More Changes, Fixes, and Improvements
The never-ending struggle to run an online retail company during a world-stopping pandemic continues! Here are some updates about what’s been happening behind the scenes. Well, some of it… There’s more happening than I care to get into.
New Shippers
I’ve spent the last couple months setting up new shippers in Washington to replace the ones I had in Virginia. The practical side of this is everything that had been shipping from Virginia on the East Coast will now ship from Washington on the West Coast. If you’re outside of the US, that probably doesn’t matter to you. The more important thing, though, is that orders will be shipping out more quickly and consistently, and there should be far fewer issues with those orders. Most of you probably have no idea why I’d mention this, but for the many of you that [understandably and rightfully] complained about late, missing, or incorrect orders, I have indeed rectified the situation.
For those of you whose orders have gone missing, I’m still untangling that. I’ve got replacements going out but it’s taking a lot of time to clear things up. Some orders have been delayed due to parts being unavailable, which is a addressed in the next section.
New Inventory Management
While setting up my new shippers, I also set up a new inventory management system to better track the amount of inventory I have on my own shelves. There are still a lot of kinks to work out so it’s not quite perfect yet, but it should help customers know if something is or isn’t actually on the shelf and ready to ship. The hard part of this is adding inventory back in when shipments come in so, if anything, the Online Store may say a product is on backorder when it actually isn’t.
Many things will still be shipping from distributors or manufacturers, and listing their availability is outside of my control as I don’t have access to their own internal inventory management systems. To alleviate this as best as I can, I’m adding sections to all product listings to say where the item ships from. I’ve got a ton of listings so it may take a while to add the extra info to all of them, but I’m working on it!
Please keep in mind that the world is still seriously messed up so there are lots of delays for getting some parts in stock. I’ve had a few items from Aston Martin take as long as two or three months to get in.
I’m also trying to expand the variety of items I keep on my own shelves to improve my control of product availability, but that plan has had a bit of a delay given the massive financial hit I’ve just taken moving things from Virginia to Washington while simultaneously dealing with numerous missing shipments. Once I recover, I’ll continue stockpiling as much as I can.
Online Store Checkout
I finally got around to fixing part of the layout of my Online Store to make it look a bit more clean. It’s a small thing, but it bugged the hell out of me so I’m listing it as a big win.
More importantly, though, is that I’ve added a new required checkbox to the checkout page to acknowledge the Redpants Terms & Conditions. There are links to the Terms & Conditions on every single page of Redpants and the Online Store but they often go unnoticed. Nobody likes to read those things, but I’ve had to write them because issues can and do happen. Most of what’s in there is to clarify that I can only do so much when something is outside of my control (customs duties for international shipments, or dealing with a carrier that loses or damages a shipment, etc).
There’s nothing nefarious going on in the Terms & Conditions, but feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
New Product Updates
I’m now offering Hawk HPS 5.0 brake pads in 6-piston sizing! Until now, these were only available for the 4-piston front and 4-piston rear brake systems. With the new sizing, the Hawk HPS 5.0 can be fit to most Aston Martins from the 2004 DB9 through the New Vantage with non-CCM rotors. Check the listings for fitment info to make sure you’re getting the right pads for your car.
I’ve made a listing for Redpants engine intake filters but have them listed as sold out for the time being. My manufacturer expects to have them ready for me around the beginning of January and I’ll update the listing once they arrive. I’m not going to list them as available or ready for pre-order because delays can (and very, very often do) create more problems than it’s worth.