Sunday, 6 September 2009

New stock!

We're adding even MORE sweets to the shop! We have more Hallowe'en themed sweets, and a whole lot more pick'n'mix sweets. We'll be adding them to the shop very soon, but in the meantime take a look at the outtake photos... our chief-tester Theo couldn't keep his fingers away from all the delicious sweets!







We'll let you know when the sweets have all been added to the shop and we're hoping you're starting to get in the Hallowe'en mood!

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

Shop update!

We've finally finished adding the new sweets to the shop! Take a look...







We have everything up in 200g, 300g and 500g. We'll be adding 700g and 1kg options in the next few months.

Our Hallowe'en section is also up and running...



We'll be adding more sweets to this section as October draws closer. We're also starting to set our sights on Christmas! We have a few ideas, but is there anything special you'd like to see?

Saturday, 1 August 2009

Upcoming update and plans

Yesterday, we spent all day in what looked like Willy Wonka's factory, picking out new (and old-fashioned!) sweets that we thought you might like! We picked about 45 new and different sweets and we're in the process of photographing them and uploading all the details so we can update the shop. Some of the highlights include:

Sherbet fountains, lemon sherbets, popping candy, midget gems, white chocolate mice, apple bonbons, sugared almonds, mint humbugs, devon toffee and much, much more!

We've also decided to have a "local and traditional" category, containing some of the sweets found local to where we are based. We live and work in the North of England and there are quite a few delicious sweets that are traditionally manufactured locally. So, look out for Berwick Cockles, Yorkshire Mixture, Pontefract Cakes, Edinburgh Rock, Soor Plooms and Hawick Balls!

We will also now offer 300g and 500g bags, in addition to the 200g. The larger weight bags will be cheaper than buying the equivalent weight in smaller bags - so if we stock your favourite sweet, it will save you money to buy the bigger weight bags rather than keep buying the small ones. Unless you take advantage of our 6 for the price of 5 offer, of course! However, our offer only applies if you buy all 6 bags at the same time.

We are also working on our pick'n'mix section. We have a few ideas for this. We're going to offer pre-mixed bags of a certain cost - just like the ready-made 20p mixups we used to buy at our local newsagents. We will probably offer the mixups in £1 bags, or say, a bag of 5 x 20p mixups (ideal for sharing out among the kids!). We'll have jelly mixes, chocolate mixes, chewy mixes or a good old-fashioned mix of everything!

And finally - we're the kind of people who hate Christmas advertising in the middle of June, but when it comes to sweets, we just can't help it! Don't worry, we're not stocking for Christmas just yet (although we do have a few plans in the pipeline!) but we have Hallowe'en fever over at the Candy Barrel. Who can resist Hallowe'en?! We get to dress up in silly costumes (this year, we're going to be making candy-themed costumes!) and eat lots and lots of sweets and horrible treats (everlasting eyeballs or goo-filled brains, anyone?). We've started sourcing all our Hallowe'en tricks and treats, and we'll be making gift boxes and goody bags that will shock and delight all the trick-and-treaters who come to your door. Keep your eyes peeled over the next month or two in our (gruesome!) gift box section.

As you can see, we have a lot planned and it's going to take a while to get all the details written up - but keep an eye out on the shop over the next few weeks for the massive update! We'll also keep you posted on our progress of course, through the blog, and on Twitter and Facebook, so you won't miss anything.

We're hoping that our new shop update is going to contain your favourite - but if not, please get in touch with us! We want to reunite everyone with their childhood favourites, but if we don't know what yours is, we might not go hunting for it!

Sunday, 19 July 2009

the Candy Barrel shop goes live!

We got so excited and impatient that we've stocked the shop and opened it!

The Candy Barrel on eBay.

There are a few design kinks that will hopefully be ironed out once eBay finishes implementing their new site designs in the next few weeks - but these shouldn't affect your visit to the site too much at all.

So, we hope you come have a look around and see if we have anything you like. If not - let us know! We'll be sweet-hunting in the next few weeks and adding to our existing stock, so now is the time to let us know what you'd like to see.

Also, don't forget our offer:



Hope to see you over there!

Saturday, 18 July 2009

Final countdown!

Just a quick post to let you know that we're well underway with shop preparations. We thought we might have to postpone the opening: because of all the thunderstorms lately, our router blew up and left us without internet for almost 2 weeks (have you ever tried dealing with broadband technicians? Very thorough and repetitive!). But we got everything fixed and upgraded and have been working so hard that we might even be able to open ahead of schedule!

Below is a little preview of the shop that explains who we are and how we got started, and I'll let you know how to find the shop as soon as we go live - hopefully within the next week!

Monday, 29 June 2009

Countdown to shop opening!

We're hoping to have the shop open in less than a month! We're busy putting the final touches to everything and can finally reveal the following information.

All sweets featured in the posts below will initially be available in 200g bags (we will also be offering other size bags in the near future). You can, of course, order multiple bags to receive 400g, 600g, etc. You can even mix and match - and in the hope that you're going to love these sweets as much as we do, we have a special offer for you:



So, if you order 1.2kg of sweets (it sounds like a lot, but trust us - they don't last very long!) you will get one of those bags for free! You won't even have to pay extra postage for the free bag, so you don't have to worry about any hidden charges.

We will also be giving away a small freebie with every order, just to say "thank-you" for shopping with us.

As soon as the shop is open we'll let you know the website address, but in the meantime - as usual - let us know what you're hoping to see and any specific sweets you would like us to stock!