Hi Everyone!
Thanks for riding along with us on this fun adventure we're having! What a year 2019 has been here at the mountain! We got to meet a lot of new collectors during the year, both online and in person, and got to know some of our regular customers even better. That's what it's all about for me - Connecting with other folks who love model horses as much as I do.
We held two novice shows and were SO impressed with the folks who showed for the first time in spring and then stepped up their game in fall. We're planning a Model Horse Fun Weekend on May 2 & 3, 2020, with a public Artisan Hall/Swap Meet/Fun Day on May 2nd and an Open Show May 3rd. I hope to see some of you there!
We adopted our new mascot in July and you all chose her name. That was so much fun! I get to say hi to Treasure every day when I go to the store, and she loves to greet horse lovers. She enjoys dressing up for the seasons, too, and has become a fun part of our store.
Then we became the first Breyer dealer at the huge Fryeburg Fair in over 20 years. We also raised $2500 for Harvest Hills Animal Shelter in 2019 through your generous model donations and purchases of donated models. That's our highest total ever - Thank you from both us and HHAS!
2020 is shaping up to be a great year already. Breyer is celebrating 70 years of models with some gorgeous new releases. We're excited about them all, but more than anything, we're ecstatic about the 2020 Holiday Horse Yuletide Greetings. I didn't design him, but he's almost exactly what I would have created, given the chance... He's the embodiment of Christmas in Maine!
CollectA has some lovely new horses coming out at mid-year (not available to pre-order yet) and Schleich has also added to their lineup. Copperfox is also expecting to release some models this spring.
Meanwhile, we're always working on improving your experience adopting from Triple Mountain. Here are some upcoming changes we think you'll like:
UPS shipping option - We are now offering the option to ship your order with UPS. This is new to us, and will require some tweaking to get the pricing as accurate as possible, but it looks like for larger boxes, it could save many customers quite a bit of money instead of shipping with the US Postal Service. Check out the UPS option to see if it comes up less for you! We know some of you can't use UPS, so no worries - It's only an option. USPS is still available and will be cheaper for most small orders.
No more bagging boxed models - We heard from many of you that placing in-box models into plastic bags before shipping is a waste of resources and adds to the trash generated in our country. As of January 1, we will no longer be bagging in-box, Regular Run models as normal practice. We will continue to place vintage models that are in cardboard boxes into plastic bags to protect those fragile boxes, and we will bag Flagship and Holiday Horses, since many people keep those boxes for display. If you keep all boxed models in their boxes and would like boxes bagged when shipping, you are welcome to include an order note requesting that one or all of the boxed models be bagged. (You'll need to include that note for each order so that we'll see it when we pack your order.)
Better classifications on our site - We have always used "Current" and "Retired" as classifications, but that left a grey area when we had current models arrive on consignment, out of box, or have in-store inventory left that's now retired. To make it easier for you to distinguish straight-from-the-factory models from consigned ones, we have slightly changed our collections:
We think this will make it easier to find certain models, particularly retail stock that's now retired. For the most part, though, you probably won't notice a difference.
We're working on a few things behind the scenes as well. One is to modernize our site's menus and search bar to make things easier to find on our enormous model site. T-shirts are in the works that will feature licensed model images. There's also been talk about building a larger retail store and warehouse... That would be amazing!
Stay tuned for more fun, and again: We love that you're riding along with us! Have a happy and healthy 2020!
~ Eleda
