Hi, Katie here. If you’re reading this it’s probably because you are waiting for your order and looking for answers as to why you aren’t happily stitching with your products by now? We truly wish you were and the last thing we want is to let you down.
So we want to provide some transparency to our current situation and ease your frustration a little as we juggle delays and the increased workload this brings to both our hands on and admin staff. Because this is the first time that some of you have ever purchased from us, we also feel it’s important to show you that we are real people, working hard together as a team to create products that inspire and bring joy to your stitching.
Please read this letter to the end to find a token of our appreciation.
In the last two months we have seen growth like never before for our small business located in a rural town in Victoria, Australia and much like any other rural area we have less access to conveniences and a few more hurdles to our daily operations. On top of this we are a women lead, women ran manufacturing business which has it’s own unique challenges. We are so proud to offer opportunities to incredible women who may not otherwise be able to find employment in our area within the constraints of school aged children, chronic illnesses etc.
So we deal with our challenges and press on because for Mum and I, being able to offer these opportunities is a purpose we stand behind. I have bought my 5 children up with this business and I would not have otherwise been able to work a standard 9-5 job. We are energised by the joy our products bring to our customers and the positive difference that can make to your life.
Not only have we felt the gusts of new orders coming in fast we have also recently felt literal gusts and braced ourselves for unpredictable severe weather as our region was hit with another storm, which this time lasted around a week, throwing out our production schedule and had us all staying home for our safety, unable to work for a few days as we were left without power to operate. After our town was hit by a cyclone in February, we knew it was best to keep our team safe.
So you can see how absolutely distraught we are that some of that joy is being stripped away because of the longer than usual waiting times and that some customers believing we are an elaborate scam. But we are doing what we do best and facing this challenge head on to come up with solutions which will make our business even better than before.
Here are some to the things we are implementing to get on top of our order fulfilment times.
- · New staff – We have put on 6 new team members in the last 2 months, 4 in the last 2 weeks. This brings our team from 10 to 16. Bringing on new staff is a way we can instantly start making a difference, but if we’ve learnt anything over the last 17 years is that you can’t just throw people at problems. There are always ways to improve efficiency so that our small team can become even more powerful. So we are also doing the following…
- · Warehouse rearrange – We operate from a quirky 100 year old building that is about 4 meters wide and 18 meters long. This is the only available building in our little single main st, population 2000 town. We need to use every inch of space efficiently and as we grow, we have to work out even better ways we can make, assemble, store, pick and pack our products as well as office space. We have just completely changed around our warehouse to improve our processes but with this comes some down time. An essential sacrifice of time to invest in a more efficient future.
- · Systems overhaul – We’ve been taking a deep dive into all of our I.T systems to see what tools we can put in place to reduce processing time of orders and better communicate with you, our customer. Because the same team members who are packing and shipping your orders are answering emails and social media comments and messages, it means the more time they have to spend at the keyboard, the less time they have to be packing and shipping orders. If we can keep you updated automatically, this will free us up to do the physical things that only a pair of human hands can do because we are not, and never will be Amazon. Of course, these changes take time.
- · Working with suppliers – I have been meeting with suppliers to work on ways we can ensure more constant supply of in demand products in the future. A lot of the products we supply are made by micro businesses and that’s why they’re so special. The increase in demand has a flow on effect and needs some time to adjust to the new level of demand. Just as we are implementing ways to facilitate our growth, as are our suppliers. We couldn’t be happier that our business is also helping other small businesses grow.
Phew, that’s a lot happening all at once, not to mention the extra hours our team are putting in, the midnight oil burning while catching up on emails, because we are all so invested in our mission to spark joy in every stitch.
Our dye team is busy creating our delicious threads we are so well known for, the preparation and fulfilment team has expanded and our lovely new staff members are being trained and assigned work, the wholesale and retail team members are masters at multitasking and at the end of the day the HUGE pile of packages is brought to our local post office and shipped globally.
We know that you are going to love your products when they arrive and we thank you for your incredible patience. I completely understand that you would want to know a day when the order will ship and we would love to be able to give you a day. The problem is that because this is unprecedented for us, we don’t know exactly what the coming days look like, we are focusing on getting as many parcels out the door each day and it’s just not possible to pinpoint a day for each and every order. I hope that you trust we are working as hard as we can and that the changes we are making will ensure a much more enjoyable purchasing experience for you in the future.
There’s just one more elephant in the room that I need to address before I leave you to get back on the tools and help get orders out. We have had some customers commenting that we are still sending marketing emails. If I could press pause while we catch up on orders I would, and I’m sure you can empathise if you have ever run a business yourself, that growth costs money, improvements cost money and employing more staff even more. So we must keep moving forward and sales must continue to come in or Cottage Garden Threads would be no more. We are expectedly experiencing a drop in sales at the moment because customers are understandably hesitant to order. So if you’ve been thinking of placing an order, please do, we would be so grateful. We are already starting to see results from our efficiency improvements and it won’t be long before we’ve caught up and we need to keep our team busy! If you do place an order, I ask you to have patience because it may still take a little longer than our goal of 5-10 working days and in return I’d like to offer you a Free shipping discount code: PATIENCE
Thank you for being a part of helping us grow so we can continue to bring you stitchy goodness!
Katie and the CGT team