Originally Posted by
meckelangelo
I don't want to speak for other cottage vendors, so these are strictly my views. In fact, I am not even speaking on behalf of the rest of my family, or Hammeck. I handle all of the website configuration for our business, so I believe my experience allows me to lend some insight...
I have not come across an ecommerce platform that allows a customer to submit an order without paying at the time that the order is placed. I have done quite a bit of research, so it may be possible that such a platform exists, but I have not seen it. That presents a major limitation. Now, it would still be possible for us to set up a request form where a user would submit an order, and we could bill them for it later. However, this present two problems.
Firstly, it adds overhead. By overhead, I mean time invested that is not directly involved with completing the final product. Adding overhead adds cost (and further increases wait times). Customer communication eats a ton of our time. It's time we're happy to invest, but we would be remiss if we did not make our customers aware that we spend a great deal of time composing emails and answering phone calls. Coordinating payment manually adds time for us, as well as the customer. Quite honestly, I think most customers would find that this second step detracts from the purchasing experience. I may be wrong, though.
Secondly, it puts us on the hook. We are making custom products, and what may interest you, may not be of interest to anyone else. If we invest our time and resources into a hammock, and a customer elects not to pay for it when we are ready to ship it, it hurts us. In the end, we would be forced to account for these losses by increasing prices. We could certainly mitigate these losses by implementing a deposit. However, as mentioned, I am unaware of any ecommerce platforms that support this, so we would have to do it manually. This further adds to the first issue I mentioned, so this adds even more overhead, and thus more cost.
Quite frankly, most customers prefer the experience of a cart and button. They don't want to fill out a form and have the added step of receiving and paying an invoice. It's an extra step, that many would find to detract from the experience. I realize that this is contrary to your view. I could be wrong, but my experience lends me to believe you are in the minority. However, that doesn't mean you are unheard. I think if you asked most cottage vendors, they would be willing to work with you. For example, we would be willing to charge you a deposit, and then send you an invoice upon completion, but prior to shipment. But, you would have to ask. I doubt that we're the only vendor that would do this. It is, however, a more manual process, which is why I believe we would lose A LOT of business if it was the only way we handled orders.
If your concern boils down to the long wait time, rather than the stage at which you are charged, I am afraid there is little we can do to help you. Someone indicated that businesses should stop accepting orders when they have a backlog. I don't agree with this. So long as a business is comfortable with their backlog, and a customer is willing to wait, why would they stop taking orders? It benefits neither the business nor the customer. It's not as if the business will complete existing orders any faster. In fact, once the business starts taking orders again, I think you will find that the influx of new orders will add MORE uncertainty to delivery time. The compounding factor is that it takes TIME to complete orders, and at certain times of the years, orders come in faster than a business can custom build the products, so a wait time results. I'm certain that we lose business because customers are not willing to wait 5 weeks. It's something we're very aware of, and we are constantly working to improve processes to complete orders faster. However, as we grow, the orders come in all the faster... The cycle doesn't seem to end... We're still a small shop. 3 of us work full-time outside of Hammeck, 1 is a full-time student, and only 1 is (more than) full-time for Hammeck.
We appreciate all of our customers very much, and we really appreciate those that are understanding of the limitations of purchasing from a cottage vendor such as ourselves. However, please don't assume all "limitations" are set in stone, or that we are not willing to earn your business.
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