Putting Out Fires For Days and Days!

"Opening Weekend" was another success despite battling issues with the way shipping was calculated. And I'm still battling the issue. Hopefully we'll have it figured out soon. Some orders were perfectly fine and many other people were getting charged double on their shipping! I have support working on the 3rd party app and I have been communicating with Shopify, the store's e-commerce platform.

I made a change this year with the sizes of boxes. Part of it was because I didn't have access to two certain sizes I have been using since 2022, and part was because I wanted to make packaging trees a little less stressful. Sometimes it was difficult to get trees into some of these package sizes. HOWEVER, turns out there is a pronounced difference in shipping costs with just a slight change in size. 

Take our smallest size box. Used to be 38x7x7". Now, we are using 36x8x8. So shorter by 2" in length but wider and taller by 1". That difference is nearly $20 more expensive shipping from BC to Ontario!!! Absolutely brutal the cost to mail anything in our country. Canada Post adds an additional $21 "Oversize Fee" the second the length of the package goes beyond 39.4", which is why we chose 38" in the first place. 

The challenge with our 1 gallon trees is that they generally are one of three different heights. They are either about 24" tall, 30" tall or over 40". So this year I call the larger ones "1 gallon XL" and ship them in a larger box. It means less headache for me and stress trying to get trees into boxes they don't fit into. And initially the idea was to use these new 36" boxes to ship one tree. But it's so expensive. CURRENTLY THE WEBSITE IS SET UP TO NOT USE THESE AND IT'S SPECIAL ORDER.

I think however, what I may do over the coming days is to take an inventory of the trees and divide them between what fits into the 36" box, in terms of being able to put two trees in,  and what doesn't. Then our regular "1 gallon" can once again be shipped in this doubled up fashion and be the cheapest shipping option. And the ones that can't fit, our "1 gallon XL", will all be a mandatory next size up.

Will let you all know what ends up happening.

Thanks for your patience, your continued enthusiasm and being great customers.

Chris