Westland Giftware has announced the release of the Winter 2014 Horse of a Different Color. Due to ship on February 28, 2014 are six new figurines comprising the 9th herd of Horse of a Different Color.
Included in this release are:
We expect these new additions to the series to be available to ship in early March. Preorders are now being taken on our website.
Horse of a Different Color, Winter 2014 Herd
[whohit]2014-01-03 Horse of a Different Color Winter 2014 Release[/whohit]
January 31, 2014 starts the Chinese Year of the Horse. Coming around every twelve years, one would think that this is a “non-event”, but for the Trail of Painted Ponies, the Year of the Horse is a big thing, not just because it recognizes the spirit of the series, but more importantly because the Trail of Painted Ponies has not been produced during a Year of the Horse.
Trail of the Painted Ponies, Herd 1
Yep, you read it here first. The inaugural herd from the trail, consisting of the now legendary original twelve pieces, was released in 2003, which happened to be the Year of the Goat, the zodiac sign following the Year of the Horse. Now, in 2014, for the first time ever, Trail of Painted Ponies figurines will be produced in the Year of the Horse.
In a New Year announcement, Rod Barker, the founder and CEO of the Trail of Painted Ponies, announced that “The Year of the Horse will be full of surprises!” The upcoming January release announcement will consist of five new ponies, including a special “Don’t Fence Me In” Beauty of the Breed pony, much like the special “Painted Harmony” pony a year ago.
The 2014 ornaments will include five non-Christmas specific ornaments from the regular herds released over the last few years.
“Autumn Pony” and “Halloween Pony”, finalists of last year’s art competition, will make an appearance later this year and the Trail will also be introducing two new pony forms, a re-sculpted rearing horse and a new trotting horse form.
We will provide more information as it becomes available and we will talk a little more about Chinese year 4712, the Year of the Horse, as the holiday approaches.
[whohit]2014-01-02 Year of the Trail[/whohit]
In western culture the New Year is a time of implementing change through making resolutions. Most of these resolutions revolve around improving one’s self or improving one’s condition.
Four in ten American adults start a resolution every January. A tremendous number of them make resolutions associated with personal health. Many chose to lose weight, stop smoking, cut back on alcohol, eat better, exercise more. Other popular resolutions include career changes or improvements, educational goals, financial goals, religious goals and civic or volunteer goals.
About 90% of resolution makers never get to see the results they wanted with more than half running out of steam and giving up within the first quarter of the year.
New Year’s resolutions have a rich history going back to the times of Babylon. It was a tradition among people in Babylon to start the year by returning borrowed objects and repaying their debts. We know nothing of their success rate, but we do know that resolutions tend to be more successful when undertaken by a group. Social support structures go a long way in building motivation and sustaining determination for success. Studies suggest that with a strong peer support structure resolutions succeed as much as 50% of the time.
So why is a retailer posting a blog about New Year’s resolutions? It’s because we made a resolve to communicate better with our customers.
Retail experts such as Rick Segel, Tom Shay and Lynn Switanowski have been outspoken advocates of retailers reaching out to their customers, and the public in general, to engage them in conversation and thought through the use of social media, including platforms such as blogging.
Resolutions are well intentioned, but hard by their nature. Change is hard. We, as people, are desperately resistant to change. We will attempt to overcome the challenge of making time and being consistent when it comes to communicating. We will provide information and updates on the product lines that we carry and talk about the gifts and collectibles industry in general. We hope to use this platform, much like we do other social media, to interact with our customers, answer questions and offer suggestions. But keeping in mind the dismal success rate of resolutions, we ask that all of you feel free to interact with us in all our social media forums, ask questions and offer suggestions and we will do all that we can to respond. Social support structures are important.
One could argue that New Year’s resolutions are for people who procrastinate and don’t intend to make a change. After all, anyone who is serious about a change would not wait until January 1 to initiate it. We hold regular staff meetings to talk about issues and customer service and market trends and over the course of 2013 we have seen more and more interest in blogging. It used to be that at shows and conferences visitors to our booth asked if we have a web page. Over time the questions evolved from Web 1.0 (passive readership) to questions related to social media and “Web 2.0”, a bidirectional environment where social media platforms are used to communicate with and respond to customers, and blogging is one of the pieces of the puzzle. In 2013 we’ve had a number of inquiries about our blogs and RSS-style feeds that can be subscribed to. We did not use to do this, but with apparent interest, there does not seem to be a reason for us to resist this change.
Change can be engaged at any time. January is here and it’s just a convenient time. Today is January 1 and our resolution is to blog more.
[whohit]2014-01-01 New Year’s Resolutions[/whohit]
As 2013 winds down, we wanted to wish all of our friends a very happy and prosperous 2014! We look forward to seeing all of you again in the year to come!
[whohit]2013-12-31 Happy New Year![/whohit]