How to Checkout on Our New Website!

So, we have a brand new website, provided by Square Up, who are a payment processor, we have the website for free and they take a fee for processing the payments. I find this a superb way for our business to work because it means we are not wasting money on monthly website fees, without knowing if we are going to make a sale or not and when we do make a sale, Square Up get paid. I think that is a realistic way for them to monetize their business, so that it is fair to them and fair to small business owners.

Whilst we are talking about business, if you do have your own small business and because of the situation with Coronavirus and having to shift your business online, I really do recommend Square Up, you can literally make your own e-commerce site and only pay for it, as a percentage of your sales.

If you would like to look into that, please use this link, which means that you will get free processing fees for a time and so will I, for referring you. Now, I must point out, that I'm not referring you because of the freebie but because it has really worked for me, the free processing is an incidental happiness that occurs if you use this link.

In the main, people have been finding the website easy and simple to use, once they get to know how it works and I have found it to be really helpful because, a lot of the time, when people are putting in their orders, the work is automatically done by the website, the stock levels, the payment and the organising the delivery, or Click and Collect time, which means I can juggle the home learning that I am doing with Elijah, far more effectively and it is better for our family, all round. More about that, here.

If you are using the website checkout for the first time, there is a bit of a learning curve. Several people, upon using it for the first time, have found it difficult to check out. Sometimes, they have tried late at night, not been able to do it and then they have tried the next morning and it has worked. Sometimes, they have chosen the Google Pay button, instead of the Checkout button and that has worked better for them, sometimes, they have found putting in a full postcode doesn't work, so they have just put in the first 3 digits. It is frustrating when you want to buy something from a local business ad you want to support them but you just can't seem to make that payment go through. Please don't worry, or feel embarrassed, it's not just you. If these were normal times, I would stand by your side and show you how it's done on a computer in our shop but the reason we need the website is because, this is our future and this is our new normal.

This is why I have written this article, to help you navigate your way through the Checkout section of our website.

How To Checkout on Our New Website!

First go to our website, here.

How do you find the products that you want?

1/ You can search for an individual item by clicking on the magnifying glass icon, circled in red in the picture below, to the top right hand side and entering your search term in.

2/ You can click on the relevant category on the list to the left hand side of the pictures, as also circled in red, in the picture below.

3/ You can browse through all pictures of the items and click on the ones you want, which gives you the opportunity to put them into your basket.

Once you have clicked on an item you like, to put it into your basket, select the green 'Add to Cart' button, circled in red in the picture below.

If you want to continue adding items to your basket, just look at the bottom of that section, underneath the Checkout Button and Google Pay Button and in blue, in small letters, it says, 'Continue Shopping', click on that. Keep repeating the selection procedure steps above, until you are ready to checkout and then select the green Checkout Button, circled in red, in the picture below. Then follow the steps outlined in the next section, 'How Do I Buy the Item or Items, that I have put into my Basket?'

How Do I Buy the Item or Items, that I have put into my Basket?

1/ To buy your item, or items, you need to click on the green 'Checkout' button, that has been circled in the picture beneath, in red.

2/ If you have continued browsing the products and you can't see the Checkout Button on your screen, you can get to it, by clicking on the trolly icon, in the top right hand corner. Circled in Red, in the picture below.

3/ Once you have clicked on the Green Checkout button, you will be taken to a section titled Secure Checkout.

4/ There is a subheading underneath that called, Your Details. (To the right hand side of the page you will see your Order Summary.)

5/ You will need to fill in all parts of the Your Details Section, taking special care the for the Phone Number part. Scroll down and select 'United Kingdom' for the Country Code, (If that is where you are ordering from) and then in the box for your phone number,
DO NOT write the first 0 of your number, as circled in the picture below.

6/ Click the Black Button that says NEXT.

7/ Please note, that if you are still on the Your Details section, then you have done something wrong, you'll need to scroll up and see if there is a message in red and correct what the message has highlighted.

8/ If you have done the last part successfully, you will then move onto the next section, this is called Store Pick Up, as shown in the picture below. Details are given about how to pick up at our shop. You can keep the default time you are given, or you can select another later time, by clicking on 'Schedule for Later'. The dot is beside the one that is selected.

 9/ Look further down that section and you will find the black button with NEXT written on it, in white, select that button. This is circled in red, in the picture below.

10/ That will bring the next section up, which is pictured below, called Payment Information.

In this section, if there is just one digit wrong, or one space, in the wrong place, the transaction won't go through. So, you have to really double check everything that you enter.

 11/ First you'll have to enter your credit or debit card number, that is the long number across the middle of the card. Just type one number in after the other, no spaces. (The website will automatically put the spaces in for you)

12/ Then you will have to enter the expiry date of the card, don't mix this up with the date of issue and make sure you have written the exact digits on the card, otherwise your transaction will not be successful. (The computer will put in he forward slash)

13/ You will then have to type in the CVV number. This is the last 3 digits of the number printed in black on the back of your card, on the signature strip. Get them right, otherwise the transaction won't go through.

14/ Next you will have to enter your postcode, this has to be the same postcode as the card is registered to, otherwise the transaction will be unsuccessful. You will have to make sure that you type in the first digits and then leave a space and then type the following digits. The postcode BA4 5AS, for example needs a space between the 4 and the 5, if you don't leave a space, the postcode won't be accepted.

15/ Then you will need to enter your billing address, make sure the postcode matches the one you have written by your card details and has the same space in between.

16/ Then you will have to enter your phone number. Again, you will select the United Kingdom in the scroll down menu and only write your number, without the leading 0, otherwise, it will not work and you will get an error message.  The photo below show the correct format for how to write your phone number.

 17/ Select the Black Button that says 'Next'. It will bring up the Review & Submit Order section, as shown by the picture below.

 18/ You'll notice that you can write me a note, you don't have to but you might need to if you have already ordered and you want to add this order to another order you are due to pick up, or if you can't make that time, or if you want to ask about another product. That kind of thing.

19/ You might want to save your information for a faster checkout next time, or you might want to do the same process that you have here because a faster checkout involves a code getting sent to your phone and you might not like it.

20/ There is a big black button at the end of this section which says Commit to Buy, click on that and your order should go through.

21/ You will definitely know if your order has gone through because there will be a confirmation screen that pops up. It looks like the picture below. It starts off with 'Your Order has been received'.

22/ It tells you when your order is due to be picked up, the pick up location and even has a link to directions.

24/ You will probably receive an email and/or a text message confirming your order too.

25/ If you don't get the above message, then your order hasn't gone through and you need to scroll up and down the page you are stuck on, to find an error message written in red.

26/ If, however, you don't consider technology your strength and you have managed to follow these instructions and you have persevered, then congratulations and you definitely deserve to get your order! WELL DONE!

Please let me know if you have successfully ordered using these instructions, I'd love to know. I'd also love to know if there is anything I should amend in these instructions.

Thank you for your time and effort in doing this.

Karen.

Now Plastic Free July has Ended!

Karen Mercer by Sallie Tchang

It is almost 6 years ago now that Gunter and I opened our little shop on Shepton Mallet High Street and we've been running our My Coffee Stop business for over 10 years, after we first opened our doors in Enfield! Right from the beginning we were focused on sustainability and were concerned about how we could contribute to the world and add to it, rather than erode its resources. We are lead by passion and not profit and feel it is up to little businesses, like ours, to lead the way, so that big businesses will soon follow. 

Our little venture has grown slowly and organically into a coffee and zero waste shop, as a natural extension of our business aims and we are doing all we can to support people in their quest for a plastic free lifestyle. 

When we first opened in Shepton Mallet, we started off with just a coffee machine, coffee and cups and tried to give our coffee away for free, so that people could taste it but everyone wanted to pay for it, as they felt it tasted so good and they wanted to support us in our endeavours! 

As well as being a community coffee shop, our shop is like a campaign base that instigates major changes that ripple through to the very top of major chains! It's a very inspirational way to work. We started serving our coffee and cakes in compostable/recyclable cups and bags, right from the beginning! For instance, the bags we use for our cakes are home compostable and we make sure our customers know that. It was just a natural progression for us to extend what we were doing for ourselves and the choices we made and make them available for our customers! So, for over a year now we have been offering customers refills for their washing up liquid bottles and their laundry liquid bottles, we have saved loads of bottles that are now being reused, from the landfill and saved the energy that would be used in recycling them. 

We have listened to what our customers have told us they need and they bring along their own containers and we refill them with herbs and spices, pasta, rice, oats, dates, sun dried tomatoes and so on. I have noticed that some people feel bad about all the things they are not doing for the environment but I like to encourage people to make small manageable changes and celebrate those, which is better than making no changes at all and feeling paralysed by the enormity of the task at hand! 

When one of our coffee drinking customers decides to make a small change by buying our toilet paper in home compostable film, or they decide to save their hand wash bottle and fill it with our soap, we get very excited and happy. Our hearts are definitely in our jobs. We hope to be encouraging people to keep making positive changes to help the environment for a good few years yet, so we'd love you to come along and take a look and see how we can help you to be the change that you want to see!

Now that Plastic Free July has ended, we hope that you will keep making the changes with us and keep going and don't forget, it's about focusing on the positive and what you can do and recognising that each little step that you take is to be celebrated, it's not about reprimanding yourself and tying yourself up in knots about the things that you weren't able to do yet.

Let's keep facing this challenge together and doing the best that we can and maybe one day, we won't even need a plastic free July because we will all be so good at living a plastic free and sustainable lifestyle.

Look, I have to be honest, I am not perfect either but I am trying my best and how do you think I felt when my ten year old son sold some of his toys to raise some money for himself and then promptly went out and bought 4 bottles of water in plastic bottles and a plastic bag!? Maybe he was rebelling, I don't know but I wondered how he could think it was a good idea, even when our whole business is about cutting down waste and it is a part of our every day life, so I really do understand how everything's not always perfect and it is hard to get the whole family to follow the ethos. I honestly thought that he would 'model' my behaviour but that obviously didn't happen. Maybe that is why it is important that big industry makes a better example and leads the way, the bottles shouldn't even be there to buy.

Time for a website change!

After having a website with Moonfruit for over ten years, our needs have changed, we need an easy to edit website, that is secure and where we can do e-commerce simply, if needed.

So, whilst I am in the seemingly complicated procedure of trying to cancel my automatic subscription with Moonfruit, that has been very quietly bought out by yell.com and now has only an online chat window for help and support, with no email and no phone service and no available way to cancel my automatic subscription online, I will be transferring all the important bits of information from my website, to this blog, until I find a brand new home for them!

About My Coffee Stop.
We are an award-winning family run business set up by Austrian Barista, Gunter Hollenstein and his partner, former Traffic and Travel Presenter, Karen Mercer. Together, with their two children they select the best ethical, fair trade, Vegan, Zero Waste and organic products that they come across for you, which means their offering is a cross between products that the family enjoys and they can vouch for first hand and products that customers have recommended and come back to buy time and time again!

We love dogs, who are welcome to visit us!

We Are Open:
Winter:
Monday to Saturday, 9am to 3pm.
Summer:
Monday to Saturday, 9am to 4pm.

Third Sunday of the month, throughout the year, inline with Shepton Mallet's Sunday Markets.

Events. Meetings. Workshops:

Our cosy shop is perfect for intimate celebrations, meetings, presentations and workshops.

We will open our shop especially for you by prior arrangement.

Free From Foods:

Since we opened our first shop in 2009, we realise how important it is to offer you a good range of gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian and vegan choices.

We cook our own cakes, which are always vegan and gluten free.

If you have an allergy, or a food intolerance, or special dietary needs, please tell us about them and ask about the food allergens that could be present before ordering.

Visit Us:

We are so proud to be located in the nearest Town to the Glastonbury Festival, in the very characterful Shepton Mallet! The street we are in has over 90% independent businesses! 

Our shop is unique in combining a cosy, community-minded vibe with great organic and fairly traded coffee, gluten-free cakes with vegan drinks and snacks, as well as incorporating a  health food and zerowaste shop!

Our full Postal Address is:

My Coffee Stop,

34, High Street,

Shepton Mallet,

Somerset,

BA4 5AS

Award Winning:

Winners of... 

Enterprise Enfield's Green Business of the year award.

The North and West London Business Awards for Innovation.

Silver Winners in the Love London Awards.

There is actually a lot more information there but I think I will just rewrite the new website and make it all up to date with some fresh input and ideas!

The Plastic Audit

Milk From Horrington Milk Hut, just one off the changes we are making to reduce our plastic usage.

We are a humble coffee and health food shop in a little town in Somerset called Shepton Mallet, people live here, people pass through here and people visit here. The footfall in our little town is low, with Mendip District Council refocusing the centre of town up by the retail park. The retail park is crammed full with well known brand names, whereas the high street still retains a certain innocence, there is still a bakery, some really good places to hang out for coffee and some cool vintage shops. The high street is worth a visit for it's quirkiness and character. It is a very different shopping experience and I would say it is a cheap place to shop, cheap and friendly. We also have a little market on a Friday, with fruit, vegetables, bread, meat and other local traders and we have a much bigger Sunday Market on every 3rd Sunday of the month, this is when the town really comes alive and all those people that were so busy working on the other days of the week are able to come and enjoy spending their money in their local community. It's so special that people even make the effort to visit from further afield.

So, that's a bit of a background to the location of our shop, just an independent shop on a very independent high street, driven by the passions and obsessions of the owners and what has captured my imagination is the challenge to reduce our reliance on plastic and to reduce the amount of it that we send out into the world as post-consumer plastic.

When we first opened 9 years ago, originally in Enfield on a train station platform, one of our main aims was running a sustainable business and we have stuck to that ethos and we hardly produce any waste. Gardners love to take our coffee grounds, we recycle or reuse our cardboard boxes, we make sure that we recycle our bottles, compost our food waste and so on, it takes weeks to produce a bin liner of rubbish but wouldn't it be great if there was no bin liner of rubbish and wouldn't it be great if the world saw everything as resources rather than rubbish?

Reducing Plastic in our Business and Post-Consumer waste

I have been going through the items that we sell and working on reducing our plastic and day by day making little changes. It is a matter of slowly transferring and changing but some things have been cut with no transition. So here is a list of the things we have done so far recently to try to reduce plastic usage in our business, or to reduce the amount of plastic that is released into the world post-consumer.

Washing up liquid is available on tap for you to fill your own bottle with and reuse.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is available on tap for you to refill your own bottle with.

Dr Bronner's Castile Soap Bars are in stock, they have up to 18 different uses from washing your hair to even, if you are brave enough, brushing your teeth.

We don't use plastic straws, we use stainless steel straws in people's smoothies and fruit juices.

Stainless Steel and Bamboo Straws are available to buy.

We sell Bamboo Reusable Coffee Cups, with a 20p discount off your hot drink when you use your own cup.

We recycle any of our paper cups that have been used and left with us and we will be using plant made cups in the future, if people still need take out cups and lids.

We recycle any tetra packs that we use and make sure we pass on information to our customers, where they can recycle theirs after use.

We have stopped buying in products that have the misleading arrow symbol on them that looks like you can recycle the packaging but actually you can't and it just means the company has paid a subsidy.

We have sourced local milk that is supplied in refillable glass bottles and are phasing out our milk in plastic bottles, if this goes well.

We are committed, in future, to buying items in bulk that we usually store on our shelves in small packets and refilling your jars and packets with them instead. We are transitioning at this time. Lentils and buckwheat flour are already available like this.

Herbs and spices are now available for you to fill your own jar for 50p (Unless it is a very expensive herb or spice, then the price will be higher), or you can use one of our jars and it will be 70p. If we haven't got what you want, we will order it in.

We used to buy flapjacks in wrapped in plastic, they are now made by us everyday. They are vegan, gluten free and have no sugar in apart from the dates and bananas used in the very simple recipe.

We have teabags that don't have plastic in BUT they still come presented with a plastic film around the cardboard carton. Yogi Tea have been brilliant and don't have plastic in their teabags or around them.

We sell Toilet Rolls in home compostable film, made with plants.

We have If You Care parchment baking paper, that can be used again and again and can be home composted.

Our take out bags for cakes and toasties are paper bags with a home compostable film window.

Our customers are expected to use their own bags, or use a box from us, if we have one to hand, for their shopping.

We will continue to buy in things to order, if you want them but we will contact the manufacturer to remind them to update or change their packaging, if it is made of plastic, especially non-recyclable plastic.

Future Aims to Reduce Plastic in Our Business and Post Consumer-Waste

We want to buy our coffee in sacks, not in plastic bags but I still want it to be fairly traded and organic.

We want more fresh fruit and vegetables for people to snack on spontaneously, instead of wrapped in plastic snacks. The fruit and vegetables must be sourced from local and independent wholesalers, so that we can make sure that more of your pound stays circulating in the local community.

We want to write to the companies where I think the products are good, it's just a shame about the packaging to ask them to change it.

We have written to St Paul's School to ask if they will be come a collector of old writing materials in our area.

We will take responsibility for the plastic that we still have in the shop and take it off for the customer and recycle it, or if not able to be recycled, send back to the manufacturer of the product with a note to ask them to change their packaging.

We will continue to reduce the amount of things we buy which use plastic, especially once use plastic.

We will continue to research the best way that old plastic can be used and look at the details of what we are doing through internet resources and information.

We will continue to be transparent in this subject and to share with our customers what we are doing and the blocks we are experiencing in making changes.

We will stop buying hand towels wrapped in plastic and will either use kitchen rolls in compostable film if we can find some,  or we will use old but clean rags for spillages and cleaning.

Instead of plastic sponges we will source loofah sponges for cleaning, from our supplier and we will also stock them in the shop.

We are looking to find a wholesaler for tiffin boxes, so that you can use them for take out food, not only from us but from other local outlets.

Turning Back the Plastic Tide

It is hard and it is challenging, to make these changes. When I look around me at the world we live in and I see the amount of plastic we are surrounded by in our everyday lives, I feel very sad and upset and I really don't know how we can make a difference, when even as I write this, there is a factory somewhere, churning out plastic things. I think the people that have seen the light and know that this just can't go on feel very passionately about this and we do have to do what we can as each individual do, to reverse the plastic tide! So, whether you take one step, or several steps, it is worth doing. We have to do it, this is the only way we can communicate to the decision makers, to the manufacturers, to the factory owners. Our little actions together, will make big changes. Sometimes it can feel hopeless and it can feel futile and it can feel very overwhelming, especially as a business owner to try to make those changes but in it's turn, it can also feel empowering.

I have been inspired by other people in my community to make bigger changes and more focused changes, so hopefully, we can keep inspiring each other and sharing ideas and good practices. I am not saying it is easy, it isn't and it can feel very challenging in a mental health kind of way, like an I'm turning into a crazy woman type of way and the worst thing is the guilt but we just have to keep thinking positively and thinking about what we can do and what we have done to make things better and that is why I have done a plastic audit in my business and my home.

Please let me know about the changes you have made and the solutions you have found to the plastic problem.

Thanks for reading. xx

Natural Deodorant for Plastic Free Living!

Oh yes, this is just brilliant because it's cheap, there's no plastic involved and it's fun too! I love the way you can choose exactly how your homemade deodorant will smell and it is so effective at keeping you smelling fresh and clean. I use this stuff and it is great.

This is how to make your very own Natural Deodorant.

1/ Clean out a jar, one that is big enough to get your hand into and out of, as you will be spreading the deodorant on to your underarms, with your finger tips.

2/ Blend together the following in your jar:

1/3 cup of Coconut Oil (I use deodorised oil, as I really cannot stand the smell of coconut!)
1/4 cup of Arrowroot Powder
1 Tablespoon of Bicarbonate of Soda
5 drops of your chosen Essential Oil, good suggestions are Tea Tree Oil, Lavender, Grapefruit, Orange, Rosemary or Clove.

Yup, that's it! That is all you have to do. Mine lasts for ages and ages. So although the initial outlay on the ingredients might seem a lot, it really is a very economical and eco-friendly way to keep your armpits fresh!

Moreish Flapjacks

So, I am getting sick of all the plastic in our shop and day by day we are gradually cutting back on plastic, either products that are packed in plastic, or plastic straws, or shower gels in plastic bottles, or takeaway cups and so on.

We used to buy in some great flapjacks, gluten free, wheat free, vegan they ticked most of the food boxes but they were wrapped in plastic.

We sold the last one over the weekend, so it looks like if we want to sell flapjacks they'll have to be made from scratch. I made some and they taste amazing. They are very easy to make.


1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2/ Line a 9" x 9" square brownie tin with grease proof paper.
3/ Place the following ingredients into a blender:
1/2 a cup of just boiled water
1/2 a cup of pitted dates, leave to stand for about 5 minutes.
4/ Add a ripe banana and 1/2 a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to the dates and water.
5/ Heat 4 tablespoons of coconut oil and pour into the blender.
6/ Blend it all together, I use the smoothie setting.
7/ When the mixture is properly blended, add 2 and a half cups of gluten free oats and stir in well by hand.
8/ Scrape the mixture from the blender and press it evenly into the prepared baking tin.
9/ Cook for around 20 minutes. 

Spicy Apple Cake Vegan and Gluten Free

This cake recipe is Vegan and Gluten Free and has no oil, which means it's less calorific but lovely and moist and completely enjoyable. There's no refined sugar but there is raw cane sugar, which takes a bit longer for the body to process and so means the GI will be lower than if it was made with refined sugars. You do NOT have to avoid cake if you eat cakes like this but you still want to eat healthily, you can enjoy them on a calorie controlled diet and still lose weight, just as I have been doing.

This is the first time I have made this cake and it is still in the oven, while I write this and that's why I will have to update this blog with a picture later.


1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2/ Take a 9" x 9" square brownie tin, line with grease proof paper.

3/ Place the following ingredients into a blender:

1 x Cup of water

1 x Cup of Biona Apple Puree

1 x Cup and a 1/2 cups of Buckwheat Flour

1 x Cup of Raw Cane Sugar

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 a teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda

1 x teaspoon of Doves Farm Gluten Free Baking Powder.

1 x teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

A pinch of ginger.

1/2 of the contents of a Classic Yogi Tea teabag.

4/ Blend it all together, I use the smoothie setting on my blender.

5/ Meanwhile, cut up two small apples into chunks, I like to leave the skins on..

6/ Then pour the whole mixture into the brownie tin and lovingly sprinkle the apple chunks randomly but evenly on top, then sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar over the top. 

7/ Cook for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, carefully cover the pan with foil and cook for another 10 minutes. 

Don't forget, you can buy all the ingredients you need in our shop, online and instore.

Enjoy but if you can't be bothered to make them yourself, just pay us a visit in Shepton Mallet and we will make them for you.