Well there was the quilt batting. It was sitting there calling out to me . . "Deliver Me" . . . "Deliver Me"! It had been making such an urging since the shipment arrived just the other afternoon and was catalogued and allocated to orders to fulfill the next day.
So, wanting to do the WholesaleQuiltBattings.com Customers the right thing, I was up before the crack of dawn organizing the battings and fabrics that were in line to be shipped. After my first cup of coffee my pace increased as all the pieces fell into place to get the orders out the door to our valued customers.
The packaging including wrapping and boxing of all the quilt battings and fabrics for the days pending orders were ready to go! There were only two one more things to do, prepare the labels and deliver the fulfilled orders as quickly as possible to the various shippers to get them on their way to my customers.
Yet lady luck was not smiling for a dedicated merchant trying to satisfy his customers. The first label for a 4 Yard Order of Warm and Natural Quilt Batting wouldn't print through our e-commerce system. Our internet technology support was contacted only to find out that the problem had nothing to do with our system, but rather the FedEx postage server was down.
Though I was frustrated I was far from deterred. I immediately logged on to FedEx.com with the company account, went to print my first label only to be advised by the man behind the FedEx.com Wizard behind the curtain that the system was "currently unavailable and to try again later."
While I wanted to take the time to call FedEx and tell them how pleased I was that I couldn't use one of the world's largest shippers when customers are waiting for their products. Yet quilt batting waits for no man, woman or child.
I shifted gears and re-entered the ecommerce area of our webstore to use UPS as the shipper though in this case it would cost the company more money than projected for the free shipping budget. Is it impossible? The same scenario occurred. I kid you not. The production server for UPS was down both through my WholesaleQuiltBattings.com order fulfillment area in its back office AND when I logged on at UPS.com. I received the identical information to "try the system again later."
Now, two options remained. I go to each of the local carriers and purchase each individual label and ship the products with manual labels or I use USPS.com for the shipping. Shipping on USPS.com strangely resulted in a loss on each of the orders that had been received. It left me with no option but to go with the manual labels at the actual shipping centers but time was now running short on a Saturday to meet the last outgoing shipment for the day.
One carrier needed to be selected. I chose one and prepared the manual labels on the free FedEx Labels we have in stock and rushed to get them ready. Just before leaving to go to the FedEx facility I called to ask them to hold the pickup 5 minutes if necessary because I was on my way after I loaded the customer orders for shipping.
The shipping clerk recognized my voice and asked me why I was coming in with manual labels so late. I explained the predicament only to be informed that I could not use our company account rates if I was not going to be presenting shipments with manual labels. I was a bit fit to be tied at that point. I quickly gave the shipping clerk the dimensions and weights of the customer shipments and asked for the standard shipping rates as opposed to my company contractual rates. The rates resulted in a company loss on each and every sale to be shipped. It couldn't be done with the outstanding budgetary limits at standard rates.
So ended the story. FedEx and UPS Shipping technology and the contractual rates that go with the online accounts were worthless without the FedEx and UPS servers online and they were necessary to meet our Free Shipping limitations financially. FedEx and UPS had literally stopped WholesaleQuiltBattings.com dead in its tracks from shipping its orders because both companies were simultaneously "offline" and our company account for ecommerce processing shipping could not be used at a physical facility. A bad time to learn a hard lesson about FedEx.
So, with all of this said, WholesaleQuiltBattings.com is dedicated to delivering the highest level of security, and the most affordable products, with free shipping in a timely fashion. Yet having exhausted all the options available today, orders that were ready to ship could not go anywhere thanks to outages for two major shippers' websites.
My apologies go out to all my quilt batting and fabrics customers who are waiting for their orders whose products are here and ready to go. You order was delayed today for no other reason than that the two major shippers in the USA had shipping technology that decided to take the day off. I wish I had control over that for you my dear customers, but I was left at their mercy.
Orders should be shipped Monday as it would be a huge loss to UPS and FedEx for their production servers to be "unavailable" or "offline" longer than Sunday evening.
My special thanks to all WholesaleQuiltBattings.com customers for their patience.
Christopher Pearsall, Owner/General Counsel
WholesaleQuiltBattings.com
176 Blackrock Road
Coventry, RI 02816
(800) 808-5767 (Phone and Fax)
"Providing Old Fashioned Customer Service using New Fangled Technology."
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