Our aims:
When we decided to develop a teamwear offering for the hockey community, the main commitments we wanted to make were to sustainability and service level. We were looking for a solution where we could offer the community sustainably sourced garments in a reasonable timeframe meaning club members wouldn't have to wait 6-8 weeks for kit.
How it works:
After trying out an in-house method we soon realised this was not our speciality. Therefore, in order to enable us to focus our attention on offering a better customer experience, we made the decision to outsource all of our logistics to warehousing partners. Our warehouse partners are part of the largest teamwear fulfilment services in the world, and offer an unrivalled service whereby they can embellish garments and ship directly to customers within 7 working days. Given the "traditional model" of teamwear provision meant we were taking 6-8 weeks from order to delivery, we were really excited to find out that our new model meant we could provide embroidered products in 7-10 working days meaning that customers could receive their products in less than a quarter of the time other brands using this "traditional model" could.
Our commitment:
As part of our service we guarantee that 95% of orders will be fulfilled within 7-10 working days. This is the agreement we have with our warehouse partners and hence we pass this on to you. Sometimes our lead times slip out beyond 7-10 working days for multiple reasons set out later in this article, but based on historical data, 95% of orders will be fulfilled within this timeframe.
Delays:
We are not a brand that hide behind excuses. We try to be as upfront, honest and transparent about our processes. Delays are something that do sometimes happen in the teamwear industry however we have found that from historical data, delays from our partners throughout the year generally have not exceeded 5% of total orders.
Factors causing delays:
Being a new club - This can be caused by stock management, digitisation of logos and setting up the club shop operationally.
New products
- If we release new products we need to set up different item profiles which take some time to run efficiently. The more they are ordered the quicker they become as our wonderful embroidery team get used to where the embellishments are meant to be placed on the garments.
Time of year - As with any service, when in peak season, that is the time that there are most likely to be small delays to orders. We work with our warehousing partners by giving quarterly forecasts in order to enable them to put in place the relevant staff and processes to be able to deal with the hikes in demand - for example, in September when all clubs come back to hockey. We cannot be 100% accurate with these, however, so there are times when capacity is not accounted for, or there is not enough capacity in the warehouse.
Larger orders - Obviously the larger the order, the more time it takes to get items to you. This very rarely creates an impact on orders for individuals but if you order for for whole teams this may push orders out beyond 7-10 working days. It is very rare these orders take longer than 15 working days.
Going forward:
As with all brands, as we go forward we are very much aware we are going to make mistakes. Some orders may be delayed and some orders may have small issues, however we will always be upfront about this and do everything within our power to make sure you get your order as quickly as possible. As we grow, it enables us to generate more data and fix the small issues that will ultimately lead to a constantly improving service level and quality.