Back Orders and the Wait List

We have opened a new back order section in the shop and will be taking orders over the next day or two. Before you all race over to the shop and attempt to order, I wanted to give an update on the changes we made and how the process now works, but first we need to briefly cover what’s happening with product wait lists as it’s a big part of the new process.

As previously mentioned, the old wait lists and ordering system had problems.  The new process is relying on a single unified wait list for back order-able items. There were nearly 1600 email addresses on the old product wait lists, which had to be merged, cleaned of duplicates and invalid email addresses. The new list is now down to 650 prioritized emails based on the order in which folks joined the wait lists.  (650 sounds like a lot, but before you lose hope – we suspect a large percentage of these will not result in sales.  We’ll know better in a few days.) This unified wait list is used in the new process outlined below.

Here’s the quick summary of  the new process:

• The back orders section of the shop is behind a password
• Emails have gone out to the first block of people on the wait list
  • Instructions on how to order are in the email
  • The password is in the email
  • Passwords expire 24 hours after being sent
• Those who received emails will have that 24 hours to submit orders, then we will be letting the next block through with a new password.
• This will continue until I have taken a month’s worth of orders.
• Back ordered blades should be shipped within a month.

Please note that the sharpening section is not back ordered nor  password protected, so these are normally shipped the next day. If however you order sharpening kit alongside back ordered blades then the whole order will be shipped when the blades are completed.

I am also getting daily, sometimes hourly requests for axes and adzes or to be put on wait list for these.  Currently the wait list only covers back order-able blades, but once we have this system working well I may start to include these in a separate list. Any new information will be put up on here.