In this blog post, we would like to give some information about how your orders are prepared from start to finish, hopefully this will be a good read for those who have questions in mind.
- Customers choose their items and put them in their basket, few questions regarding site access is then answered and payment is processed by our customers.
- We receive payment confirmation e-mail and the order in our system.
- Sales team e-mails order confirmation back to our customers and send the order to the warehouse.
- Items are prepared on a pallet, packaged in a way to enable all items to support each other.
- Collection of the order is booked with the haulier.
- Warehouse staff take multiple photos before and after clear shrink wrapping and shipping.
- Hauliers collect and overnight (usually with next day delivery orders) distribute orders to the closest local depot to the delivery address.
- The local depot then, with next day delivery orders, will attempt deliveries without prior contact with the customer as the date of delivery is already chosen, with the economy deliveries the local depot will contact our customers to book in a specific day for delivery best suitable for our customer and make the delivery on this day.
Because we are a predominantly a web based company operating out of multiple warehouses, we find that using a third party haulier works best to achieve secure and swift deliveries of all our orders. They handle all our deliveries and work with local depots around the country. We do however also offer a collection service for customers that wish to collect from our warehouse, collection orders are requested via e-mail providing full billing address details, contact details and item/s details, collection orders are manually prepared by our sales team.
As a supplier of natural stones for over 2 decades now, we have developed methods of packaging and preparing orders to minimise the risk of damages, however due to the fragile nature of natural and man made stones, there is always that small risk of damages occurring during the haulage process, in any such cases, the clear shrink wrapping we use to wrap the orders enable our customers to easily visually and quickly inspect their orders with the ability to look through the wrapping and report any damages to the delivering driver before signing for their orders. We also always encourage our customers to tear into the wrapping to conduct an even better inspection of their order before signing for their orders. With the high number of orders we dispatch daily there are no issues on a large number of orders and the delivery of orders are very straight forward, this is also helped with the small questionnaire that is answered by our customers before the payment process on our website by customers providing information regarding access on site etc.
This information is passed onto our hauliers to enable better planning for the final stage of your delivery, i.e. from the local depot to the final destination however, on the small number of cases in comparison, if damages are noticed and informed to the delivering driver, this then qualifies the order for free replacements with free delivery or a refund, each individual case will be looked at in detail as to ensure that our customer receives the best level of service ensuring full satisfaction of their order.
We always encourage our customers to take and forward any relevant photos to us as quickly as possible, which are then forwarded to the hauliers for their records. Please remember the longer the time in reporting damages the more difficult it is for the hauliers to determine when the damages would have occurred and less likely that items will qualify for free replacements if there is any delay in the reporting, this again is due to the highly fragile nature of the items in question. This is why we always request from our customers to inspect orders as much as they can before signing for them and sending away the delivering driver.
Again in the majority of all reported damages they are dealt with by us and the hauliers as quickly and as swiftly as possible to ensure full satisfaction of our customers. Only on the rare occasions when we get damages reported after several weeks, this of course then make it very difficult to get the hauliers to agree that damages may have occurred during the haulage process which in turn means items usually then do not qualify for free replacements and free shipping.
We hope this blog helps explain the journey of your order.
