Hello guys, this is Mondo with Animal Customs. 1st of all I do want to apologize for the delay. During the busy season our usual turnaround is right about 6 to 7 weeks. From the date we started the order we started shipping approximately 5 to 7 of them a day (along with our other orders) starting on week 5. While I do not believe in giving excuses, I do believe in giving you information. We were going strong and had a hic-up with one of our 3 seamstress called in sick and continued to be sick for over 7 days. To this day, she has not returned but has told us that the Dr. has cleared her for work this coming Monday. So we lost 33% of our production capability for a little over a week. That was pretty devastating considering we had big plans to ship out all the jersey by this week. We have been really pushing our girls to continue, and they are doing great, but just not as good when you lose 1/3 of your team.
As for the situation where some people ordered later and received their sooner, I could see how it could happen because of our process and I will try to explain it. Once an order comes in it goes to billing. Well we have 100+ orders come in over a day or 2. So when it went to billing, it went through 2 of our billing personnel. The stack got divided into to. Depending on the existing stack that the billing personnel had, some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order. But this should of still been between a couple of days meaning. If someone put in an order 3 weeks later, then it would not of gotten mixed in with the initial wave of orders. If anything I could see how the 1st 2 days may have gotten mixed up, but not any further than that. Then the orders go to distribution, where they are distributed between 3 different artists who set up the order with name and size. Once again depending on their current workload some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order. Then once they are done it goes to 2 different quality control personnel, Once again depending on their current workload some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order. Once done, it goes to one of our 4 printers, Once again depending on their current workload some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order. Once completed it goes to one of our 2 heat presses, Once again depending on their current workload some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order. Once done they go to our cutting room, Once again depending on their current workload some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order. Once that is done they go to one of our 3 seamstress, Once again depending on their current workload some orders may have been moved up ahead or behind an order.
So you could see how some orders may have advanced ahead of others by pure luck, but again, it would only be by a couple of days, not orders that were placed weeks ahead of others. Now not to say that a abnormality couldnt happen, where just by luck the same order got moved ahead over and over again, but it would be a bit unlikely.
In every other instance the existing system has worked. This was the first time that we worked on an order with 175+ jerseys all shipping out to different address. Usually when we take an order they go all to the same address, so nobody would even be aware if their jerseys were completed a day or 2 before theirs.
Originally when this project came to us, we were expecting around 75 to 100 jerseys being ordered. That number doubled overnight and it did cause us to be a bit backlogged. If you have emailed me late at night you will notice I reply asap, as in that same night whether it by 7, 9, 10, or even 1am. We are usually here till past midnight 3 nights a week to try and do some damage control, but in the end there are only so many orders we can push out a day. Orders are going out fast and believe me when I say nothing has a bigger priority than this order. All of Feb and most of the March orders have been printed, pressed, and cut. They are just in line to be sewn up. To my knowledge each and every person that has emailed me has had their jersey scheduled to ship out in the next day or 2.
Again, I do apologize and It is very frustrating to me to be in this situation because we have worked very hard the past 16 years to have a spotless record. We just got taken by surprise by 1. the amount of jerseys ordered over a couple of days and 1. by the system of shipping out each 175+ jerseys individually.
If you have any questions or comments, please email me directly at
[email protected] and I will be more than happy to respond to each.
Thanks again
Mondo