Homebrew supply deliveries delayed again due to COVID panic buying

[Arcs]

Aye, made small £45 order from Brew2Bottle last Tuesday and I aint heard or seen jack diddly squat from DPD or Royal Mail.

Pretty handy at taking the cash from my bank account. Not so good at delivery. Yes I have had the email saying that deliveries will be delayed but by this much? And only a few miles up the road? C'mon! Gimme a break!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Aye, made small £45 order from Brew2Bottle last Tuesday and I aint heard or seen jack diddly squat from DPD or Royal Mail.
Pretty handy at taking the cash from my bank account. Not so good at delivery.

B2B posted this in the sponsor forum on Tuesday explaining how busy they are, are you blaming B2B for the late delivery or DPD & Royal Mail?


Hi guys n girls

This last week it's gone and got incredibly busy again, busier than the first lockdown, and I'm sorry to say that even though we've more than tripled the number of elves we have in the warehouse we're starting to fall behind on shipping orders again.

We're doing everything we can to get back on top of this and have even more elves joining us this week to help get orders shipped from the warehouse. We're currently 3-4 days behind on orders even though we're already shipping orders 6 days a week, the 7th day is coming soon I think.

The volume of stock coming in and going out of the warehouse right now is phenomenal to which we can only thank you guys for sticking with us. Over the past 8 months we have ploughed all increased revenues back into stock and been able to create new jobs for people which really does give us a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

It's been impossible over the summer to keep stock on all lines so again we apologise for that but we're constantly working on improving this with increased orders. Pre lockdown we were only ever out of stock on a handful of lines at a time, since March we seem to have been out of stock on everything I check Stock is still very irregular in it's availability, when it does show up we buy everything we can. There have been times when it's felt like the stock situation has been easing over the last couple of months but it's usually turned out to be a hoax and it's gone again before you know it.

That said we have a load more stock due on anything Muntons created, we have more Bulldog and Still Spirits items arriving this week for those of you who prefer to stagger about the house. Beaverdale wine kits are very close to coming back into stock also. Spray malts are nowhere to be seen right now though, probably better to saw up some old planks and use the sawdust.

Again thanks for bearing with us, we're processing orders as quickly as we can and doing more to improve that side further. I'll try to back get on with regular service updates and let you guys know when something out of stock is about to arrive.

Cheers

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/oh-its-busy.90671/

 

[Arcs]

I don't know who is the culprit right now. Fair to say wouldn't be fair to blame either save the money is gone from my acc and I have no beer to make :c But my order was placed last Tuesday before they made this announcement.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I have let B2B know you have posted this thread i am sure they will answer as soon as they see the message.

 

[Rodcx500z]

A simple solution would be, firms are not allowed to take money from accounts until the order is ready for dispatch, you know exactly were you are then

 

[terrym]

You should look up your order on the B2B website, which is easy.
If its 'unfulfilled' its still waiting to be processed.
And if that's the case and its longer than five working days from order they should be telling you there is a delay, which is what was promised in my order confirmation email for my recent order with B2B. However I didn't get one of these emails after my order overran the five days, but I did get an explanatory email by return when I chased them up.
So if your order is showing unfilfilled and over the five days you need to chase them, but not on here. Your order is with B2B, not with B2B via the Forum
Next when it goes to 'fulfilled' you should get an email with your tracking details. But if your order is showing as 'fulfilled' and you have received no email then you need to chase up your tracking details.
Hope this helps
But in general its really no use carping on about supplier performance on here if you havent tried to find out what's going on with the supplier direct, and that applies whoever the supplier is. However if you have taken reasonable steps to find out what happening to an order and met a blank wall, then in in my view it is then OK to raise it on here, whether they are Forum sponsors or not, although the Forum may not be able to actually do anything.

 

[peebee]

Don't know what all the fuss is about. The 14x25kg sacks of grain I purchased two weeks ago all turned up.

 

[B2B]

Aye, made small £45 order from Brew2Bottle last Tuesday and I aint heard or seen jack diddly squat from DPD or Royal Mail.

Pretty handy at taking the cash from my bank account. Not so good at delivery. Yes I have had the email saying that deliveries will be delayed but by this much? And only a few miles up the road? C'mon! Gimme a break!

Hey

We're genuinely sorry for the delays right now. We are catching up and fingers crossed by the end of the week we'll be back to within our usual shipping services.

When lockdown 1.0 happened we made the decision to buy as much stock as possible to try to keep you guys in beer over the summer and not turn our site off. It was obvious that this wasn't going to go away when Boris closed the pubs and we saw the reaction the market had to it, 95% of our stock sold in the first weekend of lockdown 1.0. The home brew market has grown anywhere from 20-30% over the summer and when we go into a lockdown, or the threat of a lockdown, appears you guys go into overdrive. A lot of the smaller shops are closed as seen as "non-essential" so the online guys have to pick up the slack. I'm not complaining in any way as it's helped us to grow to more than double the size we were pre-lockdown and do different things like the BrewBook we've been sending out with orders. We've taken on so many extra elves in the warehouse over summer and are processing over 1,000 orders a day right now, we're getting better and are currently looking for new premises which will help us streamline things further. These things take time though I'm afraid, Covid came from nowhere and reacts a lot faster than we can. I don't want to be seen to be making excuses,, I just want to explain and assure everyone we're doing the best we can under the circumstances and constantly improving what we do. Right now the volume of stock coming and going from our warehouse is incredible, we have over 8,000 sq ft of warehouse already but we're full to bursting. Distancing guidelines in the workplace means we're starting to run out of space for people to pack orders but as I said, we're going to be moving to a larger space asap. We've gone from 5 people in the warehouse at the turn of the year to 19 now, which is great because we can give jobs to people who have lost theirs during this pandemic. Even with those kind of numbers though the amount of kit coming and going is still beyond expectations, as we catch up there's another spurt in growth or lockdown 2.0 happens at the drop of a hat coinciding with payday for a lot of people. A lot of stores have had to turn their sites off due to the volumes they are processing. We don't want to prevent people from ordering what they need and will work as hard as we can to get their orders to them asap. We will get better, we will continue recruiting people until we have no physical room left for bodies.

We are in some ways a victim of the success we've had over summer because we've been carrying so much stock and refused to put our prices up for an easy win, as creepy as it sounds we didn't want to take advantage of the situation in that way, we'd rather get our heads down and work harder than we already had been for the rewards.

I'm sorry for the delays and disappointment guys, we're here to do the best we can for you because without you guys we can't do what we do. We will and are getting better every week and will catch up soon. Right now we're shipping orders that are approx a week old, by the end of the week I'd hope to have that down to 3-4 days old and next week even better. We're working 6 days a week in the warehouse packing orders and have extra collections arranged with couriers. Yesterday DPD collected 16 pallets from us and Royal Mail around 20 cages of smaller parcels. To compensate for the stock going out we have approx 40-50 pallets of stock arriving this week to fill the shelves back up.

Martyn and Sophie are tied to their desks to answer calls, online chats and emails for anyone with a query. If anyone wants to check their order then please drop us a line and we'll get back to you. If you need your order before a specific date then again drop us a line and we'll see if we can get your order out sooner, if you aren't desperate for your order and happy to wait then thank you.

Regards the site taking cash on order, sorry we have no control over that, the funds are taken as the order is placed by the systems put in place by the banks. It's supposed to be a failsafe to stop people over spending or going into overdrafts without realising if they are prolific with their online spending.

Again sorry and thanks for bearing with us.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

A simple solution would be, firms are not allowed to take money from accounts until the order is ready for dispatch, you know exactly were you are then

In case anyone skips through the B2B post above I thought this worth highlighting as it answers the earlier post by Rod.


Regards the site taking cash on order, sorry we have no control over that, the funds are taken as the order is placed by the systems put in place by the banks. It's supposed to be a failsafe to stop people over spending or going into overdrafts without realising if they are prolific with their online spending.

Again sorry and thanks for bearing with us.

 

[pms67]

Aye, made small £45 order from Brew2Bottle last Tuesday and I aint heard or seen jack diddly squat from DPD or Royal Mail.

Pretty handy at taking the cash from my bank account. Not so good at delivery. Yes I have had the email saying that deliveries will be delayed but by this much? And only a few miles up the road? C'mon! Gimme a break!

A few miles, I would start walking
Unless it’s a 25kg sack of grain

 

[MickDundee]

In case anyone skips through the B2B post above I thought this worth highlighting as it answers the earlier post by Rod.


Regards the site taking cash on order, sorry we have no control over that, the funds are taken as the order is placed by the systems put in place by the banks. It's supposed to be a failsafe to stop people over spending or going into overdrafts without realising if they are prolific with their online spending.

Again sorry and thanks for bearing with us.

B2B offer Klarna as a way to pay. One of the Klarna options is “pay in 30 days” so anyone who is not keen on their money being taken immediately could take that service up.

https://brew2bottle.co.uk/pages/klarna-faqHow does Pay later in 30 days work?
Once your order is confirmed, you'll receive an email with payment instructions within two days from Klarna. You'll then have 30 days to try on your order and only pay when you’re happy. Complete the payment online, at your convenience, with no extra cost. You can pay via credit or debit card in Klarna.app or by logging into www.klarna.com/uk.

 

[Ale House Rock]

Hey

We're genuinely sorry for the delays right now. We are catching up and fingers crossed by the end of the week we'll be back to within our usual shipping services.

When lockdown 1.0 happened we made the decision to buy as much stock as possible to try to keep you guys in beer over the summer and not turn our site off. It was obvious that this wasn't going to go away when Boris closed the pubs and we saw the reaction the market had to it, 95% of our stock sold in the first weekend of lockdown 1.0. The home brew market has grown anywhere from 20-30% over the summer and when we go into a lockdown, or the threat of a lockdown, appears you guys go into overdrive. A lot of the smaller shops are closed as seen as "non-essential" so the online guys have to pick up the slack. I'm not complaining in any way as it's helped us to grow to more than double the size we were pre-lockdown and do different things like the BrewBook we've been sending out with orders. We've taken on so many extra elves in the warehouse over summer and are processing over 1,000 orders a day right now, we're getting better and are currently looking for new premises which will help us streamline things further. These things take time though I'm afraid, Covid came from nowhere and reacts a lot faster than we can. I don't want to be seen to be making excuses,, I just want to explain and assure everyone we're doing the best we can under the circumstances and constantly improving what we do. Right now the volume of stock coming and going from our warehouse is incredible, we have over 8,000 sq ft of warehouse already but we're full to bursting. Distancing guidelines in the workplace means we're starting to run out of space for people to pack orders but as I said, we're going to be moving to a larger space asap. We've gone from 5 people in the warehouse at the turn of the year to 19 now, which is great because we can give jobs to people who have lost theirs during this pandemic. Even with those kind of numbers though the amount of kit coming and going is still beyond expectations, as we catch up there's another spurt in growth or lockdown 2.0 happens at the drop of a hat coinciding with payday for a lot of people. A lot of stores have had to turn their sites off due to the volumes they are processing. We don't want to prevent people from ordering what they need and will work as hard as we can to get their orders to them asap. We will get better, we will continue recruiting people until we have no physical room left for bodies.

We are in some ways a victim of the success we've had over summer because we've been carrying so much stock and refused to put our prices up for an easy win, as creepy as it sounds we didn't want to take advantage of the situation in that way, we'd rather get our heads down and work harder than we already had been for the rewards.

I'm sorry for the delays and disappointment guys, we're here to do the best we can for you because without you guys we can't do what we do. We will and are getting better every week and will catch up soon. Right now we're shipping orders that are approx a week old, by the end of the week I'd hope to have that down to 3-4 days old and next week even better. We're working 6 days a week in the warehouse packing orders and have extra collections arranged with couriers. Yesterday DPD collected 16 pallets from us and Royal Mail around 20 cages of smaller parcels. To compensate for the stock going out we have approx 40-50 pallets of stock arriving this week to fill the shelves back up.

Martyn and Sophie are tied to their desks to answer calls, online chats and emails for anyone with a query. If anyone wants to check their order then please drop us a line and we'll get back to you. If you need your order before a specific date then again drop us a line and we'll see if we can get your order out sooner, if you aren't desperate for your order and happy to wait then thank you.

Regards the site taking cash on order, sorry we have no control over that, the funds are taken as the order is placed by the systems put in place by the banks. It's supposed to be a failsafe to stop people over spending or going into overdrafts without realising if they are prolific with their online spending.

Again sorry and thanks for bearing with us.

I think you guys are doing a fantastic job under exceptional circumstances. Keep up the good work!

 

[micklupulo]

I placed my first order with them eight days ago then at some point received the "bear with us" message so I did so until yesterday when I made a polite enquiry as (not then knowing some of the intricacies of how to check as mentioned above) I genuinely wondered whether it had been overlooked. I got a polite response and a message later to say it's in transit expected tomorrow. Not at all difficult really.

 

[Shatfield]

I ordered last Tuesday and received a dispatch notification today which I believe is acceptable given the detailed explanations.

I've used Brew2Bottle on a number of occasions and have always found them to offer an excellent service.

 

[B2B]

Thanks guys for understanding.... we've just had 29 pallets delivered, 9 more tomorrow... if nothing else this pandemic has done wonders for my waistline!!!

 

[Arcs]

B2B offer Klarna as a way to pay. One of the Klarna options is “pay in 30 days” so anyone who is not keen on their money being taken immediately could take that service up.

https://brew2bottle.co.uk/pages/klarna-faqHow does Pay later in 30 days work?
Once your order is confirmed, you'll receive an email with payment instructions within two days from Klarna. You'll then have 30 days to try on your order and only pay when you’re happy. Complete the payment online, at your convenience, with no extra cost. You can pay via credit or debit card in Klarna.app or by logging into www.klarna.com/uk.

I tried that, Klarna won't let me use it ><

 

[Arcs]

Yea, I gave em a nudge and mine is otw tomorrow. They are right tho, pre-pandemic, B2B were fine with stock levels. But since March there always seem to be pages and pages of extract brew out of stock which on occasion has made me take a train trip into town and buy from my local Wilko. The price of a train ticket and their postage isn't that much and I get it on the same day. I also get to shop for my Chinese supermarket supplies too so that's a win. I'll keep using them, but I think next time it's a trip to Wilko. I am outta beer and need to replenish stock in time for Xmas and ok it's not their fault but neither is Xmas :c

 

[B2B]

Yea, I gave em a nudge and mine is otw tomorrow. They are right tho, pre-pandemic, B2B were fine with stock levels. But since March there always seem to be pages and pages of extract brew out of stock which on occasion has made me take a train trip into town and buy from my local Wilko. The price of a train ticket and their postage isn't that much and I get it on the same day. I also get to shop for my Chinese supermarket supplies too so that's a win. I'll keep using them, but I think next time it's a trip to Wilko. I am outta beer and need to replenish stock in time for Xmas and ok it's not their fault but neither is Xmas :c

Which kits are you looking for? I can possibly help with some etas.

We're ordering in such big volumes now that where as I used to send a weekly PO to each supplier and received 95% of it, instead I'm sending orders to suppliers by brand i.e. Mangrove Jacks or Simply etc... What happens now though is instead of a constant supply weekly we might get 300 of one kit in one day and it will last us for a month until the next arrive. Stock in the UK is still hit and miss, we are getting our share of what is available though, some of the slower selling names aren't being produced right now to keep the machines free for the higher selling kits. When we get them though we get lots in one big hit.

I've just booked 13 pallets of todays deliveries into stock now and am back at my computer re-ordering what I've just booked in for next time.

Tomorrow we have 7 more pallets of Mangrove Jacks kits, including 300 x Juicy IPA, 1 pallet of On The House wine kits and a pallet of something brand new to the market, never been seen before but is a massive craze in the US and has started to appear on the supermarket shelves over here as well... very exciting isn't it :)

Hard Seltzer Spritzer

 

[Arcs]

There's currently quite alot out of stock from the bitters and real ales section and has been for months. A fair bit missing from the stouts section too, and why so few porters? I wouldn't mind also if you started stocking the Gozdawa range as they have quite alot of beers in many different styles too. I've tried a couple, they are nice!

 

[B2B]

Brewmaker - We only got a few in the last time around, there's an order in for more of everything that Muntons make so will try and get an eta for you on those.
Festival kits we have 2 orders for those open right now, again I will chase those but I know there were none available last week still.
Burton Bridge is one of those lines we haven't been able to get all summer because they aren't the most popular

There's more in stock than not in stock on the bitters and ales though currently.

We have over 2,000 Mangrove Jacks kits coming in tomorrow but no stouts that I can see. We have some of the Simply Export Stouts delivered today, we still have 2 orders for Simply kits on the suppliers system to come into us as well. There are some lines that have been discontinued from these ranges and we need to take them off the site.

Youngs kits are getting harder to get hold of right now, we have plenty of the IPA and APA but as soon as any Mocha Porter come into stock they sell straight away. 15 arrived yesterday and I've just noticed they've already sold. I'll be asking for more, right now we're only getting limited quantities on some of the Youngs kits, they're limiting each store to x amount, right now though x amount doesn't stay in stock than a day or so.

Do you prefer single tin kits or 2 can kits?

Do you sign up to the "alert me when back in stock" emails? It's the best way to be amongst the first to know.

We'll get onto the Gozdawa straight away for you though :)