Canada and International shipment update
almost 4 years ago
– Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 03:04:39 PM
specificallyHey all, Robin here. So, as for updates, I was trying to hold out until I could definitively say, "The pallets have arrived with the fulfillment partners and they will start on shippingn xx day, But we are still not there. But I do have some updates.
First, you have to realize that we have nothing "in our hands" - so it's not like we are the holdup. We are, like everyone else, at the mercy of the COVID-19 and the havoc it is causing. To give you some perspectives, I've copied some snippets from various emails I get back when questioning the status of our pallets.
CANADA:
Shipments of commercial goods into Canada are facing delays because of technical issues involving the systems of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
Canada Post advises that it continues to experience significant disruptions to its activities because of exceptional precautionary measures implemented to protect the health and safety of its employees and Canadians, as well as persistent challenges relating to availability of transport links.
Canada is experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 and all provinces remain in a state of emergency. A previously declared force majeure situation for all international letter-post, parcel-post and express mail service items will remain in effect until further notice.
Canada Post continues to follow the guidance and safety recommendations issued by the Public Health Agency of Canada, including physical distancing and self-quarantine for affected individuals.
These measures have resulted in delays in mail processing, unprecedented levels of absenteeism among operational staff, and temporary facility closures due to COVID-19 outbreaks. It has not been possible to ensure on-time delivery since March 18 and this guarantee remains suspended until further notice.
UK:
From a Guardian article of about a month ago: Any port in a perfect storm: UK container trade is grinding to a halt.
Southampton is experiencing heavy congestion in its docks, causing long delays to imported goods getting to manufacturers and shops. Last week, it was announced that delays at Felixstowe, Britain’s largest port, which accounts for 40% of the nation’s container trade, have been exacerbated by thousands of containers of PPE stockpiled at the site.
Okay, so that said, what does all this mean to us specifically. Let me tell you what I know.
CANADA:
We are waiting for the palets to clear customs. Once they do, I expect they will get to the Canadian fulfillment company within a day (two at most). AS SOON as they have the pallets, we'll let yo know.
OVERSEAS
Well, I do have some more information on this. We use something called a "freight forwarder" which fills up huge freighters and ships the items overseas. "Filling a ship" can take some time because our 4 little pallets are nothing when compared to the space of a single cargo container and some ships carry as many as 19,000 of these carriers at once. In ideal conditions, this may take a week or two, but while our product was sitting at our freight forwarder a crisis occurred in the UK. Their rampant and highly-contagious variant tore through the county prompting a severe lockdown. Many freighters were sailing across the sea only to find they couldn't be unloaded. This meant increased costs as they "burned fuel" to remain outside of port. For this reason, the freight forwarder wasn't even letting ships sail.
But the UK-variant wasn't the only problem. BREXIT finally finalized, and would significantly increase import fees for the large number of packages that weren't staying within the UK. These two factors led me to do a search for a new partner (and I was not alone) - many companies were hoping BREXIT negotiations would continue and they wouldn't have to shift shipping partners. Well, in any case, we are now shipping products to Germany, which will mean you all won't be charged import fees on your individual packages. But that meant yet another rerouting of pallets to a different freight forwarder. I've yet to figure out how the VAT to the UK will work. I've been so busy with "routing pallets and signing up for VAT numbers so I can ship to the UK, that it's on my "to-do list." Hopefully, the German company can roll those fees into my other import/export fees and the UK people won't have to pay anything. If it turns out you are charged something upon delivery - just contact me, and I'll reimburse you for it. Bottom line, one way or another I'll just take the hit for the changes in fees.
One last thing. Hopefully by the end of the week, everyone will receive an email from me with the address we have on file and even if your address has not changed. Please respond to the email. And, it goes without saying that if your address has changed, tell me what your new address is so I can update our records.
For what it is worth, I do think there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Canada pallets have been in customs long enough that they should "pop out" the other side soon, and switching to Germany from the UK solves a lot of problems, especially given how hard the UK shut down has been.
One last thing I should note...we recently started the Nolyn Kickstarter and the Canada and Overseas shipping will return to what we've done in the past -- which is shipping each package individually using UPS and USPS. This means we won't have these types of delays, but the cost will go up. To keep the postage "reasonable" I'm robbing from Peter to pay Paul. In other words, instead of "covering my entire cost" for shipping outside the US, I'm taking from our profit margin to help defray the costs. So, yes, it will be more expensive than when we went the "local fulfillment route" - but it won't be as expensive as it would be if we priced it "at cost."
Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully we'll get through this soon.
Finally some news!
about 4 years ago
– Tue, Nov 03, 2020 at 07:55:28 PM
Hey all, Robin here. I know all you people in Canada and overseas have been anxious about your orders, but I had no news to report (until now) so there wasn't much I could say. But I finally got some news to share. So here I am!
As you probably know, for the last several Kickstarters we have started doing overseas orders by shipping "pallets" to fulfillment partners in Canada and the UK where they do the shipping locally. We did this for a few reasons:
- It saves the readers substantial amounts of money on shipping
- It saves the readers from having to pay expensive import fees such as customs and VAT -- those costs are now born by us.
The downside is it means that we have to rely on others instead of shipping everything ourselves. Also, to add more complications our local fulfillment partner changed buildings and their new location had extensive COVID-19 restrictions that made it difficult for us to gain access to our stock. As a "control freak" you might imagine that having to rely on others - especially during a pandemic when shipping has been wonky at best. Has been very stressful...and it is one of the reasons why we're going to revert to our old way of operating for future Kickstarters - in other words, we will not be doing the "pallet shipments" because there are just too many moving parts, and too many things then end up being beyond our control. So for all future Kickstarters, Canada and Overseas orders will be shipped by us (but that will mean a higher cost to the readers). The good news, is you won't have the types of delays that we have had with the "pallet approach."
Okay, that's a segue so let's get back to the matter at hand. We created two pallets one to go to the UK and one to go to Canada and they were picked up from our fulfillment house by a LTL (less than a full trailer shipper). From there they go to a "hub" where they are sent to their next destinations. Neither of the pallets arrived where they should have, and we've been trying to figure out where they "did go" for quite some time.
Well, the good news is they have finally been found. Part of the problem (I think - although the shipper will not confirm this), is that they either had "temp labor" filling in during COVID or they were just so swamped that policies weren't being followed. My suspicion is that some shipments got misplaced and they weren't making it a priority to "find where they should go" because they were so busy with orders that had no problems to begin with. Anyway, when 60 days expired they would have to pay me a boatload of cash (for the items they lost). That date came and left and they asked for some extensions, which I granted, but eventually, I put my foot down, and low and behold they were located. Imagine that!
Again I don't know all the ins and outs, but the long and the short of it is they are being returned to our fulfillment house (so we can check to make sure everything is there and nothing is damaged). Once we receive them they'll be going out again - but obviously with a different carrier!
I'm truly sorry about this, but I do think COVID has been a big part of this. We were even seeing packages sent through the USPS doing odd things -- such as their tracking took a package from Virginia to California then back to Ohio for final delivery. In any case...the log jam is now cleared and as soon as the pallets are "on their way again" I'll be posting further updates.
Rest assured, I'm doing all I can to get these to you!
Robin.
