Hello all,
Spain is little by little allowing more movements for the population, and the government has started the downscaling, or the different phases for starting to go back to “normal”.
I have been checking more information from the post services and I am going to be shipping again soon. Shipping costs will be the same since upon further research, the shipping methods from the store will still be the same. Also, checking again the countries where we are allowed to ship to seems to not to be an issue, since basically most of the countries where I usually ship are available.
Shipping times will change however, either from our local post services and from your country’s postal services. In front of a situation like this, it is normal that some short delays may occur, but that does not need to be necessarily the case.
Another thing that will change are the maximum shipping days after an order has been placed. I have always went to ship the orders as quick as possible, 3 days maximum being 2 days the average time taken to finish preparing and shipping an order. However, this will change since I will mainly use two days a week to ship orders. What does this mean? It means that I will be shipping orders on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Why? For starters, on Saturdays (and of course Sundays) the post offices remain closed which they were open on Saturdays in the past. Then, because the post services are working with what they call ” the indispensable” workers, only two clerks are working at the office. This translates to longer queues, and at this moment, and because one must keep a distance of 1,5m from each other, queues can surround the block.
This also happens because they have set a maximum capacity of the office of two persons at the same time, so by going as early as possible I can make sure I will be on time and by shipping those two days of the week also to try to minimize the contact with other people.
I chose those two days because I think they are distributed better during the week, on Mondays there are usually more people, so I think these days are well distributed for shipping orders, since ordering on Tuesday will allow me to ship on Friday (3 days) and ordering on Friday will allow me to ship on Tuesday.
I may of course do exceptions depending on the orders, so if there are several to ship, I may then ship another day of the week.
So basically, there won’t be much changes, but it is more a prevention for me to go there as sparse as possible to avoid contact.
Now on regards when I will be shipping orders again, this will be between 2 to 3 weeks from now. Some items are ready, but I am finishing units of other models, and as I always say, I like to make units of all the items if possible, so that it allows the customer to chose and avoid having to pay two shippings if I upload an item a few days later.
All GSE and figures will be available, plus the 1/200 AST-1 F 600 pushback and most possibly the 1/200 Houcin GPU. From the new items, those that will be ready at the same time will be both Neo engines, the new spotters’ figures, and hopefully the new A330 sharklets, A350 sharklets. The 787-10 fuselage extensions will have to wait a little bit.
It is a little harder at the moment since in one hand, some materials arrive to me quite fast, some others are taking a few days more, but I am doing the best I can so that while I wait for one material, I prepare other things. I buy the silicone and polyurethane resin from one place, the photosensitive resin from another, the brass sheets from another, the decal paper from another…
Luckily, I have been able to find gloves, which when making the photo etched parts is something that you must wear otherwise… well… bad things would happen. Next issue may be finding more alcohol 96, but at the moment I have enough to keep going.
That is all with this update, things seem to start to get back to “normal” little by little, I am preparing as many things as I can, so that between 2 to 3 weeks, all can be ready.
Best wishes and thank you for reading,
Guillem