All Entries in the "Holidays" Category
Sometimes shipping early just isn’t enough
The oddest shipping experience I had involved a Daffy Duck tie a lady named Julia bought for her brother’s birthday.
As usual I packed it carefully in a box and printed up an official USPS label with the package id, upc code, etc.. The postman picked it up, and it was on it’s way from San Diego to Carmel California. It’s a 450 mile trip, within the same state. I sent the tracking number to Julia and fully expected to hear in a couple of days that the tie had arrived as expected. Guess again.
A week later I get an email from Julia. The tie has not arrived. I double checked the tracking, and there it was, sitting in Missouri! Now it’s been a long time since I sat in a geography class, but I had a hard time understanding that one…San Diego California to Carmel California, via Missouri.
Hmmmm.
I usually only have one of the items I sell. I specialize in collectibles, hard to find items and replacement china. It’s not as if I could say, oh, here, let me send you another one.
Fortunately Julia was very nice about the whole thing. We had several emails go back and forth and even chatted about our long ago days in Girl Scouts – that must have come up because it was the cookie time of year. I volunteer every year as the Service Unit coordinator and undoubtedly had cookies on the brain.
After a bit of prodding the package did finally get loose from Missouri and began to wend it’s way across the country. It arrived, safely, on March 9, a full 4 weeks after it had been mailed.
Julia’s brother loved his gift. She said “He’ll wear it while delivering his Powerpoint presentations. He says he’s deth-pic-able.”
If we had not been able to pry the package loose from that black hole in Missouri I would have of course refunded Julia every cent, but that would have been so unfortunate. Where else could she have found a tie like that that was no longer available in any store?
We do our best at A Night Owl’s Treasures to make sure your packages arrive safely and in a timely manner. We go through an astonishing amount of boxes, bubble wrap and packing peanuts. When you sell items that are no longer available in any store, anywhere, you have to be so careful when you pack and ship, because those items cannot be replaced. Professional packaging and labeling will get your items to you safely, and we sincerely hope, quickly
Avoid the Holiday Lines!
The holiday season is upon us. For those of you with friends and family scattered around the country and world, that can only mean one thing, shipping.
Every year around this time shipping times slow from the sheer volume of packages. It used to be if you were just a little late you could bump up to the speedier service with not too much financial pain. Things are changing in shipping. Fuel costs are up, and shipping costs go up right along with them. UPS, USPS and FedEx are all going to raise rates again in early 2009. DHL is not going to ship within the United States anymore (they will continue to ship from the US to international addresses) so if you had used them for domestic shipping you are going to have to find another service.
What does this mean to you? It means you should plan ahead. The shipping companies are 
always trying to drill this into us, ship early, ship early, but based on the lines at post office year after year many are not heeding this advice.
There are a few things you can do to avoid this last minute hassle. After all, who wants to stand in line at the post office when you have cookie to bake, Christmas trees to trim, parties to go to, and children home on winter break?
Did you know that you can have either your postman or UPS come to your house to pick up your package? Its easy! If you have the packing supplies and an accurate scale you can go to http://www.ups.com or http://www.usps.com and schedule a pickup online. UPS charges a small fee, USPS offers the service for free if you are sending at least one Priority or Express package.
Another option is to send gift cards instead of gifts, be really careful about that this year though, as the economy tightens more brick and mortar stores will be closing up shop in the coming months. The first thing they do is stop accepting gift cards.
I have an even better idea – the most convenient method of all – shop online and have the store ship directly to the recipient. Many online stores offer gift wrapping services for a small fee. Small retailers like myself will wrap the items in pretty tissue paper and ribbon if we know it is a gift going direct, at no extra cost, and can pretty it up even more for a small fee. In the sometimes impersonal world of internet buying I know how important it can be to our customers that we give that little bit of extra customer service.
This winter everyone wants to save time, money and gas – buying your gifts online and having them shipped direct is the way to go!
