Macdonald Sporrans

We have been working very hard to extend our range of items across all parts of the website and are excited to announce that we have significantly increased the amount of ghillie brogues that we offer.

We now can supply 16 different types of brogues suitable for all your needs. This selection now includes a far greater variation in the style of shoe that we offer. From our Ghillie Boot to our Highlander Brogue you will find many styles to suit all casual or formal occasions.

We’ve recently moved to a snappy new server and so far we’re pleased with the results!

A server is a computer which is on all the time and our website sits on that computer for everyone to access. Everytime someone accesses our site, that server needs to give them the pages that they want as quickly  as possible. This becomes more difficult when you get more people on the site at the same time, more content on the site to display etc.

Previously we were on a grid-service, which means that the hosting company (the people that own the server) have lots of little computers attached together to act like one big computer. They then split that big computer up into lots of little bits, and each website gets a little bit. The advantage of this type of server is that when you need more oomph, you can get it, because you’re part of this big computer.

However, we were noticing that our site was getting a bit slower than we’d like, and occasionally we were being affected by other people on the grid-service.

So, to combat these issues, we moved to a virtual dedicated server. We’re still effectively on a big computer made up of lots of little computers, but now we have a little space on that system set aside for us at all times. It’s quite a lot more powerful than what we had before, as we don’t share it with anybody else. This also means that we’re not affected by what other people are doing, and hence, our site is more secure (less risk from viruses on the server etc).

So far, we’ve seen our average page load time (the time it takes to display a page on our site) drop from 3-4 seconds, to about 1.5-2 seconds. This is a great improvement and we hope you’ll be pleased with the difference.

Don’t worry…we’ve not stopped there…we also have a few other ideas up our sleeve and will be activating some other tools in the very near future which will speed up our site even further.

Graph showing average response time for approx 2 weeks – can you tell when we moved?

We are very happy to announce that we can now provide a stock Clan Crest engraving for any of the engraveable items across our websites.

We have been working closely with the various suppliers and engravers that we are partnered with and as a result you can now choose from a large selection of designs to further customise your flask or tankard.

So if you would like to show your clan allegiance then what better way than to have your family crest added to any of our metal products. We can now supply over 140 Scottish based crests from Anderson to Young and all the way in between; so if your family has a crest then its a good bet we have it!

We’ve just launched some great new hip flask designs. Many of these fit into our new category of contemporary hip flasks.

We have some great Q-Bic designs which feature a sateen finish and square corners and come with a variety of enamel finish caps. We also have some special shaped flasks such as the grip shaped hip flask and the stirrup shaped hip flask which we’re sure will be popular.

We’ve also created a category for plain hip flasks which is full of flasks with no patterns so that you can have them engraved with logos or text, or if you just like a plain flask.

We’re pleased to present a jumbo sized addition to our range of hip flasks. The 26oz giant pewter hip flask is big enough for you and a few friends to share a drink!

This huge flask measures approximately 20cm high by 10cm wide and is roughly 2.5 cm deep. It is hand made by experienced pewter manufacturers and can be engraved with a personalised message or logo.

All that, and it comes in a silk lined presentation box as standard!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve just reviewed and reduced the prices of many of our hugely popular prince charlie kilt outfits and argyll kilt outfits.

Many of the kilt outfits have come down in price, some by over £50!

However, we have got 1 price increase, and it’s something we’re quite pleased about. Our Contemporary Prince Charlie Black Shadow Outfit has gone up slightly, however, the outfit has been improved considerably. It now features significantly better quality accessories, including full leather brogues, custom made belt and buckle, contemporary functional sgian dubh and funky thistle kilt pin.

We hope you’ll like the new changes and as always, please let us know if you have any comments or suggestions.

Happy New Year from everyone at Macdonald Sporrans. We hope the new decade brings peace and prosperity to all.

Found this when searching for ‘New Year’ on Flickr.

found here by Paul Moody.

We’re signing off for the last time in 2009.

See you at 9am on the 4th January 2010!

As you may be aware, UK Value Added Tax (VAT) on sale of standard rated goods is due to increase from 15% to 17.5% at 00:00 on the 1st January 2010.

You can find the relevant HMRC report here.

We’ll do our best to make this change at midnight, but in reality we’ll probably be sipping whisky and singing Auld Lang Syne as the fireworks roar over the city centre.

For all our international customers who live outside the EU…the prices will remain exactly the same.

Due to high demand, we advertised our Standard Tartan Trews a few months ago, and we’re pleased to say that they are proving very popular despite not having a single image of our trews!

I’m pleased to say that we now have some quality images of our standard trews, and hope to have images of our fishtail back tartan trews and military style tartan trews in the near future.