Since day one of Arachnid Labs’ existence, we’ve done all our shipping ourselves - strictly a skunkworks operation. We have a Royal Mail commercial account, which makes sending mail in volume easier, but all the stock’s in a dedicated cupboard under the stairs, and everything gets packed and labelled on the kitchen table. At least, up until now.
The needs of the Re:load Pro kickstarter have precipitated a change to using a fulfillment company for shipping, and as of now we’re saying goodbye to the stock cupboard. Going forward, our products - with a couple of exceptions - will be shipping from fulfillment warehouses in the US and the UK via Shipwire.
This has several benefits. Most significantly, packages will ship sooner; shipping orders ourselves has meant we can’t go down to the post office every day, and that’s sometimes led to delays; with Shipwire orders will typically ship the business day after the order is placed.
Packages will also arrive faster for a lot of people. With stock at warehouses near London and Los Angeles, delivery times will go down for anyone who’s nearer the US than the UK, which is about 2/3rds of our orders.
More of our packages will offer tracking. Royal Mail first class doesn’t offer tracking, so we typically haven’t offered it in the past, but of Shipwire’s services, even many of the economy services offer tracking.
There’ll be more shipping options to choose from. Most regions will have economy, standard and premium rates available.
There’s only one downside to all of this: for some people, shipping rates will increase, particularly for people in regions like Asia and Oceania. I’m really sorry about that - but it’s an unavoidable consequence of the shipping providers Shipwire offers. I’ve done my best to keep the increases as small as possible.
To celebrate the new faster shipping, we’re offering 15% off all affected products for the next week using the coupon code A8A346A. You can apply this to the Circuit Patterns Trading Cards, the Re:load 2, and preorders for the Re:load Pro, which will be shipping in about a week!
Also, keep an eye out for the Minishift, which will be coming back into stock soon; it’s in production right now.