Question for larger stores re: processing policies

TheBrickMill

We have employees that come Monday-Friday to help with running our store (we have several businesses). We don't bill until the order is pulled so that we can be sure to give an accurate cost as to shipping, etc. As such, weekend orders don't get invoiced or marked as "processing" until Monday morning. Lately we have had a few people that ordered on a Friday night or Saturday and were irritated we had not billed them or started processing orders over the weekend.

I know for smaller stores or hobby stores they may work on weekends, do you larger stores work 7 days a week/bill over weekends? Guess I just want to be sure what keep customers happy and do what is expected

Thx,
Tracy

DadsAfol

I don't think you will find any large stores that pick first. Pay first is the norm. If we are short any pieces, we'll either refund the buyer, go grab a set that has the piece, or sometimes order from other stores.

And no, we dont usually work on the weekend.

Sir Troys

The expectation for ordering online is that orders are processed 24/7. You can thank Amazon for this. I have had people order Friday evening and expect to RECEIVE their order on Monday.

Expectations will also be tied to the site at which you are selling. BrickOwl takes payment immediately at checkout, so it follows that customers expect that is all they have to do and their order is on its way. I received an order today (Sunday) and I pulled it, shipped it and it will go out with the mornings mail.

BrickLink currently does not process payments. Because of this I will pull the order and invoice it, then wait for Payment. Experienced buyers there understand this, and I may take a couple of days to process the order and send the invoice. Inexperienced users do not always understand this and are confused by the system as nobody else uses it anymore (eBay also used to work this way, but has not for many many years.).

I also sell at Amazon. They ALLOW you 2 BUSINESS days to ship, which does not include weekends or holidays. Customers, however, do not understand this. They expect the same level of service from 3rd party merchants as they get from Amazon itself. In fact, many people do not even understand that they are buying from 3rd party merchants.

And Amazon ships fast. Order something late Friday using Prime and it will tell you Tuesday delivery (free prime delivery is 2 business days). More times than not, the package will arrive on Saturday. I shudder to think what will happen to buyer expectations when Amazon starts their same day delivery.

Anyways, I have 42 Amazon orders to get shipped out before morning, so I had better get to work...

Troy

misbi

I wouldn't normally describe our store as one of the larger stores, but everything is relative and I suppose we're relatively large at the moment. We've just moved our stock from business premises to home, specifically to make it practical for processing orders at weekends. Previously, we didn't process orders between Friday 4:00pm and Monday 9:00pm. Monday's were getting too hectic already and since we'll be quadrupling our available stock over the months ahead, it was clear that we'd have to eliminate the weekend log jam.

As of this weekend, we now process orders 7 days a week 8:00am - 9:00pm

We also pick and pack BL orders prior to invoicing, whereas for pre-paid Owl orders, if we're short of a part, we usually just pull it from our unlisted stock which is many times larger than our listed stock.

Lawrence

That's interesting, I didn't realise people expected processing over the weekend. I could possibly make more obvious despatch estimates, but I fear it is very difficult to keep to them with Lego parts and may lead to more disappointed customers.

misbi

I agree. Better to under promise and over deliver than vice versa.

TheBrickMill

Thanks to all for the replies, you all have been very helpful!
Tracy