Shop Talk: Modern Shipping Woes
Over the last half-year I've noticed a growing number of customers have been getting more and more insistent that gear ship same-day or next-day and they get grumpy if there isn't a tracking number waiting for them the next morning.
As a one-person outfit, I simply can't do that without derailing a lot of my workflow, in-store customer interactions, and attention to detail regarding the fact that I always check and adjust setups before instruments leave here instead of just shoving them in a box. This last bit is super-important to me because I know how it is to receive something that's not quite right.
Is this happening for everyone else in the sell-and-ship life? I feel like I'm getting old-fashioned -- I never expect an individual seller (or even most retailers) to ship so fast. Amazon has the manpower (and robot-power) to pop stuff into boxes and get them out (and exploit their workers at the same time), but how does one compete with that expectation on a small scale?
I think people are going to have to come to terms with the fact that shipping is not immediate and it's also not free. Costs of doing business keep creeping up and up the more people buy into that mentality and at some point the pain will not be worth the gain for the average small retailer to make profit in this environment.
I'm not complaining, mind you -- I'm just noting that it's a broken system of expectations we're building here. I could, of course, just spend a bunch of extra hours to give my customers the same quick service -- but then I would be yet again leveraging that cost onto my family and friends by not being with them. I think it's all wrapped-up into the work-mania and speed-obsessiveness the economic gods have decided to put on the shoulders of the modern world.
Food for thought.
Comments
You said, " I think it's all wrapped-up into the work-mania and speed-obsessiveness the economic gods have decided to put on the shoulders of the modern world."
I say, "Bingo!".
Your attention to detail and disinclination to send an instrument without an optimal setup is a scarcer commodity than a send-it-right-now-or-else mentality.
I have done business with you and have found your communication to be better than most and the product I received was as-advertised and a fine instrument.
If you let people know your values and what to expect for service time, as you have done, I don't think the segment of your customers expecting unreasonable quickness will sink your ship... let them go to the land of quickness and immediate satisfaction where they economic gods reign supreme.
Signed,
Satisfied Customer
I too fret (Ha!) for some directions in modern culture and the people who follow them. Fact is that most people have always had a superficial set of expectations based on how well the circumstances will meet THEIR needs. It has been so since ancient Babylonian vintage harp sellers plied their trade and were berated for not delivering with faster horses. And it's not decreasing in today's climate of instant gratification.
I try not to worry too much; for every Majority their will always be a whacky, passionate and surprisingly large minority who refuse to swallow the blue pill.
Karl in Australia
I'm guessing these customers just think "online sale" and so expect Amazon-style shipping times, because that's what they're used to. Once you tell them "one-man show in a remote area" that changes their thinking. But you have to tell them, because they don't realise what their expectations are.