How to use this web site

Overview

It will greatly enhance your shopping experience with us if you will take a few minutes to read this page. It describes how this site works, as well as some of its unique features!

The first thing you should know is that, unlike most other mineral dealer's online stores, ours is completely real-time. Our entire inventory is stored in and managed by a sophisticated real-time inventory control system. This is important because, unlike many sites, only items which are actually available for sale at any given time are shown to you when you search or browse our inventory. If you add an item to your cart, it is reserved for you from that moment forward (and cannot be purchased by someone else "out from under you"). This design also avoids what we believe to be the cumbersome and annoying process of having to email the dealer to indicate that you want the specimen (and sometimes find out that it is no longer available for sale). Once you have added it to your cart, it is yours! Of course, you may remove any of the items you have added at any time prior to confirming and completing your order.

One important courtesy that we do ask of you is that you do not leave items in your cart that you are not going to purchase. Since our system is "holding" those items for you, please either complete the purchase or remove the items you no longer want so we may offer them to someone else!

In summary, at OBG International, the process is extremely easy and streamlined. You search our inventory, add items to your cart (reserving them solely for you), and when you are finished shopping, review your shipping options and complete and pay for your order right then and there.

In addition, the real-time nature of our order processing system allows you to lookup the status of your current or past orders online at any time.

How To Use This Site

There are two ways to shop our site, browsing and buying.

Anyone may search or browse our inventory, but only registered customers may reserve and purchase an item.

We do it this way because of the unique way our system reserves an item for you once it has been added to your cart, as described above. So, if you just want to "window shop", feel free. But, if you wish to purchase an item from us, we require you to complete a simple registration process first, before you can add an item to your shopping cart, reserving it solely for you.

Browsing

The fastest way to shop is to browse. We have set up some popular gallery links for your convenience. To view them, simply go to the Mineral Galleries page.

There you can select galleries by Geographic Region (Continent), Mineral Family, or quickly see what is new.

Each page will be organized as described below under Search Results.

If you want to see only a specific type of item, such as Tsumeb Azurites, use the Search capability, described just below.

Searching

To search our inventory, simply go to the Search page and press the button labeled "Display specimen query form".

This will load a new page where you can do numerous types of very sophisticated searches of the items which we currently have for sale. You may then search by one or more of:

Country of Origin
You can select from a drop down list which shows the name and the number of items in stock for each country. Only one selection can be made, i.e., either all countries or one specific country.
Category
You can select from a drop down list which shows the name and the number of items in stock for each category (e.g., Sulfides, Silicates, etc.). Only one selection can be made, i.e., either all categories or one specific category.
Size Category
Select one or more of the "standard" specimen size categories commonly used by collectors. No selection implies all sizes.
Name/Description
This searches the items summary name and description for the text you enter. There are two types of descriptions in our system. A short summary name and description (e.g., "Malachite pseudomorph after Azurite"), and a detailed multi line description, which is not searched (for performance reasons). So, entering "malachite" will return all specimens with that word anywhere in the summary description. Also note that the search is not case sensitive.
Locality
This searches the item's locality data for the text you enter. So, entering "tsumeb" will return all specimens from Tsumeb. Also note that this search is not case sensitive.
Price Range
You may enter a minimum and maximum price (in dollars and cents) for your search in the two boxes provided. Do not enter the dollar sign itself (e.g., "50.00" is valid; "$50.00" is not).
Time Period
You may also specify a time period in order to view only items which have been added in the last week, month, 3 months, 6 months, or since the last time you checked. This latter option is extremely useful as it allows you to quickly see everything that has been added to our store since the last time you checked! Please give it a try!

When you have entered you criteria, press "Search".

Search Results

Our system will then search our entire inventory, in real time, for those items which meet your criteria.

The results will be displayed in a table which will show for each item, a Thumbnail Image of the item, a Summary Description, and it's Size Category, Locality, and Price. You may sort this table by Description, Locality, Price, or Size Category.

To see images and detailed information for any item in the table, simply click on the thumbnail image and a new page will be shown just for that item. That page will show a thumbnail image (which you can select to expand it and see more images), a detailed description, size and weight data (in both English and Metric), and the item's price. It will also have a button allowing you to add it to your cart (if you have registered and logged in).

Buying

Buying is just like browsing (above) with the additional few steps of adding items to your cart and completing and paying for your order when you are finished. The steps are as follows:

Register for an account, if you have not already done so. It's very simple and fast!
Log in to your account.
Browse our inventory following the detailed instructions above.
When you find an item you like, add it to your shopping cart.
Continue shopping.
When you are finished, complete and pay for your order.

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