٭٭٭ No Man Walks Alone - Official Affiliate Thread ٭٭٭ (a.k.a. I shouldn't have slept on it)

[WhyUEarly]

Another more minor measure is that UPS reports with the GRI Comprehensive option for sustainability reporting, while FedEx opts only for the shorter GRI Core option.

Then again, better reporting does not necessarily mean better actual practices but that's a much more painful discussion about the utility of any metric.

 

[Duke Silver]

I already filled out the survey on the website so it's too late for me to mention this there as a suggestion, but would it be possible to maybe add an option during checkout to hold items to be shipped together? Sorta like the "Amazon Day" option on their check-out. I know we can always email with a request to hold, but this might be one of those things where it's easy to forget about unless it's right there in front of us during checkout.

I know it's always fun to get our new jawnz, but for me personally, I rarely *need* my items by a certain point. If I put an order for just a single Inis Meain sweater one week and then a GRP one a few weeks later, it's only because I was hurrying to get my size before it was gone. Maybe offer some rewards points a la posting an inspiration picture to encourage people to hold their items so they can be grouped? Or would that just make things worse by taking up space?

 

[tailoredtech]

I know it's always fun to get our new jawnz, but for me personally, I rarely *need* my items by a certain point. If I put an order for just a single Inis Meain sweater one week and then a GRP one a few weeks later, it's only because I was hurrying to get my size before it was gone. Maybe offer some rewards points a la posting an inspiration picture to encourage people to hold their items so they can be grouped? Or would that just make things worse by taking up space?

I'm also curious about how difficult that would be logistically. I sometimes split buys based on copping things before they sell out and sale items like the winter sale that have their own discount code. I definitely think it'd be good to group the orders together into a single shipment to save money for you guys + make it a single box.

 

[Michigan Planner]

I already filled out the survey on the website so it's too late for me to mention this there as a suggestion, but would it be possible to maybe add an option during checkout to hold items to be shipped together? Sorta like the "Amazon Day" option on their check-out. I know we can always email with a request to hold, but this might be one of those things where it's easy to forget about unless it's right there in front of us during checkout.

I know it's always fun to get our new jawnz, but for me personally, I rarely *need* my items by a certain point. If I put an order for just a single Inis Meain sweater one week and then a GRP one a few weeks later, it's only because I was hurrying to get my size before it was gone. Maybe offer some rewards points a la posting an inspiration picture to encourage people to hold their items so they can be grouped? Or would that just make things worse by taking up space?

I love this idea.

Somebody else above also mentioned not feeling good about purchasing and shipping single items at a time and I’m in the same boat.

More than once I’ve bought a single item on the day it drops only to come back to the site an hour or day later to buy one more item. Usually I add a note to ship with the previous order and usually the crew at NMWA catches the multiple orders and ships them together but occasionally it’s missed so I get multiple boxes with one item shipped at once.

I’d love the ability to check off a box to hold shipping until further notice. I’m not the biggest NMWA customer and don’t buy stuff every week but I’d be likely to hold all my purchases to ship them together once a month or every six weeks or so… I’d feel better about the associated decreased shipping footprint and it would also make it easier getting past spousal customs!

 

[conceptual 4est]

I already filled out the survey on the website so it's too late for me to mention this there as a suggestion, but would it be possible to maybe add an option during checkout to hold items to be shipped together? Sorta like the "Amazon Day" option on their check-out. I know we can always email with a request to hold, but this might be one of those things where it's easy to forget about unless it's right there in front of us during checkout.

I know it's always fun to get our new jawnz, but for me personally, I rarely *need* my items by a certain point. If I put an order for just a single Inis Meain sweater one week and then a GRP one a few weeks later, it's only because I was hurrying to get my size before it was gone. Maybe offer some rewards points a la posting an inspiration picture to encourage people to hold their items so they can be grouped? Or would that just make things worse by taking up space?

I'll let Greg answer as well, but while we're definitely happy to hold items for customers when they request it, making this an open invitation to do so might throw a wrench into a few things.

The first and biggest one that comes to mind is that it may end up holding in-demand (well, any) items "hostage" for a bit too long and it narrows the window they can be sold to customers that want them.

The second just has to do with the seasonal nature of many of the clothes and ties into that hostage scenario above. We just want people that want the clothes for the season to be able to buy them, which is why we ship quickly and make returns so easy.

But yeah, before shipping we always first check for multiple unshipped orders and combine them if there are any, and try to get through those customer requests as well in case someone does request a hold, or address change, or anything like that.

 

[gdl203]

Exactly. Always happy to hold stuff but not shipping those items extends the return window and makes it harder to sell it again. The closer we get to the end of the season, the trickier it gets.

Imagine a shrewd shopper (none of you guys, of course) who would buy all the things he likes through the season, ask to hold shipping, and wait for end-of-season sale to start and request those prices instead. If we say no, we cancel the order and have to sell the items to someone else at sale prices (quick reminder: that's 0 or negative operating margin for us) when they could have sold at regular price before. If we say yes, we now sold the items at sale prices (still 0 or negative operating margin for us) when they could have sold at regular price before. Any dispute about any of this would of course be ruled in favor of the shrewd (and always right) customer by their CC, as is always the case (as in, 100% of the time).

 

[sushijerk]

I think this is one of the trade-offs of the weekly drop model. Must of us here probably pay a fair amount of attention to previews and would get all of our "must haves" from the current season together if they did not drop in separate weeks. However the weekly schedule is probably the best given the logistics of a small team and the separate ship times from the suppliers. I would also miss the weekly product IG videos too much.

 

[John Grady Cole]

...

 

[kaizerpi]

Free shipping definitely makes it easier to want to order 1 item at a time, because of the lack of consequences. I guess it depends on how much it impact your margins but threshold or lack of free returns could really inhibit someone who's genuinely interested but doesn't have the chance to really try on items. TBH most general consumers (even those with the credit/cash flow to wait for refunds) don't do as much research around sizing or asking around. I guess you could always try introducing or charging a restocking fee?

 

[professor]

Just a quick note to say that the psychology of "free shipping" is fascinating. Like, it's not actually free, but people perceive it as something magical. Shipping cost is (obviously) built into the cost of items at NMWA or anywhere else that offers "free shipping," but people seemingly freak out (and occasionally are offended) if that cost is actually broken out transparently. Sorry, as you can tell from my handle, I'm a professor. A social scientist at that. And this fascinates me.

 

[rodgers12]

Going to cop a Traveler as my first and only coat, but in the same boat as others regarding indecisiveness of color.

Leaning towards either navy or grey as I never wear any tailoring/formal wear and pretty much exclusively stick to business casual/SWD

 

[gmed]

I personally prefer the thrill of shipping USPS. Will my item arrive in 3 days or 3 weeks? Why has it been in Pittsburgh for 2 weeks with no update (real occurrence with my coffee subscription)? How did it go from item not found to delivered in 1 day? At least then the customer can be thankful that their item arrived at all.

 

[gdl203]

I personally prefer the thrill of shipping USPS. Will my item arrive in 3 days or 3 weeks? Why has it been in Pittsburgh for 2 weeks with no update (real occurrence with my coffee subscription)? How did it go from item not found to delivered in 1 day? At least then the customer can be thankful that their item arrived at all.

We once shipped an order to Korea that got stuck for a couple weeks in Johannesburg.

 

[conceptual 4est]

We once shipped an order to Korea that got stuck for a couple weeks in Johannesburg.

Maybe that jacket was part of that group of extreme-couponing-style frequent flyers that optimize points by travelling around the world 3x in one trip

 

[gdl203]

But wait there’s more! for the first year, 5x reward points on all returned orders!!