Welcome to my first entry on my new laptop! When my Sony Viao's monitor hinges broke off I was so upset that we had to invest in a new machine. It's kind of like having to buy a washing machine because it broke rather than because you have the money to get a better model. Luckily we found this new machine for $399 this afternoon which made both of us very happy.
Today was a really good day all the way around. Having boxed up all the RocLok's for Ireland's order yesterday, we were able to spend today getting the pallet together and driving it out to the shipping terminal. Being our first time shipping a large quantity overseas both Ryan and I were concerned that we would mistakenly miss a step in the process.
Yesterday I worked on getting the paperwork together for customs. A total novice, I felt like a fish out of water and started to panic that I was missing something. Ryan had arraigned all the shipping quotes and since I was tasked with getting the packing slip, commercial invoice and bill of lading together, had to get back up to speed. I'm sure that was frustrating for the shipping as I kept asking questions that I'm sure they thought were redundant. Thankfully if they thought that I was annoying they didn't show it at all and were very accommodating and patient. That made me feel better today even though I'm still a little fearful that I missed something!
While I floundered on the shipping paperwork, Ryan and Bert had to build a crate on top of the pallet to hold all 100 RocLok's. In a miscalculation of size this pallet load ended up 3 boxes (2 RocLok's and a box of extra lids) too large so the perfect pallet that the guys built had a slight bowed top to it. Not a problem according to the shipping crew who promised to wrap some plastic around the open areas to keep everything dry. I think we decided that we'll just use plastic wrap as the "crating" next time around. Now we know that a pallet will hold 98 RocLok's snugly.
Loading all the rocks onto the pallet in the back of our old Dodge pick up took a couple hours then Ryan and I headed to the shipper. Of course by the time we hit the freeway traffic hour(s) was underway and the travel time that should have only been 20 to 30 minutes turned into more like 45 to an hour. But we made it in time and rewarded our efforts with a couple of soft serve cones at Ikea.
Earlier this evening the shipping company let us know that delivery to Ireland would be sometime in early November. A lot longer than any of us had expected or hoped for. But on the bright side it will give me a little more breathing room to get RocLok.ie up and running so we can promote and hopefully pre-sale before the order arrives. Thankfully we'll be hitting Europe in time for the holiday season which hopefully will drive some gifting sales!
It feels great to officially be able to say we sell a product internationally! I never imagined that would ever happen and frankly until now it was kind of a scary thought because it seemed like a huge learning curve. Knock on wood we did everything we needed to correctly and this is the start of great things to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment