE: Your comments will not immediately appear because they are subject to verification and approval. Any post containing 'SPAM', outside links (other than what I have asked you to include) or unacceptable language or images will not be posted.

At the end of the contest period (specified in the review) a random comment will be chosen using Random.org or some other similar random selector program. The winner will be contacted by email and will have 48 hours to reply with their name and shipping address. If a response is not received within 48 hours that winner will forfeit the prize and a new winner will be selected. Sorry, no exceptions.

Good Luck to Everyone!

Read our Terms of Use
Anna D (Admin)
Mother of two grown daughters, my youngest is one of our blogger mommies. I have two grandbabies, my granddaughter is almost 3 years old and my grandson just turned 1 year old. I am also the owner of The Baby Store Plus and creator of the Mommy Focus Group which evolved into this group of ladies that I affectionately call my 'Blogger Mommies'.
Jennifer
I am the mother of three children, my son "M" is 8 years old, my daughter "G" is 4 years old, and another daughter, baby "B" just born in February of this year. I am a stay-at-home mom & in-home child care provider.
Katy
I am the mother of two children, my daughter "K" will be 2 years old in January and my sweet baby boy "T" was just born in April of this year. I am a stay-at-home mom.
Whitney
I am the mother of two children, my daughter "S" turned two in February and my son "R" was born in December of 08. I work full-time, however, I am fortunate that I get to take my kids to work with me at The Baby Store Plus, where work with my mom.
Guest Reviewer
Unfortunately, one of our expectant mommies could not remain in our group due to conflicting events in her life. Until we fill this position permanently, we will have guest reviewers for any maternity products.