The Popularity of Homeschooling
by Keith A. Howe
Not for the reasons I wish, mind you, but everybody wants to homeschool now. When the COVID-19 crisis first hit in March, we immediately started planning for an anticipated 50-100% increase in demand. To accomplish that in 3 months required a herculean effort, and I applaud our team for their work. If 50-100% was all that occurred, I think we could have covered it without a hitch. If only...
If you were in our warehouse last year during the busy months of July and August, you would have seen a staff that was working as hard as possible to keep up with orders and get shipments out within 2-3 business days. It was hard. This year, everything has been multiplied by 4. To say things are difficult is an understatement. They are near impossible, but we are making changes and modifications to make it work.
One decision we made during the first week of July was to focus on maintaining inventory for the first semester at the expense of the second. Our goal is to get the first semester of curriculum to everybody right away, and then start shipping backorders in October. For the most part, this is what we are doing. Don't worry if your order has a large number of backorders. Most of them are from the second semester, and many of them may be in by the time your package ships. We will also be evaluating some backorders from early in the first semester to ship before October as well.
Thank you all for your patience during this time. Providing exceptional customer service is something we pride ourselves on, and right now we know we are not able to deliver. I am very sorry.
We will get through this.
Keith
If you were in our warehouse last year during the busy months of July and August, you would have seen a staff that was working as hard as possible to keep up with orders and get shipments out within 2-3 business days. It was hard. This year, everything has been multiplied by 4. To say things are difficult is an understatement. They are near impossible, but we are making changes and modifications to make it work.
One decision we made during the first week of July was to focus on maintaining inventory for the first semester at the expense of the second. Our goal is to get the first semester of curriculum to everybody right away, and then start shipping backorders in October. For the most part, this is what we are doing. Don't worry if your order has a large number of backorders. Most of them are from the second semester, and many of them may be in by the time your package ships. We will also be evaluating some backorders from early in the first semester to ship before October as well.
Thank you all for your patience during this time. Providing exceptional customer service is something we pride ourselves on, and right now we know we are not able to deliver. I am very sorry.
We will get through this.
Keith
Shipping
Homeschooling
Language Arts
