We’ve been operating on our current order cycle for about two years now. It has worked well for us, and we hope it has worked well for you too. However… the weather this year has been very difficult – changeable, unpredictable and quite extreme – switching from very cold to roasting hot, repeatedly. This has made it extremely difficult (and more than a little stressful) for our veg growers to predict what they will be able to deliver. With our current order cycle (shop opens Sunday, closes Wednesday and delivery on Friday) they are having to predict (aka guess!) the veg that will be ready to harvest 6 days in advance. Will the salad have bolted? Will the courgettes have exploded? Will anything new actually have grown since the previous week? It’s been tough, and since we’re all part time growers, with many other commitments and demands on our time and energy, keeping things as easy and enjoyable as possible for our growers is key to keeping them growing long term.
We had a meeting last week to discuss ways to take some of the stress out of the veg prediction and the main result was: shortening the order cycle. The less time between having to open the shop and having to pick for delivery, the easier it would be. We want to have the shop open for at least two days, and we need at least one full day between closing the shop and delivering – to allow processing of the orders, and to give enough time for the sourdough bread to prove. That meant we could reduce it down to a four day lead time. Still a bit of a gamble, but a lot easier than six days!
Now the question was timing… Keeping deliveries on a Friday would mean orders would open on Tuesday and close on Wednesday. This might work, but ordering on the weekend seems to work really well for most people. Also, it would be nice if deliveries could be on a day when the Elphin Tearooms was open, so we could add their cakes and scones back to our product offering, and so that customers coming to pickup their orders could combine it with an outing to the Tearooms. Then there was the availability of our delivery driver, Ann. We don’t want to interfere with any of her other many social or work engagements!
After a long discussion, we’ve settled on Tuesday deliveries. This means that the shop will open on Saturday morning, 8am, and close on Sunday evening, 8pm.
We’re going to trial this for the rest of the year. If it works, we’ll stick with it, but if not, we’ll reassess and see what else we can come up with.
We really hope that this new order cycle works for you, and we would welcome any feedback (positive or negative) about the change. We try very hard to make shopping with us as easy as possible for you guys, our customers, so please do get in touch.
