We have shared with you before that we want to be an open and honest company and share the good, the bad and the ugly with you.  Well, this is one of those times.  When we started Vintage Plum, we decided we were going to ship with UPS.  Our UPS driver is wonderful, friendly and prompt, however the real problem is that the cost of shipping has been unexpectedly very high.

As you know, we charge a flat rate of $7.50 no matter what you buy.  Well, we have come to learn quickly that if we stay with UPS we will be losing money.  I shipped out a couple of kits this week and the shipping fee was over $9.00.  Yesterday, I was processing an order that will ship to another city in Texas (we are in Texas) and the postage was going to be over $10.  Red flag!  What is going on here?  So, I call UPS and not only do they tack on a residential charge if the shipment goes to a house, but if they consider where the package is going is to a rural area then they charge another two dollar and some cent fee.  Therefore, the shipping will be over $9 and $10 in those cases.  On top of that, we have to pay a weekly fee for the UPS driver to come to our house everyday.  That fee adds up quick.  Whoa!

I knew there had to be a better solution.  I called my local post office and they told me they had someone that works with small businesses and that he would give me a call.  He called me right away and told me my regular postman will pick up my packages FREE of charge.  He also said he would come to my house and setup my account to start shipping with them.  Well, he came today at 10am and was very nice and helpful.  He helped me get my account setup and showed me how to use their system.  We do have the option though to pay a $15.95 monthly fee for some extra features and we have decided to do that.  This beats the UPS weekly fee by a long shot!

Oh, and the package going to Texas is now less than $10.  ☺

With all that being said, your kits will now be shipping with USPS.  They do have tracking numbers and you will receive yours in your email when your kit ships.  The mailman also picks up on Saturday, which is a bonus!

We hope you understand our decision to switch and if you ever have any problems with receiving your kit, please let us know.   Instead of increasing the shipping fee or putting less in your kit to cover shipping cost, we have decided to go with the most economical way to ship your kits.

Go Post Office!
 

Love,

Jenny

Thanks for your order Jessi! We really appreciate it and can't wait to see all the cool stuff you make.

That's a great question about packaging. Currently, we are shipping our kits in a 14x14x4 box we have purchased. All of the big stuff like paper, cardstock, rub-ons, stickers, etc. are in a 15"x18" paper merchandise bag sealed with a Vintage Plum sticker. All the other little goodies like ribbon, paint, small embellishments, etc. are placed in a smaller merchandise bag and sealed with a Vintage Plum sticker.

Once those bags are in the box, we put Kraft paper in the box to help protect it all. The box gets taped up and is ready to head to your front door.

Oh, and in our FAQs section we have a note about any kit damaged in shipping: Notify us within 5 days of receiving your kit by sending an email to info@vintageplum.com. We will make arrangements with you to have the damaged kit returned to us and send a replacement kit to you. If we are sold out of that month’s kit, you will receive the following month’s kit when it is released.

I hope that answers your question, Jessi.

Thanks!
Jenny

We've recently received several questions asking what we mean by "100% American-made Scrapbooking Kits." Personally, I'm glad that these questions are being asked of us because it means that you all are interested in this aspect of our products.

When we say American-made, we mean that we've gone as far up the chain as possible to make sure that the products we buy, and ultimately sell to you, are made right here in America. Here's all the components of our business that are made in America by American-based business.

• All products in our kits
• Boxes, Kraft paper, and Tape used in shipping
• Merchandise bags and Vintage Plum stickers used in packaging
• Web Hosting, Newsletter, and eCommerce Partners

This doesn't mean that everything our Vendors sell is made in America, but we've verified with the vendors that the products we buy are made here. We do want to point out that there are obviously lots of great products made overseas by many great vendors, and we understand that price sensitivity is what drives a large volume of production in that direction. However, we made a decision very early on that we would draw this line in the sand. We're Americans and we're going to support our country's creative and manufacturing industries by selling American-made products.

Thank you to all of you who have shown interest in our design team so far! We realized tonight that Google changed something with their email system and we were not receiving emails that were sent to info@vintageplum. I have found a way around the error so, if you have already submitted your information, please send it to us again. We apologize for the inconvenience and can’t wait to see what you send our way.

** NERD NOTE ** If you are a techie like me and happen to use Google Apps for your domain, there is currently a problem with the way groups are being handled by the system. If you had attemted to create groups with the "All users within this domain" functionality it no longer works. Emails sent to a group created in that manner are currently bouncing. What you need to do is remove that option from the member list, and then actually choose the individual members you want to add.  This is quite an odd deal because everything worked okay when I set it up and it's just suddenly stopped working for everyone. Here's a link to a thread of other users having the same issue: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Apps/thread?tid=6871e7db0d94c74a&hl=en

Thanks,
Jason