MirkoBoeddecker
Dear Georges,
Please allow me to reply in English, as my French is only so-so and I find it a bit difficult when it comes to writing.
I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to regarding a one-month delay (I’d need your invoice number to check), but we are currently experiencing some organisational issues.
Basically, three things coincided at the same time.
1) The post-Photokina effect
2) The first two cold weeks of the year
3) The implementation of new software
We had an extremely successful Photokina and handed out well over 3,000 catalogues. This led to a sharp increase in phone calls and orders immediately after the show.
At the same time, the first cold weeks of the year arrived, which unfortunately meant that over 50% of my staff have been off sick over the past four weeks (one after the other).
People also wanted to get their darkrooms up and running again after not using them during the hot summer months, so we saw increased demand from that as well.
The new software needed to be implemented so that we have better real-time stock tracking, which is essential for launching our online shop. We currently have three ways of placing orders simultaneously: in-store, mail order/telephone order and the new online shop.
They all need to be fully synchronised so we avoid over-booking our stock.
All this led to an uncharacteristic delay for FOTOIMPEX of about 2–3 days in replying to emails, a constantly busy telephone line and a delay in parcel processing of about 5–10 days.
We still have around 300 parcels to dispatch which have not yet been packed, but the software is running smoothly now; only four more staff members have called in sick this week, so we are slowly catching up.
I hope to restore our usual prompt response times within one to two weeks.
Kind regards,
Mirko
