Birthingbetter.com and thepinkkit.com website problems

14 May 2007

Common Knowledge Trust has the most amazing new webmaster in Bosnia who has re-designed www.birthingbetter.com. Aaly is just incredible! It's hard to put into words really. He's got our some of our audio and PDF downloads but the server in the UK has been having some trouble. So if you are trying to hear the midwife interviews or about Pakistan and you can't access the audio right now, then come back in a few days and try again.

Conversations about the Melbourne conference are still being discussed and I'll eventually put some of that dialogue up on the blog.

The shopping cart www.thepinkkit.com is having even more difficulty. Don't you just love this techie stuff when you know nothing about it. Aaly inherited a shopping cart that is very sophisticated but not contemporary. It has one advantage, we can charge $ for $ across currencies. However, it's unstable often and can't support Google Anyalytics.

We've discussed the issue of charging the same amount in different currencies compared to just using the US$ as the base and let all other currencies convert at whatever conversion rate there is on the day. That just never seemed really fair trade to CKT so we made a decision based on the cost of a cup of coffee, wages and cost of living.

For example, CKT is located in New Zealand when the original Pink Kit was launched in 2001 the New Zealand $ was 3 to 1 US$. That meant if we charged $110US then New Zealanders would be paying close to $300NZ. Not on!.

So our present shopping cart permits us to decide what we think people in each geographical area would feel they are getting better value for their money then what they are paying. We know the value of having childbirth skills and using The Pink Kit Package. We've made a decision what we think would give be fair price for incredible resources full of birth skills so that each family absolutely knows they've paid peanuts for a positive birth experience.

How do we value good experiences? Well, are a life time of marvelous birth memories worth a night out? Or less then a month of petrol for your car? Well, they should be!

So our shopping cart has been a bit of a nightmare for even our remarkable webmaster, so we are on the look out for another one that permits us to keep our prices stable. In reality when we live in our own country prices don't vary every day with the exchange rate. When we go into a bookstore we expect to pay the same for a book as we did the day before. That's how we want people to view The Pink Kit Package.

What a shock to have the price vary every day based on the whims of the currency market.
So, be patient with us if you have any difficulties.

Also, did you notice that we now have a place on our www.birthingbetter.com home page for you to submit a question. I'll pick a question each week and answer it. So don't be shy.

We love hearing from you but so do others who use our website. Everyone wants to know more about The Pink Kit birth skills and why they have such a positive impact on all births.