We Really Appreciate YOU! Unexpected Delays…..

Hi friends!

We are working around the clock, 7 days a week, to improve for you.  Please know that YOU are the heart of what we do and we appreciate YOU!

From time to time, the unexpected happens.  Right now, sadly, a few things are happening all at once.  :(  We are working through several issues while processing orders.

In an effort to strengthen logistics in our order processing system, late last year we knew the time was quickly coming to upgrade our shipping software.  After devoting almost a year in researching to find exactly the right partner, defining customer needs, and testing new processes, we implemented the new software on Saturday, October 14th.

The holiday season is approaching and we want to be prepared for YOU.  I’m not sure there is ever a convenient time to make a change, but we were hoping that with significant testing and working with experienced technical experts, we could minimize any order delays before the busy holiday shopping season.  In fact, we were hoping to have NO order delays. Unfortunately, this is not the case today.  However, it is just temporary.

The good news is, we have worked through MANY of the technical bugs that have caused shipping delays over the past 2 weeks.  The bad news is, we haven’t worked through ALL of them … just yet.

One delay that is very frustrating for you (and for us!) is that our systems are processing orders not necessarily in order of placement date.  That means, in addition to the downtime required for training our team and streamlining the processes – the delays are impacting YOU, our valued customers in random ways.  Please know that this makes us frustrated and sad because it is our mission to provide you with excellent service. We all feel the pain when we fall short.  We hope to be back to processing orders in chronological order in the immediate future.  Truth be told, I am really hoping that this happens within the next 24-48 hours.

Right now, we are working actively to push through the delays.  Our teams are getting better and becoming more efficient inside the new technology each day. The system itself is certainly improving.  We are super excited about the efficiency and speed that this new software is going to be able to allow us to offer you.  In the meantime however, we apologize for any order delays you may have experienced these past 2 weeks!

These are growing pains.  :(  They are hard for us all, but I just know that we will be better for it in the end.  Please know that we are making changes to be better for you. 

Thank you so very much for bearing with us while we gather ’round and push through these unexpected delays. We have invested significant time and resources in an effort to get better and will continue to do so. I am very sorry for your inconvenience and appreciate the opportunity to work in an industry surrounded by good, talented and genuinely kind people.

Sincerely,
Heidi
Simon Says Stamp Founder and Momma

Heidi Crowl
Founder of Simon Says Stamp. Crazy in Love with my hubby and life partner, Mommy of two fun(ny) kiddos, forever mom to our pup Simon who sadly passed over the Rainbow bridge, and a new mom to our family protector German Shepherd. Lover of all things art, craft, and stamp related. Goofball at heart.
  1. I love your company and this is such a busy time of year. I appreciate the explanation and know that you all will do the best you can. In any event SSS still offers the most variety, they have a great notification process when items texture to stock and typically have a pretty good shipping record. So this little problem won’t deter me, keep up the good work!!!

  2. I work in retail and this happens no matter how hard you test. Love sss and will continue to buy most of my scrapbook supplies from you. Love supporting a columbus based company. Good luck.

  3. Thank you so much for this explanation. Your company is always so prompt in sending orders. So I thought that perhaps I had hit a wrong button when trying to place my recent order. I am very happy to wait while you are undergoing changes in shipping. The products you sell are of very high quality and definitely worth waiting for. Thanks for all you do.

  4. Thanks for the update but hey, no worries. I placed an order on Oct 13 and I got an email Oct 23 stating that my order is on it’s way so that really isn’t so bad with all you’re dealing with. (Honestly, I’m just happy that I finally got one of the stamp sets and matching dies that I’ve wanted for quite a while). THANK YOU for all your hard work. I really do appreciate the effort that you and your company put in for your customers. A loyal customer from Canada.

    1. While I understand growing pains, I feel a little more effort should be put into staying in contact with your customers. I placed an order on Oct 13 and have had no contact, email or anything else except for when I called your customer service number a few days ago. I was told nothing about when the order might ship and it still just shows “processing.” I sent an email to customer service a couple days ago and did not get any response from that. I’m feeling very disappointed and hope that I will be able to get my fun toys soon. Signed, anxious to play with new toys in Arizona.

  5. I appreciate that you even write about it here on blog, so we know what to expect.:) I know, I hate “upgrading process”. It takes time for the new system to settle, and then training. Once everything gets settled, then, it will be super fabulous!! I went through only half a year ago, for the company I was working for. Meanwhile, everybody suffers, employees and customers are alike. So no worries. Again, thanks for this post :)

  6. I appreciate you contacting us. I understand the complexities of running a business and having to update to better serve your customers. Just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine.

  7. I haven’t placed an order, but respect you so much for the honest explanation. Transparency is key and clearly you’ve got that down pat! Here’s to easier days ahead and hoping everything sorts out for the best soon. ?

  8. Thanks for the update. While I appreciate you for taking the time to update us and to explain what’s happening, please also understand that it is also very normal for customers to feel frustrated. Sorry to tell that I am now very disappointed, my recent order placed is still under “processing” and now I cannot imagine how much longer I need to wait for my goodies to arrive. I need those items all for my Christmas projects and I have reserved time for international shipment, but just didn’t buffer time for your system delay. I have no hope now to receive them soon plus allowing myself sufficient time for Christmas projects. Of course it is easy to comment that I can still pick up other stamps for Christmas cards, but if I have paid that huge shipment cost and the fact that we wont get any compensation for this delay, this is definitely not what I am expecting from the customer service. I know this is painful to you too, and that you have tried your very best to make things back to track again. Good luck to us!

  9. Transparency is great and I also appreciate the update, however, this could have been handled differently. The lesson to be learned here is it is better to be proactive. While I totally get that IT updates sometimes take on a life of their own and catch us by surprise, this post should have been published prior to your upgrade. Placed my order on October 17th and although I did receive a response to my email, this response did nothing to address my question about a potential shipment date.

  10. It would of been nice to know prior to the installation of this new software so people could of made an informed decision on placing orders with you or another online shop while you worked out your bugs. Thanks for the update and shipping my order (finally). Best of luck. I will shop again in a few months to see if there is an improvement because my last 3 recent orders shipping times haven’t impressed me much

  11. Waited nearly a month for my order. Some communication from SSS would have been nice during that time. I’m pretty much done with this company.

  12. Since you knew you were going to upgrade you should have advised customers during the ordering process that there may be delays due to this upgrade; especially now that your company has been made aware by current customers that we are still waiting on merchandise. I think that is kind of sneaky. It seems you are not be transparent because you didnt want us to go elsewhere to shop..even though you are now VERY aware of the long processing time.

  13. Although it is good that you acknowledged you have significant order fulfillment and shipping issues, as your customer, I would rather have had a more informative response as to when I can expect my order. For example all orders received prior to 10/20 will be shipped by xx date. All orders placed after 10/20 will ship within xx days of the order date. You should also have a notice on your shop ordering site until you can meet your standard service levels. I placed my order after your install and you would have known at that time you had significant issues. I would have still ordered from you but would have waited until you were back up to speed. Now I’m afraid the credit card bill will arrive long before I even get my order. Your communication still provides me no clue as to whether my order may be another week out from being shipped or even longer.

  14. I have to say your shipping is always so lightening fast I did wonder where my order was, can’t imagine you are going to be even quicker! So great of you to explain what sounds like a nightmare. I hope you and your team don’t get too stressed! I think all of us can wait a little, let’s be honest we probably all have 5 billion stamp sets and other crafty goodness that haven’t had any love, we can occupy our time while we wait. Hope things get sorted for you guys soon :)

  15. Thank you for letting us know about the system upgrade. The explanation doesn’t specifically indicate when the new upgrade took place but I can tell you from personal experience that shipping delays is nothing new for your company. It is unreasonable to expect your customers to continue to pay $8 (or more) for shipping when the orders are not being shipped in an expedient manner. Reaching out to your customers personally when you know there are going to be shipping delays would probably be appreciated. I am hoping the system upgrade brings positive changes, until then I will be shopping elsewhere.

  16. While I appreciate this (better late than never) response, I must agree with many of the statements made above. If you knew you were planning something it would have been more beneficial to us if you had said something. The same way you’re still sending out email advertisements and with the same gusto that you’re posting on Facebook, a simple notice would have sufficed. It was not an oversight, your company should have let us know there would be a possible delay even if one never occurred. But to have people chasing you for information you’ve had for a long time is unacceptable. This was my first time ordering with SSS and I am truly disappointed. You took away my choice to make an informed decision and I don’t like it at all.

  17. While I do love SSS stamps and the ability to get pretty much everything I need in one place, this shipping issue has been very discouraging. I have emailed customer service twice and got the same generic response with no date of when my order placed on 10/12 will ship. I have a retreat this weekend and had planned to use my new supplies to make Christmas projects, so I though I had ordered in plenty of time.
    So my $168 order still sits and says “processing” laike it has for the past week.
    And to make matters worse, I live 20 minutes away from your office and can’t even come to you to pick it up. I think a shipping refund would be helpful

  18. I placed my very first order here just before your shipping update (Oct 13th). I had to wait 12 days for it to finally ship, and just received it today, nearly 2 weeks total. I was very disappointed in the long wait. Also, I have to say I was disappointed to have to go find this communication in the blog – an email to your customers, especially those who placed orders that were affected, would have been a much better way to go.

    1. That’s what I said! I spent almost $200 and all I got was a generic response saying thwy upgraded the sistem and they where training people with the new system. I would of appreciate it if the would’ve let me known before I placed my order that there will be delays due to this. No, they just today sent me an email with the link to this blog post! Why didn’t they sent it to each particular customer? Very frustrating experience, and this have been going on way before Oct 14th like they are saying here, my previous orders where in September and they were already having problems.

  19. although it is nice to have an explanation of the recent delay of my order, i have never found your customer service to be very good – especially the slow delivery of orders and at a higher shipping cost than many other companies. your company has not been my first choice for ordering my supplies and now will remain so.

  20. Growing pains are a pain. I agree with the other disappointed customers. I did place a phone call and left a message. Although I received an apology email within 24 hours, I was referred to this blog. This is bad business. Other companies that I order from post a message for delays right on their website — which immediately seen (such as weather delays, etc.). The other beef I have is SSS takes your money right away. EVERY other company I buy from waits to finalize payment transfer upon shipping my order. BUT a preauthorization will expire if it’s not claimed promptly (varies from card company or bank).

    I agree shipping has almost always taken more time than all the other sites I frequent. I believe you’ve needed a bigger team for quite some time. I never say never but, we’ll see where it goes from here. Not really feeling like a valued buyer/important customer.

  21. The communication is terrible. Please take this with the intent it is meant, to be helpful from a customer standpoint.. not to just complain.

    I placed 3 orders within this last week, none have shipped and I was wondering why it was taking so long. I stumbled upon one of your posts from my facebook feed where someone asked what was going on and someone said read the blog and nicely included a link.

    If I was not on facebook there was no way I would have known this was going on. I don’t read the blogs daily, not enough time in my life right now. WHY couldn’t an email be sent? I even sent an email last week immediately after placing one of those orders asking if I could add an item that I forgot. I received a response saying NO, ok but couldn’t that person have included something about your shipping issues? I walked away thinking “that sucks, they are so terrible with shipping anyway I need to quit ordering from them” when with communication on your end I could have been thinking “bummer but next time should be so much better with their updates”.

  22. Look Guys. They do not want to give you the updates and info to much ahead of time because they want you to keep ordering never mind how long you have to wait for your order. This is not very nice.

  23. I do appreciate this message and love your selection, but I agree with some of the previous comments. My order is still in processing, almost 2 weeks after I placed the order. I was thinking that I might need to call, so I appreciate the explanation. However, I have no idea if I should expect this in the next week, 2 weeks, etc. Wish I knew.

  24. I am in agreement. I’ve been waiting two weeks. Christmas cards need to be started and I have no idea if it’s going to be one more week or three. I don’t know that I’ll order from you again. Do you hear your customers. Your not getting g good reviews on the stamping boards either. You really need to work on this it’s a problem. If I could cancel my order I would. Very disappointed.

  25. Poor customer service. I’ve had long processing and shipping times all year so it cannot just be this update that’s the problem. Will there be any compensation for the people that have to wait so long? The way I see it I could just shop at all the other sites, get free shipping, and get my stuff delivered within 3 days. I thought SSS would be a convenient alternative to shopping all over…guess I was wrong.

  26. I am another customer that is not real pleased with the slow shipping. If shipping was going to be delayed, a note of it should have been made on the Simon Says Stamp homepage.

    I have several orders placed that should have been mailed out by now.

  27. Good luck to all with implementing the new software and new was of working! You’ve always managed so you will again!

  28. I am not a regular reader of your blog and would not have known of your growing pains were it not for a fellow customer on another board. I have an order placed on 10-14 (today is 10-27) that finally shows “complete,” but have received no email regarding its being shipped. I have another ordered 10-17 still showing as “processing.” This is unacceptable. Your silence to those of us waiting is unacceptable. I am not happy. I expect much better service given the high shipping charges from your site. I’m not sure you’re worth the cost anymore.

  29. Lucky me..first time customer. Why? got sick of Amazon, and the long wait for packages, if you didn’t have prime. So I order from your company..and so I wait again! Grrrrrr The search goes on.

  30. I ordered from a ” scrapbooking store ” in July, still don’t have my stuff. Your doing great! Thanks for keeping the customers informed. It makes a difference. Good luck. Love your store.

  31. Well, we all like our toys and with local stamp art stores having less and less inventory, we the consumer are forced to shop online. A heads-up would have been nice. I couldn’t understand how a pacific northwest company shipped faster than a company from Ohio. I was in an interactive class thinking I was going to get my toys before class ended. It is true I can always use what I bought, however, it is too late for me to upload my artwork for class. This situation is really unfortunate, nobody wins here. Until you get the shipping kinks worked out, I’ll be placing orders with another company. Good luck. I know I’ll be back to ordering from you but it will take time.

  32. I understand things happen, but you should advice people of this problem, so we can make our own decisions.
    And then l ask how long more l have to wait, and your answer is… We have no idea, this is not good.

  33. As much as I appreciate the explanation I have to say I echo a lot of the disappointment and frustration noted in the replies. Maybe as a next time you give your customers a heads up…I have a project as well that requires items in the pending order and as much as I work in time for delays such as this we are looking at the end of October approaching and it makes it extremely difficult and stressful for those that have deadlines such as shipping to friends overseas…I would love to see how your customer service will deal with those that are impacted.
    I will however say that I do enjoy the selection you offer and will continue to be a customer of Simon Says Stamp…as I hope that this one experience doesn’t leave a bad taste for future orders.

  34. While the explanation and apology are appreciated, it really is a little too late. NO one implements new shipping programs without frustrations and upsets. You should have mentioned the upcoming switch to your customers BEFORE the problems started to happen.

    I love supporting smaller companies like yours and you have wonderful products. But every time I order from you it’s an effort in frustration. Wait times are far too long, outrageous shipping charges ($7 for first class mail that cost less than $2 mail) and paper bent to fit into packaging.

  35. I’m glad to know why my orders are taking so long to ship.
    I totally understand this. I used to be software project manager and sometimes all the testing in the world doesn’t find all the glitches. And yes growing hurts sometimes.
    Thank you for the information about what is going on in your business.
    P.S. I need to log into the blog!

  36. My first time ordering from your company . I just read all the previous comments , I must say I’m not at all impressed with the customer service . When I attempted to locate my order, I got a message “An error” . I tried to call Customer Service, there was no one to help.

  37. Have the experienced technical experts that are implementing your upgrade never heard of parallel processing when installing a new system?

    I agree with many other comments here that there should have been a statement on your website that there may be delays in shipping. Right now, I would like to know how much longer the delay before my order is shipped. I was ordering some of these items for my Thanksgiving cards.

  38. Thanks for letting us know! I really appreciate it. I hope that you get it all figured out. Changing software systems is always a pain! Please post when you get the bugs out, and I will make an order!

  39. I’m just so frustrated!!I ordered on Oct 12th…OCT 12! It still says my order is processing! In the meantime they have my $168!! Now mind you, I live in Columbus, Ohio about 20 minutes from their offices! I’ve emailed twice and have only gotten generic responses. I asked if I could come there to pick it up…NOPE!

    I placed an order at Ellen Hutson on Oct 24 and it got here today! 3 days!! And they are in Washington State!! ALmost the other side of the country!!

    Everything in my order at SSS is their exclusives. Another product of their’s that I wanted just came back in stock. Too bad, because I really like it but I will not order from them again.

    I really expect some kind of compensation for this screw up, free shipping maybe? I paid $8 to have them ship something 20 minutes down the street…seems like the same amount as people who live across the country.

    Also, there have been no responses from SSS to any of these complaints and that alone makes me want to stop doing business with them.

    Ok, rant over! Thanks for listening.

    PS. I placed an order for some dies on Oct 9th from China and they arrived today as well. CHINA!! 18 days people!! I’m going on 16 days with SSS

  40. I too must voice my frustration with sss and their customer service. I’ve placed a few orders and every one I’ve had to contact them days after to learn the status. I work for a company that takes orders and ships SAME DAY when possible. I cannot imagine leaving any customer hanging for almost 2 weeks with no update on their order! My coworkers and I often talk about how good Customer Service is really dying out, and I must say I use sss as an example. You can say you value your customers all day long, but actions speak louder than words ever will. I will think twice before placing another order.

  41. Finally got a notification that my package is shipping today. Got a tracking number. No niceties. No, “we’re sorry for the delay”. Literally “Your order is shipping today. Tracking number xxxxxxxxxx” WOW – talk about a dismal job of customer satisfaction. I really liked your store, but no more. Not even to apologize ONCE in the emails. I have to contact you to find out what is going on and all I get is a link to this blog post, no apology, no “let us try to make up for the delays by….” Nothing. Wow.

  42. I am also waiting for my order – all items I am planning to take to a crop coming up. Silly me – I thought I would get my order in at least 2 weeks, not knowing there was going to be delays because nothing proactive was posted when you place an order. The only response I get from your team is another copy of this “We appreciate you” email. Now I have to scramble to find these items elsewhere online, and my guess is that I won’t be able to cancel my order with SSS before it finally does ship. Really bad customer service.

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