Monday, June 21, 2010

Updates to Accounts and Order History

We have made some big changes to the "My Account" Section of the Yarn and Fiber Company website which should improve your shopping experience.

Firstly we have added the ability to download PDF patterns for manufacturers that allow us to do so. You can buy the patterns as a PDF or paper copy, if you purchase as a PDF this is made available to you immediately after checkout, and can be retrieved at any time under your "My Account" page on the web site.

Secondly we have added a way to ask questions about your order status by viewing your order under "My Account" and selecting the appropriate option at the bottom of the order. This is available to you 24 hours a day and links your comment directly to your order (and the person processing it), avoiding possible confusion or delays that can occur with emails or phone calls.

Saturday, February 27, 2010

February 27th Storm Power outage

Due to the storm that occurred Friday night much of Southern New Hampshire is without Power, including us. This means the main website, email and telephones are out of operation. The store is still open however. We will hopefully have full service restored in the next couple of days so please try back later.

Update - Power restored, normal service has resumed. We will however be down for about 20 minutes Sunday morning for server maintenance between 7:00 and 8:00 am EST.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Website Improvements - In response to customer requests

In the past we have has some confusion over our use of the term "back order". What we really mean by this is that the product being ordered is not in stock and we have to order it from our vendors. This is really a "special order" in almost all cases.

In order to avoid some confusion over special orders we have revamped the way special orders appear during the ordering process.

Firstly products that we cannot reasonably order in a fairly short time are no longer available for "special order" and are simply marked "out of stock" as is the case with most other vendors.

Products (other than yarn) are marked aas being available for "special order". Because yarn is often ordered in multiples we do not show this until you look at your shopping cart or go to check out. This will now be shown on the first (shipping) page of checkout as "special order" if we do not believe we have enough yarn in stock to fill an order.

Caveat - although a yarn may appear to be in stock in sufficient quantities we do not ship mixed dye lots. In this case you will be notified and the yarn will be special ordered.

We now will (in most cases unless specifically requested by the customer) cancel any and all special orders that we cannot or do not expect to fill within 6 weeks.

Friday, February 5, 2010

International Orders - Delivery Times

In general International (free/discounted shipping) orders are sent out within 3-4 days for delivery to the target country, which can take up to 3 weeks but usually takes only a few days. To be delivered to you the order has to pass through customs in your country. Customs randomly screen packages (this happens to us too), this process can easily take a further week. Finally if they determinate that duty is due the package will be held at your post office for you to pay the customs on it, in the USA they normally put a card in your letterbox, but this can easily be overlooked. If we have send a package to you (and it shows as shipped) and more than 3 weeks have passed please check your local post office and ask if an International package is waiting.

In almost all cases: (lost packages are VERY rare)

  • The package is sitting in the customers local post office

  • The customer has moved and just assumes the post office will forward the package (seems odd but happens a lot)

  • The package has been delayed by customs

  • The package was incorrectly delivered even though the address was correct

Less than one package per year is typically lost forever, although some (2-3 a year) take 3-4 months to surface.

If you need your order in a hurry choose one of the expidited delivery options, it might appear to be the same as our free shipping but it will get to the post office the same day we fill the order. This makes significantly more difference on International orders than on domestic orders.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

International Shipping

It seems that after the postal rate changes a day or two ago our International shipping options became limited to Priority Shipping due to an API change made without announcement by USPS. We have fixed that today (January 5th) and apologize to any of our customers who may have been inconvenienced in the mean time. Hopefully USPS won't fix the problem by changing the API back how it was without warning!

Our International Shipping rates are calculated by using USPS live First Class International Package rates. Discounted rates are also calculated from these rate extimates. All our International shipments qualify for either free or discounted shipping rates, this is calculated based on actual shipping charges v.s. the total cost of the order.

Happy new year from the technical support team at The Yarn and Fiber Company.