We tried! We tried our damned hardest to keep up with the deliveries of orders from the site, but unfortunately, it’s just not working out right now. It’s impossible!!!
For those of you who have been customers of Blooms since the beginning, you know that you could always expect speedy and friendly delivery of your orders, right to your door. (Well, most of the time) We took a lot of pride in this. We had no ‘retail outlet’ but that was okay, we were able to get everyone their orders in a (somewhat) timely fashion. Everything was going fine. As we grew as a company, we made the necessary changes in our logistics to deal with the increased demand and the increase in request for deliveries. We also aimed to get customers their orders much more quickly than before.
Then we opened our store.
The long and sort of it is that we have a huge new responsibility with the retail store. Everyone always suggested we open a store and it seems as if customers are now very happy they can just come in to pick up an item or two. We have a lot of new customers that come into the store having never heard of Blooms, as well as, customers that have known about us but were never able to shop online. All of this has increased the number of people who visit our website to see what we have to offer. This is great!
Unfortunately, with the increase in exposure has come a sharp increase in the number of online orders. I has become impossible for us to deliver the orders that come in daily from the website. We’ve been trying for the past few months, but we fear it’s having a negative effect on our customer service level.
The orders for one day can stretch from a mega-yacht in Chagaramas to an apartment in St. Ann’s, with several in between. Traffic is an ongoing concern and a major issue, as we sometimes will have no choice but to leave at a certain time to meet a customer’s deadline. Everyone knows in Trinidad that heading down a certain road at a certain time of day is the equivalent of suicide. This is even harder if we have promised several customers a delivery all at specific times. We have days where half a dozen people are upset because they were waiting at home for a delivery and Dominic was stuck in traffic for hours.
Blooms has increased the amount of customers and thus the demand for deliveries, but we have yet to increase our delivery capabilities. We aren’t a large company and we have realized it’s easier said, than done. We prefer to have customers deal with one of us personally, rather than a random guy we hire to make deliveries. In order for us to ‘hire’ someone that we will send to your home, it would have to be someone that we have known for a while and fully trust. You can’t really find that kind of person from running an Express Classified’s ad. So, it’s really not as simple for us to just hire a person to drive the orders around town and help alleviate the logistic pressure.
Our goal is to provide each of our customers with the very best possible service, at all times and with each order. At this point, we no longer feel we can maintain this standard with our home delivery system.
I know, I know, it sucks.
It seems that prior to opening a store, everyone wanted us to have store so they could just come in and pick-up what they needed. And now that we do have a store, that is still true for most of our customers. Most of our regular and new customers prefer to pop into the store to shop rather than order online and wait for us to show up. The store is easily accessible for most people and it’s very quick. Most of our old customers now just come in to shop, rather than ordering online and almost all say it’s much easier. (also, we have about 60+ items that aren’t even on our website)
So, as hard of a decision as it is, we have decided to put a hold on our home deliveries until future notice. We will continue to work on a solution to our logistical issues and we hope to have home deliveries back on track as soon as possible. We will figure out how we can efficiently home delivery our goods and still maintain the customer service you expect from Blooms.
Just a note: Over the years we have realized that a lot of our current customers utilize our delivery services because it’s difficult for them to visit the store due to physical limitations or a physical handicap. If you are one of those customers, we will be happy to continue to offer the delivery services.
You are still more than welcome to place your orders online (via the website) and pick-up (or send someone for it).
Thanks for understanding and we look forward to seeing you soon.
Jason, Raul, and Dominic