Demand is sky-rocketing with the UK’s niche direct commerce businesses with those selling anything gardening related literally swamped with orders. Similarly, those selling jigsaw puzzles and indoor games, knitting wools and craft supplies have never seen anything like the current demand. Speaking with Nigel Swabey at Scotts & Co, he reported very strong demand for anything relating to batch cooking, deep cleaning as well as garden accessories. At Map Marketing, the company is coping with a large increase in orders for its jigsaw puzzles despite reduced staff numbers and adaptations to its processes in order to provide its team with a safe and compliant working environment.
Over at Fothergills, the company has been struggling to keep up with demand but has reassured its customers that it has plenty of stock and that its warehouse staff are working hard to fill all orders as quickly as they can.
Similarly, Suttons has advised its customers that their orders may take longer than usual, in the email below:
“Dear Customer,
I must start by saying a huge thank you to all our customers who have been so understanding and tolerant over recent days.
If you’ve ordered from us or tried to contact us over the last week or so you will have noticed that we haven’t managed to provide our usual levels of service, but almost without exception, our customers have appreciated the reasons why.
None the less we are really sorry that despite 7 day working and extra shifts we are not currently able to provide our usual levels of service. Today we are packing seed orders that we have received on March 28th and garden equipment orders that we have received on March 24th. We will continue to do all that we can to improve things over the coming days and like you, we very much look forward to the situation returning to something closer to normality as soon as possible.
We have compiled a list of ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ shown below – click on any of the questions and it will take you through to our complete FAQ page.
However if you have a different question that still needs answering, please do contact us via our form found here https://www.suttons.co.uk/ContactUs.aspx and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we possibly can.
David Robinson,
Managing Director”
Fortunately, all of these businesses have a strong rapport with their customers and by staying in touch, advising of some delays, most are receiving an unprecedented number of thankful emails from their customers, many of whom are self-isolating and are grateful that they can still safely buy products to help them while away the hours.
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