The past several weeks have been extremely exciting from a company growth perspective, but along with rapid growth comes challenges and the opportunity to refine our processes in order to better serve our customers moving forward. More importantly, it allows us to reflect on how our processes impact our team at JD, from sales to warehouse to drivers to logistics to office staff, and work towards making sure everyone is able to maintain high levels of productivity without becoming overwhelmed. With that in mind, effective Monday May 10th, here are some of the changes being made as it relates to sales, operations, opportunities, etc.:
Updated Cutoff Times:
Order Cutoff Time: 3:30 pm
Produce Cutoff Time: 3:30 pm
Online Order Cutoff Time: 3:30 pm
This will allow our logistics team to route earlier, get early routes picked sooner, and hopefully lead to getting all trucks out in a timely manner the next morning.
Order Minimum: $500 (up from $400)
Please note we are also eliminating the option for customers to pay an additional delivery fee for orders below the minimum, so please keep in mind the new minimum is a hard minimum and needs to be reached on every order. For some customers, it might mean increases to existing orders. For others, it might mean consolidating number of deliveries in a given week (i.e. instead of taking 3 $400 deliveries, it might need to shift to 2 $600 deliveries). Other customers in the local area might opt to simply utilize will-call going forward.
City Dark-Drop Option: We are working to develop a dark drop city route for customers looking for very early delivery. Please reach out to Jon or Darren to further discuss if this option makes sense for your customers.
Special Order / New Item Approval Process: Management Approval
While we strive to meet customer requests and bring in items they might not be able to find elsewhere, we are currently in a mode where adding new or special items might hinder our ability to get trucks out in a timely manner and place an extra burden on our warehouse team. For the time being, we are developing a new procedure to approve all special orders and new item requests. These special orders / new items will be evaluated on a case by case basis depending on customer, need, profitability, future opportunities, etc. and will require management approval. Please review new items with that in mind before approaching our purchasing team on new/specialty items. Also, stay tuned for the new procedures and communicate to your customers that these requests will require additional time for approval and are not guaranteed.