Making More Changes.

If you arrived here because you had bookmarked this blog as the source of the daily In The Shop progress notes you are, no doubt, confused.

Where are the shop notes? I moved them over yonder.

Why? Because I like to keep as many people confused for as long as I can as often as possible. Nah, not really.

Several months ago I tried spiffing up the In The Shop section of the web site. My goal was to make it an information central for anyone with an order placed, a place they could go any time to see not only their order status, but – if it’s under construction – how far along it is, how far it has to go, a progress picture, and even the ability to review their invoice and account status. Once it ships, they have the ability to track the package and know exactly where it is and when it’s expected to arrive.

Because the new detail pages present personal information, I had to come up with a password protect function to offer some resistance to folks who would exploit that information.

I hoped that providing all this information would be one of those value-added features and that our customers would enjoy the “warm & fuzzy” experience that it offers. It would therefore be worth the amount of additional time required to maintain all this.

It was also my expectation that by this time I’d be back to working on one or two projects at a time. I am not. We’re still working on 4 to 6 at a time.

As it turns out, most customers don’t even look at their detail page except for when it’s time to make the final payment. Those who do look tend to complain about the password utility.

The time spent photographing the items being built, producing and updating a production steps list and posting invoices to be viewed would appear to be wasted time. Time better spent on other tasks.

Therefore, I skinnied it down some.

• Our bookkeeping software has the ability to e-mail you your invoice as it is generated. It will be your responsibility to file that away for future reference as it will no longer be available on line.


• Photos and general notes will be available from the In The Shop listing page -- click the Construction link
  
• The ability to make on-line payments will be available when it's time, click the Awaiting Payment link.
  
• Our UPS account allows for the tracking number to be e-mailed to you as we process the shipment. Old Dominion shipping can be tracked by clicking the In Transit link in your order.
• The production steps and progress notes took a considerable investment of time to keep up with. Two weeks ago I tried converting from individual discussions to a general Shop Notes sort of thing and moving it here. But I don't really want to congest this rants & ruminations blog with all those daily summaries, so I set up another blog to handle those and deleted them from here.

If you do not see the links described above in your order's listing, then that function is not currently available.

This will make maintaining the In The Shop section much easier.



We will also be raising our labor rate in early August. If you’re “on the fence” about ordering a piece, you may want to consider getting it in before then.

Why the increase? Every How To Run A Business book I’ve ever read (and I read quite a few) offers an axiom on pricing your work. Each words it differently but all say the same thing. My favorite version is: “When the demand for your product exceeds your ability to produce it – raise your prices!”

Our production wait time is still running around a year. This is too long. It’s exasperating to our customers, and stressful for me. I tend to work myself to death trying to get caught up. Three to four months would be acceptable. Six months the maximum. So we will continue to try and find an equilibrium point. Once we find it, everyone will be happier. Well, most everyone. ...You can't please all the people all the time...

That’s what’s new. Thanks for dropping by to see what’s going on.

Doug-Bob