We would like to take this opportunity to address your concerns around the tokidoki pre-sale launch from yesterday. First, regarding quantities purchased by individuals, in the past we have never had anyone purchase more than two of any one item (and even that was rare), this time there were two instances where two individuals bought more than three of one item at a time. Moving forward, we are assuming that the demand is going to increase and therefore we will be limiting individual item purchases to 3 of any one item for each customer. We can understand that some people buy gifts for other people, that is why we are making it 3. There isn't enough to go around so we feel limits do need to be put in place. If, in future, we are able to have more product available for our customers we may change this, but for now, we feel this is fair.
Second, regarding shipments to the United States. In the past we have allowed customers in the United States to purchase pre-sale items. The reason for this is because we are still a relatively small company and the thought of turning away any customer seemed crazy! We also wanted to make sure that we could sell all the product. Both tokidoki and new prints release at the same time; it's a big commitment but we want to make sure that we meet customer demand. Customer satisfaction is very important to us, so we do our best to bring in sufficient product. We didn't monitor web statistics the first time we offered tokidoki for pre-sale. The second time, we were concerned about traffic and whether the site would be able to handle the load. At the peak, there were 20 people shopping concurrently. The site handled the traffic no problem and we were pretty pleased. Out of all the sales that day, only 1 person ordered product to be shipped to the States for a total of 2 items. We did not see this as a problem.
This time around, demand was SO great that it really took us by surprise. At the peak there were 92 people shopping at the same time and as we all learned, the site could not handle the traffic. We have obviously made changes to deal with the increase and things ran much smoother yesterday. This time, only 6 orders went to the States for a total of 13 items. Obviously more than the last time, but we also did twice the sales in total. As mentioned we didn't anticipate the demand to be as great as it was and, after already agreeing to ship to the States, we couldn't then go back on our word an hour before the sale was set to begin. We also did not realize that Canadians had difficulty ordering from American sites, obviously, this is a big consideration. We read your comments and agree that, to be fair, Canadian retailers should follow suit and only offer pre-sale items to Canadian customers. Moving forward, this change is going to be implemented.
Thank you for all of the feedback yesterday, any and all feedback is appreciated. This helps us learn and evolve as we grow.
I could have sworn I saw a limit 1 per customer on one of your statuses…I missed out and my carted items were sold out because I was trying to figure out how to edit my cart when I noticed I had carted two of the same item…I probably wouldn’t have missed out had I known more than one was allowed..and I would have just went through with purchasing …sigh..nice to know about the changes though.
kk
November 18, 2015
I could have sworn I saw a limit 1 per customer on one of your statuses…I missed out and my carted items were sold out because I was trying to figure out how to edit my cart when I noticed I had carted two of the same item…I probably wouldn’t have missed out had I known more than one was allowed..and I would have just went through with purchasing …sigh..nice to know about the changes though.