Our online subscription service really began as a bit of an afterthought.
And it certainly started out slowly enough: one staff member at our Melbourne CBD store would send out packages for half an hour a day in between serving customers, making coffee and unpacking deliveries.
Fast forward three years and we’re in the fortunate position where things have got a little bit bigger. Don’t get me wrong—we’re still tiny compared to most of our competitors, but, well, that one staff member now works full time just sending out packages.
And at this point, we’re beginning to grow to a point where the systems we had in place when we started out don’t really work like they used to. We’re beginning to experience the kind of teething problems that happen as any venture expands beyond its infancy. In this regard, we’re fortunate to have really vocal and passionate customers who will readily engage with us in-store, over e-mail and Twitter. And increasingly we’re getting a lot of feedback about the envelopes that we send out our mags in, suggesting that they don’t really cut the mustard.
One of the big issues is that the postie is pretty much determined to try and stuff magazines right into your letterbox. In some ways, this is a blessing (imagine having to go to the post office to pick up every single issue of your subscription!) but also a bit of a curse as well—in addition to often arriving a little bit bent, your mags also sometimes get rained on, sticking out of the letterbox.
To address that problem in particular, we bought about 100,000 zip-lock plastic bags (okay, slight exaggeration but definitely lots and lots of them) in which we seal each and every magazine inside to give them a bit of protection against the elements. It’s not ideal, but it does the job.
We’ve also noticed that our current paper envelopes really don’t look like they’re up to the stress of all the handling involved in moving mail across the country and around the world. Every day, we get a big delivery from the post office of returned packages; these are from customers who have moved and haven’t updated their address with us or who gave us the wrong address in the first place, etc. And to be honest, they’re scuffed and sometimes torn and generally just look a bit of a mess, so they can’t look that much better when they reach you the first time around.
What’s the solution? To be honest, we’re not entirely sure.
We absolutely don’t want to keep sending out thousands of zip-lock bags destined for landfill pits (although my Mum re-uses hers in the kitchen—good on ya Mum!) and we have similar reservations about padded post-packs. We need to come up with something that’s not only tough, but also waterproof and environmentally friendly.
One option that we’ve been considering is waxed, high-GSM recycled card envelopes, kind of like FedEx pouches. Or even bio-degradable plastic sleeves or recyclable plastic like high-density polyethylene. (Yes, I’ve spent more time looking up different plastics on Wikipedia and examining their relative merits vis a vis recyclability in recent days than I ever really imagined that I would in this life.)
We’re still plotting our next move here, but look forward to getting some great new envelopes—of one kind or another—really soon.
If you’ve got any ideas, comments, questions or suggestions, we’d love to hear ‘em!