COVID-19 Shipping Updates
UPDATE: March 12, 2021
Summary: We are caught up on order fulfillment and are averaging over 96% on-time order fulfillment rate. On-time means that orders go out within 1 business day. I.e. You place your order today, it goes out today or tomorrow, almost always.
Order Fulfillment Details: Our order volume is higher than it has ever been, even higher than it was at the peak of Covid demand a year ago. We are so grateful to the entire True Leaf Market team for their diligence and hard work in preparing for the busy spring season. The preparations paid off because we are so far not falling behind on order fulfillment despite high order volumes.
Inventory Level Details: We spent June to January working to stock up for this season, and our inventory levels are at their all time high. However, due to some severe world-wide shortages on many seed varieties, we are out of stock on more varieties than we have ever been. Those varieties simply aren't available right now. That may seem like a contradiction, but of the varieties we do have in stock, we have plenty of supply. We expect that the out of stock varieties will begin to be available again starting this fall.
We are so grateful to you for entrusting us with your business.
Happy Growing,
True Leaf Market
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January 21, 2021 - No Significant Shipping Delays
Summary: We are caught up on orders and are shipping over 90% of orders within one business day.
Details: As you may have heard, demand for garden seeds so far this year is at levels rivaling last spring. Adding to that is the very real shortage of garden seeds generally. Right now we are receiving orders at the same pace as last March and April. However, last year we invested heavily in inventory and expanding and improving our production and fulfillment systems.
We are happy to report that we are keeping pace with demand and so far in January are shipping over 90% of orders by next business day, with many orders shipping the same day. There are some orders we are not able to ship out that quickly, especially on Monday, and appreciate your added patience as we cope with the very high demand. We are also happy to report that despite stock outs on many individual varieties, we have a very strong inventory of seeds generally and expect to get through the spring well stocked, with thousands of varieties available for purchase.
Unless demand surges further, we expect to have product available for sale, and expect to process and ship orders quickly. If that situation changes, we will keep you posted here.
We appreciate your business and your continued loyalty,
The True Leaf Market Team
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May 1, 2020 - MAJOR UPDATE
Okay, we don't want to jinx anything, but we are caught up!
Order volume is still very high, but we've made countless improvements in our processes and systems and we expect to be able to stay caught up unless there is another huge demand surge.
What you need to know:
- We have plenty of inventory, overall.
- Most orders should go out same day if placed before noon mountain time.
- Most orders placed after noon should go out the next business day.
- A small percentage of orders may take 2 or 3 business days to ship.
- A very small percentage of orders, especially very large orders (hundreds or thousands of items) may take longer than 3 days.
We are so grateful for your patience and trust as we worked through this challenging time. We are thrilled that so many people are turning to gardening, but we certainly wish it was under happier circumstances.
Stay safe and healthy!
The True Leaf Market Team
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April 29, 2020 - UPDATE
Demand is still very high but we have made some significant improvements to our processes and are catching up quickly. Our inventory also remains strong overall, with outages only in a handful of varieties. At this point orders are only a few days behind and unless demand surges again, we expect to be caught up and shipping orders quickly again by May 1st.
Thank you for your continued patience,
The True Leaf Market Team
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April 15, 2020 - UPDATE
This CBS News Article is entitled: Seed Companies Can't Keep Up.
That pretty much sums it up. We couldn't have imagined that the demand surge that began on roughly March 10th, would not only have sustained, but actually increased for over a month now. But it has. From what we can see, the majority of online seed companies out there have stopped taking orders in order to catch up with their backlog, and those that haven't closed are advising customers that it may take 6 weeks to process new orders. As other companies stop accepting orders, many of their customers are finding their way to us, which is pushing our daily order volume higher and higher.
We are getting further and further behind, but we are committed to continuing to accept new orders for the foreseeable future.
Here is what you need to know:
- Our inventory remains very strong overall. It is production, shipping and customer service that are behind.
- We are working on the oldest orders first, so if you haven't yet received your order it is in the queue.
- We still have orders that are over 10 business days old, but that number is shrinking as we focus on the oldest orders.
- As of now, new orders placed on the site have no possibility of going out sooner than 5 business days. Even last week we were getting some new orders out quickly. That is no longer the case.
- Most new orders will likely process within 5 to 10 business days, but some orders will take up to 15 business days, and a handful of orders will take even longer.
If you are okay with those wait times, we invite you to place your order online. We simply don't have the ability to process orders faster while working under the constraints of sensible COVID precautions and dramatically increased demand.
Thank you for your continued patience,
The True Leaf Market Team
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April 3, 2020 - UPDATE
Demand for our products is officially higher now than at any time since the Covid crisis began over a month ago. While we are thrilled that so many new people are finding us and will experience the joy of growing, we certainly wish it was under happier circumstances, and we wish we were able to fill orders faster.
So that you are aware, the entire seed industry is in the same boat. Some of our good friends and competitors in the industry have stopped taking orders altogether, and most others are experiencing shipping delays, some up to 6 weeks. We suspect that this is in part what is driving our order volume even higher now. We wish we could tell you that we are catching up, but we are not.
We are getting 80% of orders out in 10 business days or less, and we are acutely aware of every single order that is over that time frame. Many of those very late orders are held up by a shortage in mostly packaging materials. Our bulk seed inventory continues to be very strong overall.
The bottom line: We are committed to take orders as they come in for the foreseeable future, and are doing every single thing in our power to process your orders as quickly as we are able, despite challenges we face in keeping our team safe and healthy. If you are okay waiting, we invite you to place an order and are grateful for your business and trust. We ask only for your patience at this difficult time, as our customer service team is overwhelmed.
We promise, we are on the case!
The True Leaf Market Team
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March 29, 2020 - UPDATE
Demand is not only still high, but it seems that over the last two days it has actually increased further, perhaps driven by news stories like these:
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/style/seed-panic-buying-coronavirus.html
- https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/03/27/822514756/fearing-shortages-people-are-planting-more-vegetable-gardens?ft=nprml&f=1053
We ask for your patience as we continue to try to cope with the high order volume under the challenges we face while operating as safely as we can with respect to containment of the corona virus. Additional challenges are affecting fulfillment of about 20% of our orders. For example, we typically have a year supply of packaging materials on hand like woven bags (for 5 lb sizes and up) empty paper packets, etc... We have used up our entire supply of these types of packaging already this year and waiting for re-supply is further delaying about 20% of orders. It seems that our suppliers for these types of items are under similar demand constraints, making resupply a longer process than it would normally be.
Here is what order fulfillment times look like at this point:
- About 20% of orders are going out same day or next.
- About 60% of orders are shipping 8 to 10 business days late.
- About 20% of orders are taking longer than 10 business day to ship due to packaging materials resupply and production issues.
We are so grateful for your business and your patience as we work through this challenge.
Stay safe and healthy,
The True Leaf Market Team
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March 25, 2020 - UPDATE
We expected that demand would slow significantly by now, allowing us the breathing room to catch up, but it has not. We are now over two weeks into a massive demand spike that shows no sign whatsoever of slowing down. It has pushed all our processes and systems to the breaking point. We are making every adjustment we can to be able to ship orders, especially the oldest ones, but it is a very difficult challenge. We are not allowing any employees who are ill in any way to come to work, and as a result our work force is smaller than it should be. We don't know that those team members have the corona virus or not, but we not taking any chances. At this point we feel that any forecast on when orders will go out would be impossible as conditions are so fluid.
We hope for your patience and understanding as we do our absolute best to cope with this.
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March 18, 2020 - UPDATE - EARTHQUAKE
Well it's been an interesting month. We experienced a magnitude 5.7 earthquake this morning. We had some light damage to our warehouse including a few shelves that collapsed, and a light fixture that fell. Because of risk of aftershocks, and disruption of power, we are closing the warehouse for the day, in the interest of the safety of our warehouse staff.
Obviously this puts us further behind in order processing. We are grateful for your continued patience as more horsemen of the apocalypse roam free...
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March 16, 2020 - UPDATE
Demand has continued to increase, and we are even further behind. We sincerely apologize but we are overwhelmed with orders despite turning off advertising and pausing numerous sales channels.
We have all hands on deck trying to get your orders out, but some orders may ship 8 to 10 business days late, though most orders should ship faster than that (at this point).
We ask that if you do need to contact customer service, you use email or or the chat feature in the lower right corner of our website, instead of calling.
Thank you so much for your business and patience. Stay safe.
The True Leaf Market Team
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March 12, 2020
Due to a significant increase in demand driven by COVID-19, it is taking us longer to fulfill orders.
We have plenty of inventory, but order volumes have spiked to such levels that we are no longer able to fulfill orders in the time frame which is our standard. The safety (and sanity) of all the members of the True Leaf Market team are a top priority, and as a company we have struggled to keep up with the increasing demand, but it has out stripped our capacity.
Normally most orders go out same day they are received, or next day. Until demand normalizes, it is possible that your order may take up to 5 business days from the time we receive it until it ships.
Our customer service team is also beyond capacity so we ask that if you need to contact us for any reason, please consider using the chat option (lower right corner), or email us at support@trueleafmarket.com instead of calling.
We are so grateful for your business and patience,
The True Leaf Market Team