The latest delivery update, and other news too.

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A bit behind plan.

Hi everyone,

Sorry this month’s delivery update is a bit behind plan. I normally try to get one of these out around the last weekend of each month, but, I’m about 2 weeks behind with it. Partly this is because I was doing a massive overhaul of the back of house of the website, and our paperwork system (more on this below), and also because I wanted to get the first week of bulk deliveries going out completed so I had a better idea of how the new systems work and iron out any teething problems.

There’s been quite a lot of changes over the last 9 weeks, so I’m going to split this update into two parts.

Part 1

This is going to be a brief summary of where we are at so that everyone can know what’s going on with deliveries etc, without needing to wade through lots of text.

Part 2

I’ll then go into things in a bit more detail, and include a short FAQ too, which I will put out as a separate blog later this week.

Part 1 - Deliveries, and other news.

A brief summary of where we are at.

June deliveries - We got out quite a few June deliveries last week, there are more going out this coming week too, although they haven’t all been booked yet. I’m currently about 2 weeks behind the original plan, but, at least 75%+ of all June delivery orders will be out by next weekend. If you chose June delivery, but, haven’t had a delivery date booked yet please bear with me I’m working through it as quickly as I can. There shouldn’t be many June deliveries left by next weekend, and any that are left I’ll contact you individually. There is more detailed information on this in part 2 below for those wanting to know more.
July deliveries - A small number of July deliveries went out last week, a few more are going out this week. We should be on track for 90%+ of all items currently on order for July delivery to be delivered by the end of July.
Booking deliveries out - Around February time we switched from a system of booking out deliveries 3-7 days in advance to booking out all the deliveries for the following 3 weeks in big 3 week blocks (I’ll go into more detail in Part 2), but, essentially that created problems so we’re now going to a hybrid system of booking deliveries out only 3-10 days ahead.
Add to my order - Following a trial of the new system this is now back. How this now works is if you have a current order you can place a new order with a minimum order value of £20 (before any credit notes etc are applied).
Free delivery - We do free delivery on all orders of £59 or more (this might change later this week). The system isn’t smart enough to tell if you have an existing order or not, so it is possible to place an order for £20 to £58 even if you have no other orders. But, it then won’t trigger a delivery being arranged until the orders total £59 or more (this amount might change this week). I try to spot anyone that drops into this and let them know. You can then either order more to bring it up to £59, or if you didn’t want to spend £59 I can refund it. This only applies to new customers, so if you had a part delivery and still have some things remaining then you will still get them delivered even if they total less than £59. hopefully that makes sense.
Part deliveries - For those not familiar with our system your order(s) may arrive split into two (or more) deliveries. We do this to avoid delays on 1 or more items holding up your whole order, and also so that we don’t have loads of stuff here that we have to keep track of being for orders. If 50%+ of your stuff is here it’s less work for us to send you the things that are here, than to keep track of who has what. This also means you get at least some of your stuff faster rather than having to wait until it is all here (sometimes the other items are here just not ready to go yet I’ll cover this more in part 2). Generally we try to only book out a delivery if 50%+ of your items are ready to go (either value or number of items).
Aftercare emails - Once your box has been packed and I know exactly what was in it I’ll email you a list of what we sent and what is to follow. I try to do this after the box has left the building, and before the box arrives with you, but, sometimes the box arrives before the email does. Don’t worry if this happens, the email will come shortly afterwards.
Refund glitches - A few week’s ago I discovered some errors with some card transactions. They took a lot of tracking down, but, I discovered 29 glitched card transactions out of the 4,000 plus card transactions since 1st December 2022 (we’ve now changed card merchant from Stripe to PayPal because of these problems). I thought I had caught all of them, but, today found 6 more. If you have cancelled your order, and, it is 28 days or more since we confirmed the refund, but, it’s not in your account yet please email me at jamesgoodchild@live.com if possible including your order numbers, and the date we confirmed your cancellation. The vast majority do complete within 28 days, so if it’s less than 28 days please wait until 28 days since we confirmed the cancellation.
New Main menu button - See lower down this page.
VIP mailing list - Something special coming later this week. If you haven’t already signed up to our VIP mailing list it’s worth doing so now so you don’t miss out (button below).

Click HERE to find out more about our VIP mailing list

To follow in Part 2 later this week.

As this is already longer than planned I’ll cover the other news in Part 2 later this week.

Me - Update on my arm situation. In brief it’s much better than it was, I can now do 95% of things such as; type, drive, pack boxes, etc. It does still hurt a bit, and I’ve still got a lump of bone sticking out of the side of my wrist, but, it’s much better than it was.
Thanks - Many thanks to the many hundreds of people that sent me well wishes. I was intending to reply to everyone individually, but, there have been so many hundreds (maybe even over 1,000 people) it will be impossible to reply to everyone individually. Thank you though everyone, it was very much appreciated.
Revisions to “The Sump” - More in Part 2.
FAQ - Some answers to our most asked questions.
Web changes - Loads of back of house web changes done, more being done, and a huge change upcoming. It looks as though in a few weeks/months we may be able to move the shop part of the website from Squarespace to Shopify, more in Part 2.
Systems & paperwork changes - Huge changes to back of house operations, more in Part 2.
Lease - The 2 years+ long legal dispute over the lease looks as though it might finally be resolved later this month, yay! More in Part 2.
New things coming in July - Several new things coming this month with our new ECOSYSTEM 7 coral packs (the first 2 are now live online), a new Seashell shop page, a vast new range of Refugium packs, a new WYSIWYG coral system, etc.
MANBUY - This will be coming back sometime in July/August (more likely to be August), and possibly 1 or 2 other new shop styles too.
Things for the little ones - A new part of the website for children with reef related activities you can do together. I’m hoping to have this in place in time for the school summer holidays.
More Salty Revolution products - A little bit about the new Salty revolution merch coming out in August, and our massively extended dry goods range which should be ready for release late August/early Sept.
New shop systems - A little sneak preview of some of the new shop systems coming in a few months time, including (most exciting of all) the new shop display tanks, woohoo, finally!
Coral farm news - The amount of corals being farmed has increased quite a bit over the last 2 months, with now over 100 types of coral (mainly rarer soft corals) now on farm. More in Part 2.
Live videos coming back again! - Yep! More in Part 2.
Other stuff - All the other news. I did say there had been a lot of news!