Fantasygiftsmn.com or Myfantasygifts.com, these addresses will bring you to the e-commerce site for the Minnesota Fantasy Gifts stores. The site has been live since August of 2018 and it is different than our previous site first of all it is a functional site, for most of 2017 and half of 2018 it was under construction and was barely ever working, we had our own site and the constant upgrades and changes in banking, shopping carts and themes and tons of stuff that I had to pay someone else to do meant that we were always struggling to keep up. We have had an online site for over 25 years now and it was always difficult as a small business to have a good website, by the time I figured something out it was obsolete and it was a constant catch up.
So, in June of 2018 I finally decided to not have our own site but to partner with a respected supplier and use them for our site. I had to give up control of a few things but I felt it was worth it to have a site with maps, our blog, links to our podcast and being able to have thousands more items available, and a search function that is useful, in other words a site that simply works. I did have to give up a few things though, the ability to pick up items at a store, the ability to have exact pricing on the website and our brick and mortar stores.
Over the past months it has been confusing to some who see items on the website but they are not in the stores, we have been trying to mark which items are which but with tens of thousands of items it is impossible. Lingerie for example, even in our 8 Minnesota stores the selection is different so we decided to highlight on the home page companies we carry in the stores but not exact items, the personal toys are easier though, those we can choose and we do try to choose ones that we carry in the stores.
I felt that although there would be a learning curve on the new site, the fact that many popular stores such as Target, REI, Home Depot carry items on their websites that are not in their physical stores that hopefully folks would understand that a small local family business made the best choice they could to have a safe, functional website.
Thank you, we appreciate your continued support of Fantasy Gifts Minnesota Stores.
Colleen Bertino
CEO/President