Hi ...
"Loop dude."
~ Hurley... in the ABC drama, "Lost"
Just a quick update to keep you in the loop on late orders.
Monique Walker will be emailing and calling customers with late orders from the farthest back to the most recent. The message she'll be conveying has been pasted below.
Dear _________ :
I'm emailing you for a couple reasons.
First, I want to apologize for the long delay in getting your order to you. We know it's been frustrating and unsettling and want to personally thank you for your patience.
Second, we want to explain why.
Ethnic Expressions just changed over to a new warehouse and distribution center (DC) because the pandemic has resulted in a huge increase in online shopping. As a result we've experienced the kind of growth that made moving order fulfillment to a bigger facility absolutely necessary to keep up with
demand.
The moving process required us to suspend shipments so our inventory could be transferred to the new facility. The move is just about complete, so all orders should be leaving the distribution center next week. When it does, you'll receive an email with a tracking number.
On the plus side, once our new higher capacity facility kicks in, new orders will be shipped in 3 or 4 days instead of 3 or 4 weeks.
Once again, thanks for your patience and support. We wouldn't exist without it.
Monique Walker
Ethnic Expressions Support
Monique will only be able to call customers who entered their phone number in the system, which is not personal enough. So, we're also asking you to personally reach out to your customers and convey the same
basic message this weekend. The personal touch and a little proactivity go a long way.
Once the warehouse is fully functioning, orders that come in before 2:00 PM will ship that day, and orders that come in after 2:00 PM will ship the next day. So fulfillment will happen at lightening speed... which is the standard in e-commerce today.
Because the new fulfillment center focuses on shipping orders fast, you'll see items disappearing from the site when they are temporarily out of stock, and put back up when they come back into stock. You'll see that for 4 to 6 weeks until we have enough data on how fast an item moves. Then we will be able to consistently make sure that very few items are ever out of stock.
Regarding Christmas orders, order fulfilment won't be the issue. The issue will be the carriers... UPS, USPS, FedEx. They're overwhelmed with holiday shipments because all that volume has moved from stores and malls to online shopping. For example, I shipped a $300 print order on November 19th and the customer still hasn't received it as of December 4.
Because of that the Christmas order cutoff is December 13. Just know that even with that comfortable cushion, the carriers might still deliver some packages late.
That's it for now.
Loop dude,
Brian
