Friday 20 January 2023

General shipping update

So, a mix of good news and bad news today :( I have a plan to address the bad news, but I’m just heartbroken about it all the same.

So, good news first:

Into the Wild Shipping

Our new warehouse (Next Smart Ship), have been nothing short of amazing so far. Our Into the Wild stock was checked in, then sent out to all subscribers who had ordered it the very next day! Hooray! Everyone should by now have a tracking link, which will take you to a Next Smart Ship landing page. 

If you’ve got any queries about where the delivery is, please use the help / chat button on that page. The NSS team will have far better information than I will, and where you require it will be able to provide you with a local tracking number.

We did ship these just prior to Chinese New Year, but almost every parcel made it onto planes and out without hassle. I can even see a few people have had deliveries made today! Wow!

Wild Celebration / Go Wild orders

I made a call last week to split the shipping on these orders. The new items are dispatching from our new warehouse, while in-stock items dispatched from the old place.

So, anyone who had placed an order that also contained in-stock items (like rings, pouches, Girls Trip kits, or other things) will have 2 tracking numbers. One you will already have, and it contains those “in stock” items - which was sent from our old warehouse in HK. The second I’ll be emailing individually tonight, with the new Wild Celebration / Go Wild items.

If your order contained just the new items,  you should have a tracking link from Next Smart Ship already 🙂

These orders also all were packed and prepared for dispatch prior to CNY - only a little closer to the holiday. Some made it out and are on planes already, but the bulk are due to board a plane on 24/Jan. Based on what we’re seeing in terms of transit times for Into the Wild, you’ll have these goodies in early-mid February.

Pretty Posy 2

I got word today that our Pretty Posy 2 kit is ready at our factory, but with closures over the CNY period, it won’t get to our new warehouse for another 10 days or so (since there’s no one at our factories depot right now). However, the transit time to the new warehouse is quick, and these orders will be heading to you in early Feb! Exciting!

Spoil yourself September (Serenity) & Girls Trip & outstanding Boxing day orders

OK, this one is the reason I’ve spent the better part of the week in the fetal position. It’s great to see so many people receiving their orders, but I know that there are a large number of orders still not showing on tracking. 

We combined these orders because the stock arrived at the same time, in late December. The HK warehouse was supposed to have packed them and shipped them immediately after Christmas. They were packed, but dispatches didn’t happen, and I’ve been getting the run around from them ever since as to why. I was being promised each time I’d ask that they were due for pickup in the next day or so, and told that it was pickup vehicles that were the problem. I’d also been communicating that to you all, and feel embarrassed that I was giving what is clearly not correct information :( 

On my call with them yesterday I finally got to somebody more senior, who told me that simply HK post had rejected a large number of them (they’re saying 120 orders, but I think it’s closer to 260), and that my choices were to send them express (at around 90USD per order - which is simply not achievable) or send via the old method (at around 60USD per order - again, way too expensive). They also let me know that regardless of what I chose, they would be unable to action it until after their CNY closure (so, around 30 Jan). 

None of these outcomes are workable. The cost alone of either option would, simply speaking, be too much for us to bear. Let alone, the extended wait time as we would have to deal with their slow speed and not very transparent tracking information. 

Fortunately, for these orders we’ll be able to use our new warehouse to get them out quickly for you. We’re sending them in bulk across to Next Smart Ship, where they’ll be prepared and sent out (hopefully same day) to you all. It’s a little bit of a manual process, but it is a focus and priority for me, and I’ll email individual new tracking information to you once it’s available.

Both Sami and I are heartbroken about this. We think of each and every one of our customers as friends, and we feel we’ve let you down here :( 

Warehouse move!!!

When we moved to our warehouse in HK, we had high hopes & expectations, but have consistently been let down :(

It’s a story for another time, but we feel our business has had some pretty severe damage dealt to it by the performance of our warehouse, and not a day goes that we don’t regret the move in some way or fashion. We’ve also known for a while that we need to move, but the problem is simply the cost of doing so - we’ve got a lot of stock that we need to relocate, and we’re still a very, very small business! 

To make the move happen, we’ve had to tap the “bank of Mum and Dad” and use every spare cent of savings we had. We love our business and all of you, so we’re committed to doing everything it takes to get back to our best. We want to be able to continue to share our love of planning with all of you and to spread the joy that occurs when our goodies are used.

The good news is that we have a great, tried and tested option to move to. I say “tried and tested” because the service and speed we’ve seen with the Into the Wild kits has been amazing. We’re positively delighted so far in the experience that the new warehouse has provided - and the new freight prices mean we’ll be able to minimise any price increases that need to happen in the short term! Hooray!

So from today we are in warehouse moving mode once again BUT rest assured this won’t be as long as our last one. We are expecting a 2 week transition period and it will impact all orders except for those including Into the Wild, Pretty Posy 2 or Wild Celebration items. If you order something except for those items, they’ll still get to you but there will be a short delay while all of the stock is moved.

This move and temporary hold comes at the worst time for us. If you would like to support us, purchasing printables and digitals is a great way to help, and also gets you some amazing bits and pieces to play with in the meantime. We’ve already listed a bunch of new goodies and even more (including some much requested items) are going up tonight!

Once the move is complete, we’ll have an event to celebrate the relocation.

We’re very excited and energised about this move, and think it’s going to be the start of finding our mojo again in 2023!

Thank you all so much for your love, care and support. We really couldn’t do it without you.

Michael & Sami