Archive | sales

Don Nalezyty

 An Introduction

If you follow Nic on facebook, you will know that I’ve started helping with the website. Some of you may know me from the spoon carving community, but my profession is in IT. When Nic asked if I’d be interested in supporting the site, I was happy to help out with something that ties together two passions.  (Yes, I’m uber geeky!)

We’ve updated the technology and processes behind the scenes over the last few months. Much of this Nic has talked about here, but it has not really been visible in the shop until Tuesday.  We added a password protected section to the Shop and opened it to folks on the top of the wait list to place back orders. Nic will be working hard to complete these in the next month.

Wait Lists

One more visible change Wednesday was the removal of the old product specific wait lists. Those lists were limited and cumbersome to manage, so we created a new wait list. It is important to us the list is accurate, since it will be used to grant access to the back orders section of the shop. This will happen periodically when Nic is ready to take orders.

As detailed in Tuesday’s post, there was a great deal of effort to clean the wait list, but we would like to make it better. There will be an email going out soon to everyone on the wait list. You should update your information following the instructions in the email. This will verify that you are still interested and waiting for a turn to purchase some of Nic’s blades. I have added a page to the site to allow folks to add their names to the queue. You can find it in the menu under Shop.

This new list combined with password access to the back order shop means that everyone will get an opportunity to order rather than relying upon being online at the right moment and lucky enough to submit an order before all the stock was sold.  Given the long list, folks may have a long wait, but when they reach the front of the queue they’ll have access to the site for 24 hours to complete orders.

We’re both happy with how the last sale went. We hope this new more equitable system will make everyone else happier too.

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.

It has so far been impossible for me to keep up with demand since opening my site, I am making every blade myself from scratch, and the batches I put up tend to sell out within a couple of a days. As I often say on the phone, I can make them quicker but the quality would drop and that is not what I am about. The wait list on the site is the best bet to catch a blade when it is in stock, the site will automatically email you when I have listed new stock, but they are not reserved so it is better to act quickly.

This system works reasonably well, it is certainly better than relying on me to remember and email the 200 odd people that are on various lists. However it doesn’t cope well with orders of different blades and recently customers have had to order multiple times to get the tools they are after. Currently though this is the best system I can offer as it can take me a long time to cycle through all the out of stock items and a mixed order might take months not weeks to fill. Also the wait list gives me an idea of demand so I can concentrate on the items with the most customers waiting.

I do try and keep my postage rates as low as possible in light of the fact that people end up making multiple orders. Currently this is £4.00 flat rate in the UK and £7.50 for EUR/ N America / AUZ / NZ.  Other Destinations available if you email me. It is not uncommon for me to spend more on P&P than I charge, but on balance it seems about right.

I have never factored in any charge for the time taken to actually pack the item as my view is that whatever you make you have to sell, and this takes time. Going to a show, taking an order down the phone or someone coming to the workshop to pick an item up all take way longer than packing an order that has been managed and processed by the website, with a good mix of new packaging boxes and recycled wrapping – the workshop next door makes fleece sleepsuits in an astounding variety of patterns and I have access to all their offcuts- it is actually very quick to pack an item now.

There is one way I could cut prices a bit further and that is to use a franking machine, however as many people that have been on courses at my workshop have found out the local post office and shop is a real gem. The owner Lil has cut down on the items she sells, but the basics are covered and it is the focal point of the village and I am proud to support it. On rare occasions that she has sold out of milk she sends me back to the workshop with a jam jar toped up from her fridge. If I went down the franking machine route, as a few local businesses have, the post box would still get filled but the income going through the post office would drop making closure more likely. Plus I often spend the entire day locked in my workshop, the few minutes walk up to the post office and chat at the counter is a welcome break I look forward to.