Ongoing Shipping
The work of Schlock shipping does not end with our two large shipping days. There is a lull right after, but then the errors and damaged books begin to make themselves known. I’ve been very pleased with this shipping experience so far. I’ve gotten many messages from happy customers whose books arrived with no trouble. It has even been a pleasure to deal with the customers who’ve had problems. They’ve all been very courteous and it pleases me to be able to solve the problem in a way that makes them happy. Thus far only three books have come back to us, two with incomplete addresses and one lacking a customs form. They’ve gone back out. The remaining problems are all one of three things, An incorrect sketch (only two of these), only one book sent when there should have been two (around 5 of these), or postal service mangled books (about 10 so far).
Once the kids are off at school, I plow through my email. I exchange messages to identify books that need to be redrawn and re-sent. I process any new orders that have come in (3-6 new orders per day right now, It’ll slow down in January.) Then I print out all the postage and package up the books. At less busy times of year I’ll just let my mail carrier pick them up at the house, but right now I’m driving things to the post office. This gets the packages out a little faster and it is no extra trouble for me because I need to be checking our PO box daily anyway. All of this takes an hour or two depending on the number of orders. Experience tells me that it takes about 6 weeks after a big shipment for all the problems to surface.
One thing that I feared for this mailing has not materialized. I’ve yet to have someone who ordered via Media Mail email me in a panic because they wanted their books for Christmas. This makes me glad because once things are in the mail system I have no control over how fast they go. It is odd that some books arrive in Australia before other books arrive in Connecticut, but it is true.