SFR, Inc.

[locohost]

Most of us are more than over anxious to get our orders. How'bout this: Give us a button to add an $8 "rush fee" or call it a "tip for Miss Tiffany" to our order total. If we add this, our order gets moved up into a priority pack-n-ship line in front of all other orders (except still kept in queue with the other rush orders) and will be in the postman's hands within 2 days. You would need to put an early morning deadline on these orders. Say the order must be in no later than 9am EST or something. And here's the awesome part... Miss Tiffany gets to pocket all these fees! I don't know what your monthly order volume is, but this could add up to a sweet monthly check for her. Sweeter than chocolate I bet!

[MissTiffany]

I love the idea myself!

[yvesvanherp]

Nice idea.

I can add that fee AND some Belgian chocolates in the mix, so I will maybe come first of those who added the fee! Wouldn't that be nice, Miss Tiffany?
_________________
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die! (H.P. Lovecraft)

[locohost]

I'm not sure if $8 is the right price point. I just guessed. You'd want the "tip" to be enough so that the right number of people would click it. If the fee is too low, too many buyers will click, then Miss Tiffany would make a lot of money but most likely could not make the 2-day commitment. If the fee is too high then barely anyone will click it, then Miss Tiffany doesn't gain much.

Mark

[cliffwiggs]

As Mr.Tiffany I have to agree with this concept.

As Mr. SFR, I have to point out that we don't want to appear to be taking advantage of our customers. i.e. "we will ship your order out someday, unless you wanna slip us a 5-spot..." Its like the $1 ebay auction with $30 shipping and handling. Thats just wrong.

Just an FYI - a common complain we get is that 'the order sits in your offices for days before its shipped'.

Most people on the forum realize that the shipping department is one-two people (who only spend a few hours a week doing it and get no compensation) and 'offices' is just another word for 'back room'.

However, most of our customers are not part of the forum and to them we are just like amazon or any other retailer.

We are doing what we can to increase the visibility to order status.
_________________
Multiplayer Champion Gencon11/Battlefest Champion(tied) GenCon10/World Champion GenCon07/National Champion Origins05/Intermediate Champion GenCon02/Novice Champion Origins99

[locohost]

Mmmm, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. SFR

It's nothing like the $1 eBay auction with $30 shipping. Those auctions are incredibly annoying. There are many web stores out there that have a small "rush processing" fee. This isn't my brand new idea. One store that comes to mind: Newegg.com has a $3 rush fee and your order is guaranteed to go out next day.

I think if you poll us, you'll find many of us will pay a small extra fee to move to the front of the shipping queue. Especially when we know the order could take 2 - 3 weeks. Right?

Also, many years ago I had a gaming products web store. I used to pack mountains of boxes to ship out every few days. That is a truly terrible job so I do sympathize with Miss Tiffany. Doing that job for free would suuuuuuuck

IMHO $5 to $8 is a fair fee to get my box out the door more quickly. Charge $7 and put $2 of every fee toward boxes and packing supplies and give $5 to Miss Tiffany. I'd bet big this will make a lot of people happy.

Mark

[MikeD]

Unless you have a dedicated shipping person whose only job is to process orders nothing changes in how orders are shipped, because let's say everyone pays the expedited shipping charge. Now we are back to the situation we are in now where everyone is in the same queue and the order gets out when it comes to the top of the list. Plus, with the quick ship guarantee, Miss Tiffany (and Mr. Tiffany) get MUCH less sleep because they will be spending all their nights fulfilling orders to get them out by the quick ship deadline (Cause if they don't then everyone is upset that they paid extra and didn't get quick ship and I can see where State A.G.s and consumer protection persons would come to bear VERY quickly - not good for business). Plus, those who don't get quick ship may never see their order since it will never come to the top of the list due to new quick ship orders coming in. Please cut the shipping department a break - they do have day jobs after all and a family to raise. Just be thankful they have volunteered so much of their lives to keeping Dragon Dice alive, without them and some others (Chuck and Mrs. Pint to name 2) Dragon Dice would be in the same shape as the other CDGs that came out around the same time as Dragon Dice did.
_________________
Michael DeZearn
BUY MORE DICE!

[locohost]

[chuckpint]

Both Cliff (treasurer) and I (president) as the two operating officers of the company have been working on a solution to this problem. Since this is now a public discussion, I'd like to see want others think of some of the solutions that Cliff and I have discussed.

Base assumption here:
While Tiffany tries to ship once a week every week, sometimes she just can't find the time. So she needs a two week window of ship times.

Possible solutions:

1. Change the shopping cart software to display "shipping by x/x/x" instead of just showing "packing" for days on end.
2. Put up a HUGE text screen that requires another click that tells you your package will not ship for up to two weeks.
3. Put up a picture of a cute puppy, and tell people that if they complain the puppy gets it.*

* #3 was a [bad] attempt at humor and should not be taken seriously.

Problems with the solutions:

1. Writing new code takes time and testing, and Cliff and I are already busy. If there are any PHP programmers out there that can help, we'll take it.
2. While this is fairly easy to do, nobody pays any attention to this stuff. They forget they even saw it after about 5 seconds.
3. Not serious, not going to happen, forget I said it (see 5 second rule above)

All that said, we'd rather work toward an acceptable solution than piss off our customers. We know that each of you are our best sales persons for the game. We don't want to turn you into our worst enemies....
_________________
You can never have too many dice.
First Place at the first ever Daemon Dice sealed starter tournament.
Battlefest tied for first GenCon 2012
Single Race Champion GenCon 2008-2009, Sealed Box Champion GenCon 2007,2009,
My collection is 21,500 Dragon Dice, 20,000 Daemon Dice, and others (too many to count).

[locohost]

Perhaps you could add $5 - $8 to every order and bring in a family friend or even a neighbor kid or two in the evenings to help pack and label boxes? This would greatly expedite shipping. Pay the help with these fees.

Just ideas, don't yell at me Mike!

Mark

[cliffwiggs]

[locohost]

Forgot to mention...

I make my living working as an "IT Consultant" for a firm in Washington DC. We're a Microsoft Gold Partner so it's been a while since I did any PHP but honestly there is no programming, database, or web dev task I couldn't help with. I'm willing to help any time

[cliffwiggs]

[shoesan]

[cliffwiggs]

[yvesvanherp]

Having to raise a family all of you, I do understand the time problem, after all "real life" comes always first in my book! And who are we - the customers - to tell those people how they should run a business they already saved from going to the far bottom of the ocean?

I thought in fact this thread started as kind of a joke. That's why I mentioned "Belgian chocolates". I think SFR is doing very well, let us all give them the "time" they need to grow into something bigger.

By the way, I ordered myself a few times from SFR and I can guarantee that my orders reached my doorstep very fast ... even that far away. I wish the Belgian mail would work as well!

So I should say, keep up the good work and things will go just fine, but that's only my two cents!

Günter
_________________
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die! (H.P. Lovecraft)

[shoesan]

[MissTiffany]

You sparked my interest in the chocolate as I have never had that particular kind before!

I like this idea but I think 8$ an order is a bit much myself.

[locohost]