ORC orders on schedule for ERA's

Due to the postal strike, all ORC orders were held back for couriered shipping.  The package is expected to arrive in Ottawa today , June 28.  Order numbers from 29 to 87 are included.  The only items missing from a couple of these orders are headsweats caps, which will ship asap.  My apologies to anyone who requested shipping directly to their homes - this was the only way to guarantee your uniforms would make it to Ottawa in time for this weekend.   All orders are individually packaged and labelled with athlete name and contact information.

Kingston RC senior athlete uniforms should also be arriving about now.  The junior order, which was just recently placed is not expected to be ready for this weekend but should be shipping soon as well.

Halifax RC uniforms are shipping out shortly - likely by Express Post if the mail system seems to be operating properly.

So, here's what sucks about using couriers for shipping.  Shipping to a business is ok - the rates are only a little higher than post.  But shipping to a residential address ? Yikes.    I sent an envelope to Vancouver with a singlet in it that normally could go as a heavy letter (about $3 shipping) and had to pay $19 to send it by Greyhound Express delivery service.    I guess I can take comfort in the tax write-off of exorbitant business expenses.  My post office is still open but the staff is bored to tears since they can't really do any work.

Just did my first dye sublimation prints yesterday.  SO COOL.   First day of printing I also sold a contract printout (to a customer with their own heat press).  So that will be another avenue I'll look at for getting the machine to pay for itself.   Looking forward to sending out sales info to all the clubs I've had to pass by because of their designs that require a dye sub print. 

I'm starting to feel a little concerned about the ongoing Postal Strike.   As a business located in a rural location, I depend heavily on the postal system for outgoing packages.  Using a courier is immensely expensive when dealing with rural pickups - generally 3 to 4 times more expensive than post. I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more talk in the news about this kind of problem.  Here in Shawnigan Lake, there are many many home based business that I see sending packages out every day.  I'm sure this must be the case across Canada in small towns.  

I can't say that I have a strong opinion about which way the strike should go - I can understand the concerns of both sides.   It's obvious that letter mail has had it's day.  That being said, Canada Post has amazing infrastructure to dominate the package delivery system - just too much bureaucracy to get it done.   I think the only thing that could really devastate Canada Post would be the invention of matter transport (like Star Trek).  That's probably a little ways off.

It's a busy month - June. Lots of summer crews are off to the races at the beginning of July and on the west coast, people are heading to Portland for racing this month. For them, it means training. For me, it means bustin' the hours in the workshop getting everyone's gear out on time. Just got a large format heat press and let me tell you that a 1200lb crate doesn't move easily on a gravel driveway. But it's in the shop now thanks to Pat and Doug. Now I'm waiting for my dye printer to get out of Customs in Calgary (why Calgary??). So once both units are up and running, it's time to play with artwork and stretchy material. FUN. You know, in between working on all the orders. With those two items, I should be able to print just about anything into white fabric. So complex designs and custom colours will be much easier to deal with.

The ecommerce site seems to be working well. It's a quick learning curve - sorting out how to add all the products and also sort through in the incoming orders. Still have a ways to go for all the products but the main thing right now is working on posting for all the teams who want their gear online.

Anyway - back to unisuits and dragon boat shorts with the soothing background of CBC podcasts. Or sci-fi and anime movies. Whichever.

Oh one more thing - last week there was a really good CBC radio piece on groupons gone wrong and why they can be a disaster for small businesses. See if you can find it - it's worth listening to.