Covid Delays

The last several months have proven to be some of the most difficult that we as a generation have ever faced, if not the most difficult. Thankfully, I have not contracted the virus, nor has anyone in my family, however that does not mean that I have not been delayed by various shutdowns and supply chain disruptions. I wanted to give you all a brief explanation of why my wait times have gone from about 6 months to almost a year over the course of this virus situation. 

I was shipping the orders placed in the month of May 2019 when the virus first started disrupting things. I had a large number of international orders that were in transit when many countries all over the world began shutting their borders. I was still using Ebay in May of 2019 when those orders were placed, and I was using Ebay's Global Shipping Initiative program for international shipments. How that works is that the customer pays Ebay directly for their international shipping and any further duties or customs charges, and then when the whistle was ready I would mail it to an Ebay shipping center here in the USA, and Ebay would then send the package to the customer directly. I used this service for years with almost no problems whatsoever. That all changed with Covid 19. Ebay failed to deliver an entire month's worth of my international shipments, and they offered no explanation or recourse for any of those packages, and to this day nobody knows what happened to them. Only one of the scores of packages I mailed out in March of 2020 ever made its way back to me. Ebay lost the rest. I had to go back and remake an entire month's worth of international orders, and then pay the postage myself again, just to ensure that my customers would end up receiving their orders at all. This situation caused a major spike in my wait list times. 

Aside from all of that, supplies have been more difficult for me to get, and our children have not been in school, which caused delays as well. The good news is that things have now mostly gone back to normal for me, and I've also moved into my new shop, so unless some other developments arise from the virus, I don't foresee any additional setbacks. As a result of these delays, I am no longer offering wait time estimates, and any estimates I may have made before the virus situation are obviously now no longer valid.

Instead of offering wait time estimates, I thought it would be better to give you a chance to look and see here on the site exactly where I was on my wait list. I have updated the banner at the top of the website to reflect the time frame of orders that are currently being made and shipped, so that you can compare that timeframe to when your order was placed and get an idea of the wait time that remains. You can check back anytime to see where I am on the wait list, as I'll be updating the banner as I move forward. 

Thanks so much, and I wish you all health and happiness, 

Chris