Any one that follows our blog has probably recognized that we’ve run into some issues over the past week. Essentially, our blog hosting solution “lost” our posts from January 7th, 2020, onward and has been unable to restore them. Earlier today, our blog was completely inoperable so we had to open yet another ticket aimed at restoring our blog posts. Strangely, the blog hosting solution was able to re-publish the site and restore all of our information up to March 29th. We’re not sure if they will be successful in restoring all of the remaining missing files so we thought it best to update everyone here and now in case the blog should run into further problems.
Tales of Transparency
Tales of Transparency: New York and the Coronavirus
I thought we’d give everyone a short update regarding the Coronavirus and its impact on our operation. We are still open for business although we are working from home, updating our web site and continuing to fill orders as expeditiously as possible. We have temporarily suspended all inbound shipments to us for the balance of March so that we can get a better sense of the impact the pandemic has on our business and the populace in general. We are filling orders as best we can and still accepting orders through our web site as well as our marketplace sites (Amazon and eBay). All of the major couriers (USPS, UPS and FedEx) have been deemed essential services, still picking up outbound orders from us in a rather routine fashion. We have temporarily done away with Prime and free shipping options on Amazon in favor of standard shipping, since the free shipping oftentimes requires us to hand deliver packages to Staples, our UPS drop-off location, before their final pick up of the day. That said, Staples sent out a notification earlier this week indicating they are closing their stores earlier than normal at 6pm, which means they cannot guarantee that the local UPS driver can make their daily pickups, which is typically scheduled for around 5:30pm.
New York has been adversely affected by the Coronavirus and New York City, where we are based, has been particularly hard hit over the last several weeks. Its still a mystery as to why we have been affected well out of proportion to the rest of the country, although the density and diversity of the city’s constituency could have something to do with it. On any given day, we can hear ambulance sirens wailing away on a regular basis as they attempt to respond to calls of distress. We are practicing social distancing as best we can and have been forced to make some changes to the way we operate so that we can still serve our clientele in an acceptable manner.
We also recognize that many of you have been frustrated of late, waiting for items you may have pre-ordered some time ago. With that in mind, I want to address that issue as best we can.
We sell collectibles — we do not make them, distribute them or in any way have a hand in getting product to market apart from shipping out said items as soon as they arrive at our facility. Its frustrating to have to repeatedly stress this point to everyone, particularly during this crisis. The outbreak of the Coronavirus has and will continue to have a huge impact on the supply chain. In many instances, factories in eastern Asia were shut down for weeks on end, their workers unable to report for work. When that happened, our forecasts for the arrival of certain lines went out the window. Fortunately, as we understand it, those factories hardest hit by the contagion are back up-and-running with few new cases of Coronavrius having been reported over the last several days. Apparently the drastic measures the Chinese government instituted seemed to have worked, an encouraging sign despite all of the hardships they had to face. Those very same measures are now being mandated here in New York, which has significantly hampered operations for a great many businesses.
For some reason, however, there are a handful of patrons that seem to think that the Coronavirus shouldn’t have an impact on our business and that we are simply sounding a false alarm, using the contagion as an excuse for the delay of certain items. If that were true, then other retailers would have in their possession the very same items that we are indicating haven’t arrived, and are therefore able to serve their clientele while we are unable to do the same. This is not the case. Period. Secondly, by placing an order early or paying in advance by using PayPal or AmazonPay, it does not mean you somehow move to the front of the line and get the product quicker than someone that followed our directions. In point of fact, we have always indicated that the best way to pre-order an item is to use a credit card. By doing so, you are not being charged until the item comes in and ready to go out. I’m not at all sure why this seems to be a recurring problem for us, especially at the height of the pandemic. I can certainly understand your frustration for having to wait a lengthy period of time, but if you just took the time to read our First-Time User information or examined the product’s listing, most of these concerns could be addressed from the get-go, without ruffling any feathers or fraying any exposed nerves.
To sum up, we certainly appreciate your business and hope you understand that these are trying times for us, our neighbors, local community and nation as a whole. We ask that you be patient as everyone does their best to address the pandemic as best as they could. Making unnecessary assumptions or presuming that nothing is happening at our end does not help. If you cannot wait, take up crocheting, watch a movie or give your loved ones a call. That would be productive for any number of reasons.
Since opening our doors in 2000, we’ve been through 9-11, Hurricane Sandy and now the Coronavirus. I have every confidence in the world that we will get through this latest problem. I even see the light at the end of tunnel despite having to presently navigate through our darkest days. After all, New Yorkers are a hearty people despite what some people might think of us because of our brusque manner. But to have to address utter silliness and impatience during this latest issue to have befallen New York is simply unacceptable. There you have it. Blunt and to the point. A true New Yorker. Thank you.
Tales of Transparency: Order Cancellations and PayPal
Beginning last October, PayPal changed the way it handled refunds and order cancellations that are completed with PayPal. Essentially, PayPal is now charging vendors 2.9% of an order’s value plus a 30 cent transaction fee any time a vendor issues a refund or cancels an order. So, a cancelled $100 pre-order would end up costing the vendor $3.20 (2.9% plus .30) even though the vendor was never able to fill the order. While we believe this tactic on the part of PayPal is unfair, we have no choice but to pass along this fee to our customers. We cannot run a business where we are paying our payment processor a fee for a transaction that never took place. So, beginning in January, any order that we cannot fill that was paid via PayPal will be subject to this fee deduction. We are sorry to have to do this and hope everyone understands that as a merchant we are being caught in the middle here and should not have to incur any unnecessary charges that are beyond our control. Please keep this in mind whenever you wish to use PayPal as your payment choice for items that we have not yet received.
Tales of Transparency: International Orders
Beginning in January, we are now changing the way in which we accept international orders for pre-ordered and back ordered merchandise. In the past, we have accepted payments made via PayPal and AmazonPay, two payment services that transmits the customer’s payment to the vendor when the order is submitted even though the vendor may not be able to fill the order until a later date. As a result, the customer has, on occasion, believed that they are then entitled to have their order shipped to them in piecemeal fashion as the product comes in, which ends up costing us much more than what was originally billed. This procedure will now end.
Customers located outside of the continental United States must now use a credit card when they attempt to order either pre-ordered or back order merchandise from us. Once the order is submitted, we will then contact the customer to obtain their complete billing information. As merchandise comes in, we will then bill them for each shipment sent out. No exceptions will be made. Should a customer submit an order to us using PayPal or AmazonPay for merchandise that is clearly marked as not being in stock, we will cancel the order, refund their payment and explain this new order acceptance process with them. If the issue continues, we will close out their account with us for refusal to abide by our terms of sale.
To be clear, customers located outside of the continental US may still use either PayPal or Amazon payment to pay for merchandise that is marked as being in-stock.
Tales of Transparency: Holiday Shipping Deadlines
The tempo of operations here at The Motor Pool has certainly picked up in recent weeks, with new merchandise flooding in at a record pace and outbound orders noticeably increasing well before the holidays arrive. That said, we just wanted to remind everyone about the shipping deadlines we’ve instituted for both domestic and international shipments that are intended for holiday delivery. Please make sure to check out our Calendar of Events page to determine the dates and service method that best suits your needs and remember it pays to place your order as early as possibly to avoid disappointment.
Tales of Transparency: Withdrawal from the Universal Postal Union
In October 2018, the Trump administration announced that the US was withdrawing from the Universal Postal Union, a system set up way back in 1874 that was designed to level the playing field for shipping small packages across 192 countries. While the system made sense back then, and helped to standardize rates and other facets of international shipping, it has, in effect, provided certain countries with an unfair advantage over the US. More specifically, US businesses have been hurt by the arrangement since businesses operating out of China have been able to ship to the US at a fraction of the cost for what a US business must pay to ship a similarly-sized package to China. A last minute vote to keep the US in the UPU is scheduled for late September but many feel the effort is futile and that the US will still withdraw from the accord some time this October.
From our standpoint, we welcome the decision for the US to withdraw from the UPU. China was first granted this privilege in 1969 when it was still considered to be a developing nation. Fast forward to 2019 and China has become one of the largest economies in the world, second only to the US. To grant them an unfair advantage at this point in time would be foolhardy and it would come at a time when the US Postal Service continues to report record deficits.
While we recognize that it will cost much more for a US-based consumer to purchase something from China, we feel that the time has come to remove any and all advantages a country such as China has held sway over the US, particularly in light of the failed trade talks between the two countries. If China wants to act responsibly and in good faith then they must abide by the conditions of the US trade representatives and any and all advantages they currently hold over US businesses must be removed in order for fair trade to exist now and in the future.
Tales of Transparency: A Look Ahead for The Motor Pool
Ordinarily we offer our annual look ahead towards year’s end, after the dust has settled down, we’ve had a chance to catch our breath and generally get a better sense of where we have ended up come the post-holiday season. This year, however, we decided to change things up a bit by sharing our plans for the coming year several months earlier.
For starters, we’ve decided to launch a lengthy, multi-issue print ad campaign beginning with the December issue of World War II magazine. This is where things started for us almost two decades ago so we decided to both return to our roots and expand our customer base by reaching out to those magazine subscribers that may not be aware of our store or the lines we stock. As such, the first print ad will cover the re-launch of Corgi’s Military Legends series and will be picked up again in the January issue of Military History magazine. As the series expands, we will likely run follow-on ads covering some of Corgi’s latest offerings.
Next up, we will be moving our storefront to Shopify, a Canadian-based e-commerce solution that offers greater flexibility than our current web hosting solution provides. Our plans are to move over all of our current product, customer and order records to the new service so we can provide a seamless migration that will not impact sales and/or the customer experience which has proven to be so vital to our existence. We will likely run both sites concurrently for at least a month to ensure all of our records have been successfully migrated to the new platform. Look for the transition to occur in the first quarter of 2020.
By moving over to Shopify, we will also be able to offer true multi-channel support across all of the marketplace sites we now operate on as well as those planned to come online in 2020. This will include satellite sites on both Target+ and the resurgent Toys “R” Us, and could include others still on the drawing board that have yet to be finalized. Presently, we must operate each channel independently, which creates a bit of a problem maintaining correct inventory levels across all platforms. Its a bit like trying to keep several plates on sticks spinning freely instead of of watching them crash to the ground for lack of attention. By moving to Shopify, everything will be “under one hood” thereby preventing instances where we could, theoretically, outsell an item or make available inventory on one channel and not on another. Shopify provides real-time inventory updates that are designed to prevent these types of occurrences from ever happening.
Going deeper in inventory to support multiple retail channels also means we cannot go quite as broad. As a result, several lines are being cut and/or phased out so that we can make room for additional stock. In most cases, the lines we are shedding were either experimental categories that never quite took off or ranges that are under-performing largely for lack of support at either the manufacturer or distributor level. For instance, the Eaglemoss Warships of the World line has run its course, no longer in vogue due principally to the unavailability of certain models.
Additionally, Shopify has fully integrated additional payment gateways that we currently are unable to offer such as ApplePay and Venmo, along with Apple’s newly launched credit card. As more and more payment gateways come online, this will prove essential for a growing business to thrive in a digital world.
So, that’s pretty much it for now but we’ll keep you posted should anything else change. As always, we look forward to serving your needs in the diecast military space. Have a wonderful year.
Tales of Transparency: The Science of Diecast
Let’s get something straight right off the bat: there is no science to diecast. While some people would like us to peer into a crystal ball and predict the availability of certain items with the utmost of certainty, the fact is that there is a lot of grey area in this business, complicated by the fact that this is a relatively small industry continually affected by the vagaries of trade squabbles, big business dealings, private “don’t quote me” discussions and, dare I day, a lot of hocus pocus. There are no conspiracies, just people who would like to believe they exist to better help them understand why things happen the way they do. There are things I feel comfortable discussing with the public-at-large and other minutiae better left for my memoirs, provided I ever get around to writing them.
We’ve been doing this for almost twenty years and the one thing I can predict with certainty is that every day is unpredictable. We wake up every morning — sometimes well before 6am — pour ourselves a cup of coffee, read our e-nail, poor out a second and oftentimes a third cup of Joe, and wonder what each day will bring despite our best planning the day before. Now I know this sounds a bit amateurish in today’s world of “get it to the customer in a heartbeat” but the fact remains that the world of diecast is not governed by the same laws of physics that rule the real world. Its a “catcher’s catch can microcosm” where we sometimes have a handle on things based upon what those in-the-know tell us only to be confounded by things we never saw coming by those that think they know better.
So, as we close out the first half of the year and begin looking at the all-important third and fourth quarters, I just wanted to remind everyone that it helps to be patient, read and re-read our posts, and generally keep a smile on your face if you hope to enjoy this hobby as much as we do. While we admit we aren’t perfect, we strive for perfection each and every day. When I was a young lad, maybe no more than six or seven years of age, I fondly remember my grandparents pulling me aside one day, looking me straight in the eye and telling me the following which has stuck with me to this day: “You are of German blood. Always remember that. Persevere when other falter. Achieve when no one thought it possible.” And with that, have a happy Fourth of July.
Speak Softly But Carry a Big Diecast Stick
Ever since we started accepting AmazonPay a couple of years ago, we’ve realized that Amazon has become one of the more progressive voices in the world of e-commerce. Now they are literally as well as figuratively looking to put their money where their mouth is. This year, Amazon plans to roll out voice communications and specialized vocal commands for prospective customers interested in placing orders with select merchants. So, instead of having to enter loads of information by hand or over the phone, shoppers will be able to use their Alexa-enabled devices to check on their existing orders as well as place new orders at any time of day or night. This will no doubt simplify the order-taking process and should make things easier for those shoppers that may not speak English as their primary language.
Next week, we will be attending an Amazon-hosted webinar that seeks to spell out the process in detail and hopefully provide dates as to when the system will be rolled out to merchants and customers alike. Once we feel confident that it is working as advertised, we will provide further details and go from there. Start testing your vocal chords!
Tales of Transparency: Don’t Tax Toys
The Toy Association has created a pair of moving videos that are designed to raise awareness about the proposed 25% tariff on imported Chinese goods and its impending impact on the toy industry. We encourage you to both view and share these videos and pay a visit to the newly-created Don’t Tax Toys web site to voice your opinion and gain further insight on the tariff that will affect our industry shortly.