Coach Harold Plush - Shipping Notice

[June 29, 2022] UPDATE: While the vast majority of orders have been shipped out and received by customers. Some parcels were marked as lost by our courier. Luckily, many of these parcels have been delivered successfully. All affected customers have been contacted.

In our previous update, we had stated that the 53 recorded tracking numbers had stopped updating past a certain point. We reached out to the customers with these tracking numbers, and much to our surprise, many of the orders were delivered successfully. However, the tracking numbers for these orders never updated to reflect this outcome.

Customers in this group who did not receive their orders are being taken care of, and if any other customers have an issue with their order, we encourage you to reach out to our support line at any time.

Once again, we would like to apologise for all of the inconveniences brought upon the fulfilment of the Coach Harold Plush, and we are now considering these disruptions as resolved.

[June 7, 2022] UPDATE: Upon further investigation with the couriers, we have discovered that 53 orders containing the Coach Harold Plush have gone missing. If your tracking information has not updated since May 6, 2022, your order is most likely affected by this incident, and we have reached out via email with more information on arrangements moving forward.

In the last batch of Coach Harold Plushes, we had ensured that all packages had begun updating tracking numbers before announcing that the pre-order distribution was nearing its end. To our dismay, we recently discovered that 53 orders containing the Coach Harold Plush had never updated past the last recorded entry on May 6, 2022.

On May 31, we had reached out to the couriers handling the shipments for a response on this matter, but we were not met with a very clear answer. There was, however, a quick decision made on their part to compensate us for the cost of shipping. This act in itself raised red flags, so we’re informing our customers of the situation as best we can. As of June 6, the courier we spoke to still had not clarified whether or not the shipped parcels were lost. The compensation plan had been initiated, and it has now begun processing. This sequence of events ultimately indicates that the worst-case scenario had already begun to unfold.

This case is still unsettled as there are many unanswered questions, including whether or not the orders are intact and still on their way. However, we want our customers to prepare for the possibility of your order becoming completely lost with no immediate way to ship out new packages until the next batch.

[May 13, 2022] Orders are on the way

As of today, we've been able to verify with the courier's system that all remaining orders are updating and on the way. Customers who haven't had any updates to their tracking numbers should contact us for further details.

Once again, we'd like to apologize for the delays in fulfillment. We're glad to finally be able to wrap up this project, and we hope everyone's orders arrive safely!

[May 11, 2022] Inventory Recovery

Over this past week, our warehouse audit had revealed that there were 66 missing plushes from our inventory. We've sent the 3PL a formal correspondence regarding this matter, and they've since followed up with an inventory check. This occurrence was the main reason behind the 27 orders that hadn't been shipped out in the last update.

We've fortunately been able to find 64 out of the 66 units following the inquiry with the 3PL, and the remaining 27 orders highlighted in the previous update have now been sent out. Customers waiting for a new tracking number will have theirs updated and sent to them as soon as we can verify that shipments are moving.

[May 5, 2022] UPDATE: Shipments have been accepted by the courier.

We're still attempting to reach out to the 3PL representatives, but as of this morning in China Standard Time, we found that most of the orders that were affected by this delay were accepted by the courier, right after we had released our statement below. We're glad to see that there is movement, and we look forward to seeing the shipments arrive safely in the hands of our customers.

As we're still unclear with the 3PL regarding what happened to these parcels over the past month, please let us know if there are any defects or abnormalities in your order upon reception.

Upon progressing through our audit, there are still 27 orders with tracking numbers that have remained stagnant. These customers have been contacted individually for further options.

If your Coach Harold Plush has not arrived, and there hasn't been any updates to your tracking number past May 1, please contact us.

[May 4, 2022] This update is for customers still waiting to receive their Coach Harold Plush.

While we submitted the stock and set up shipping with our logistics partner in China, many orders have unfortunately been hampered by the recent lockdowns in the region. Additionally, our communications with said logistics partner have been shaky as of recently, and we have been reaching out to them daily to try and reach a resolution.

As a part of taking responsibility for this delay—even if it was out of our control—any affected customers can request a full refund if they wish to cancel their order. We ask, however, that you exercise a bit more patience as we're still determined to resolve this issue swiftly. Since the extensive lockdown in Shanghai, our operations in China have been thoroughly suspended, and in the inevitable aftermath, our financials have unfortunately taken a sizable hit.

We'll be posting any updates as soon as they are made available to us, but we’re also unsure of the situation and don't have any more details at this time.


In the interest of full transparency with our customers, the following is a detailed timeline of the background of this situation:


Pawprint Press partnered with a third-party logistics company (3PL) in China in 2021 due to the increasingly difficult supply chain position poised by the global pandemic. One of the main reasons behind this move was that by the end of 2020, sea freight shipping costs had skyrocketed nearly tenfold up to ~$20,000 per container compared to the ~$2,000 costs pre-COVID. Our US distributor located in Los Angeles had also been unable to receive shipments due to the extreme delays caused by heavy congestion at the sea ports. Back then, it was estimated to take at least a few months to even have containers unloaded from the ports and sent to their destinations.

In order to ensure that Pawprint Press continued operations during this time, we had decided to ship our newly released products directly from China, where the majority of production took place. By mid-2021, our sole location in Shanghai was completely overwhelmed with the number of orders, exceeding our capabilities in handling them all. Swamped in backed-up orders, we made the choice to partner with the aforementioned Shanghai-based 3PL provider as our warehousing and fulfilment centre. All orders from China would henceforth be sent from one of their locations in Shenzhen.

Operations continued without much disruption, and we closed out 2021 while maintaining our partnership with the 3PL.

Fast forward to the Coach Harold Plush–all orders containing this product were handled by them and marked as “Shipped” in their system in March 2022. Tracking numbers are generated before being handed off to the couriers, so our customers were sent a shipping notification as part of the automated process. Unfortunately for everyone, this was also right around the time when Shenzhen underwent a mandated COVID-19 lockdown, interrupting all fulfilment operations at the time. The 3PL contacted us and mentioned that select parcels were not accepted by the courier and that they were to be returned to the warehouse sometime in April. They added that we could initiate a reshipment once the stock was confirmed to have been returned to the warehouse, but so far, the only response we’ve received was that they had begun restocking the goods. This process, however, is proceeding at an underwhelming pace, as reflected in the system.

We don't know the exact situation surrounding unaccepted parcels, but we've attempted to contact them on a daily basis. We were not given a list, nor were we told whether or not the parcels are intact–all we know is that there are a few dozen of these orders, completely unmoving with no tracking updates. As our business with them falls short of satisfactory, we will be terminating service with this 3PL, but since this issue is contingent on their performance, we will only be doing so once we can fully resolve this matter. We felt that it was necessary to be completely transparent about this information as it falls upon our responsibility to keep our customers updated on their purchases at all times.

Since the beginning of 2022, mandated lockdowns were set in place in several major Chinese cities, and as a result, Pawprint Press has been forced to suspend all operations in China, including our online store on Taobao. Ever since the Spring Festival, the restrictions prevented us from accessing our original Shanghai warehouse, where parts of the Ranok Plush are stored. From our other releases to product restocks, the critical situation we've been placed under has also affected the rest of our store.

We want to apologise for all of the inconveniences this has brought upon our customers, but these occurrences continue to remain out of our control. We want to remind you all that refunds will still be available for all preorders and presales that have been significantly affected. We are currently performing a comprehensive audit on all orders processed by the Chinese 3PL to determine shipping and delivery status, and any orders found to have issues will be handled appropriately.

In the meantime, we're working hard to recover and get ourselves back on track! Pawprint Press is in the process of moving many products to our Los Angeles distribution centre, and we're also planning on releasing four new products in the next couple of months. With sea freight becoming an option to us again in 2022, we plan on shipping the majority of orders directly from our warehouse located in Los Angeles for a much simpler fulfilment and shipping process, whereas products continued to be sent from China will have details explicitly stated on the product listing page. Please look forward to our new releases through our social media or by signing up for our newsletter!

Thank you for your patience and understanding throughout these delays. We very much appreciate it.


Sincerely,

Pawprint Press