Eileens Emporium Newsletter October 2020

[Derek Russan]

 

Once again we at Eileens Emporium would like to thank all our customers for their support and tolerance during these very hard times.

We hope you are keeping safe and well, thankfully we are all fit and healthy here. We are very grateful for all of the incoming orders, please be patient with us as they are often taking longer to process than usual due to sheer volume of orders and supply issues.

Changes at Eileens

We have been working hard to improve our ability to deliver a better service to our customers. Recent times have caused an increase in demand as so many customers are isolating or are at home more. Also there have been shutdowns in many of our suppliers causing supply issues. The result is that the supply chain has been sucked dry of many items. Many specialist suppliers are taking far longer to deliver than normal causing a backlog of orders in our office. It takes far less time and effort to send an order than dealing with it if we are unable to complete the order. We are trying to keep all customers up to date on the status of their order within 3 to 4 days of placing the order, but there have been times when we have been so overloaded that this target has slipped. Most customers seem to be very understanding, and we are sorry if we have not met your expectations in this area.

One of the changes we have made is to move the website to a more modern platform. You will see some minor improvements, including guest checkout, but the biggest change is behind the scenes where things are now much more manageable and maintainable. Please note that if you have previously registered you are not able to use the same email address for guest checkout. We are investigating what we can do about this.

One question we are sometimes asked is why we do not show clearly what items are in stock and which are to order. We really would love to be able to do this and are still looking for solutions to this. Apart from a very heavy load that would be involved in maintaining this (we now have about 12000 items on the site) the first reason is that a lot of products are derived from other products, many packed items are available in different quantity packs. The website is not smart enough to show how many 10 and how many 100 packs we have when we only have a total of 200 of them in stock. Another reason is that in more normal times it is not possible to keep the stock level live when we sell items at Exhibitions.

So rather than try to get the stock level live on the website, we are making changes to our systems to improve our stock control so as we are less likely to run out of items. This will never be perfect as we still see occasional orders for larger quantities than we normally hold, but it will make a difference long term.

We have also changed our telephone system so we now have more lines available. This did cause a few teething issues but these are now resolved. It enables calls to be answered by more members of staff, and also voicemail messages can be accessed more quickly.

You may also have noticed that we are now printing barcoded labels for Royal Mail shipments. This improves the speed and accuracy of shipping items. Further improvements are being made to make this process more directly linked to the website to reduce time and errors.

All the pending changes are linked to a major change in the software package we use for stock control, order processing and accounting. This will be a traumatic step for us and we will try to introduce this as painlessly as possible.

Website:

The new website seems to have settled in, we are conscious that some customers have lost their passwords and we are sorry about that.

The password reset feature seems to work well, except some customers (in particular, those with btinternet email addresses) are not getting the reset email. We have done all we can but for some reason some email providers do not like us. If you hit the issue of not getting the reset email please email us and we will make sure you can log in and then choose your own password later. If the manual email we send in response is blocked, we usually see a notification so will resend from a different address.

We have also seen some instances of customers not being able to select a delivery method. We have made changes and believe this issue is now resolved. If you see a problem like this, please inform us.

Interruption to normal service:

The previous notification of interruption did not happen for a number of reasons and will now happen at the end of October.

As mentioned above we will be making a major change to our systems. This will happen over the end of October and beginning of November. We are working out plans to minimise the impact this has on customers.

We will have an all out effort to send as many orders as possible before the Courier and Royal Mail collections on Wednesday 28th October. We will continue to process orders after collections have happened and try to send as soon as possible. Then we will suspend order processing on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th October. We hope to be up and running again as normal on Monday 2nd November or very soon afterwards. With the new systems in place it will take some practice to get used to them, so please bear with us.

Our website will not close for orders during this time. We will be very busy getting the new systems in place so will find it difficult to answer the telephone and take phone orders during these few days. Therefore, placing orders on the website is highly recommended. We will also remind you that there is a free shipping offer on web orders (order value over £30 to £50 depending on shipping cost) that do not apply on telephone orders.

We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Stock Issues

We are still having some delivery issues. We did have a problem with Wheels, partly due to a massive increase in demand, which had a knock on effect to the manufacturer who also saw an increase in demand. We did have a large delivery recently that cleared the entire backlog, but demand remains high and some lines are already waiting for stock again.

Peco have had severe disruptions and are beginning to get back to normal, but some lines are still in short supply. The spare transfers for Parkside kits are causing issues, and unless there is an improvement in supply we may have to stop supplying them soon. In that case we will list the quantities we have and let the stock run down.

The majority of Gaugemaster manufactured products seem to have been unavailable since spring. This also seems to affect Springside and Smiths items.

We had good stocks of all available 4mm items and many 7mm items from HMRS but these have sold rapidly. There are a number of items not in stock at the manufacturers.

Exhibitions:

What exhibitions!!!

We are really missing meeting our friends and customers at exhibitions. We thank those who have used us by mail order for their support.

The vast majority of planned exhibitions are cancelled for obvious reasons. Many will not be back in the same venue or indeed at all.

We are hearing from a number of exhibition managers that venues will no longer be available, even after current restrictions are lifted.

The economics of exhibitions will also be an interesting issue, as attendance numbers need to be maintained in order for many exhibitions to be financially viable. From our point of view we have fixed costs for transport and accommodation that may not be justified if shows have reduced attendance figures. We will just have to wait and see what happens. As soon as we have positive news, we will be reporting it. We are keeping our fingers crossed.


Thank you and Stay Safe!

Derek, Anita, Matt and Judith



 

Visit eileensemporium.com

Tel: 01531 828009

                                                

Postbox only:

Unit 19.12 Highnam Business Centre
Newent Road
Gloucester
GL2 8DN
United Kingdom