Alternate choice selection is a great success
November 22nd, 2007
I want to take this time to thank all the customers who actually read the information provided for everyone about availability issues. Many folks, since I asked everyone to select alternate choices in the Men’s cotton shirts and the boy’s and girl’s items, have, indeed, done so. This has prevented us from shipping many partial orders and has made many people very happy.
The concept is simple, really. There are thousands of choices. The numbers are staggering. The MauiShirts.com web site is approaching 3,000 pages deep. MauiShirts.com offers more selection of ‘Made in and Shipped from Hawaii’ apparel than anyone, anywhere. It is virtually impossible to stock all items for immediate shipment in every color, in every size, in every print and every style ALL OF THE TIME. It is impossible for the Honolulu factories to do this and it is impossible for MauiShirts.com to do this. Because so many of you on the Mainland are in a rush, it has become imperative to inform you of this simple fact. There is a toll free number to call. It can be found on the bottom area of all pages of the web site if you want to check stock before you place your on-line order. Select alternate colors or prints. You will be glad you did. Many people have done this. The truth is that only a small percentage of orders ever receive the alternate choices. The bulk of all orders ship with the first selections.
There are over 7,000 garments now hanging in my showroom in Lahaina, Maui. MauiShirts.com is now processing as many as 50 orders per day, 7 days a week. We are shipping over 2,000 or more garments per month. The web site is manually updated every day through out the day, 365 days a year, to reflect sales, exchange and returns. 97% of all returns are for exchanges. (This is because I still can not get folks to use the size charts – the size charts are accurate). Very few customers return items for refund. We are always attempting to let folks know what remains in stock 24 hours a day. NO OTHER WEB SITE DOES THIS. It is a daunting task, but there is no other way. Because things are made in such small quantities, this is the only way to keep the items remaining in stock updated – manually. There is no software to do this. At least none off the shelf. It would cost thousands of dollars to write some custom software to constantly update inventories. Most folks do not know this, but MauiShirts.com has listings on eBay, Amazon.com, Shop.com and other sources. Things can sell out overnight. One on-line order from a wedding party, a convention gathering or luau can wipe out an entire print in existing inventory.
Anything not in immediate hanging stock can be ordered as long as fabric remains available. The only glitch is that you can not be in a rush. There is NO additional cost to make something for you. The wait can be a few days to longer than 8 weeks.
Happy Holidays, Mickey
Jimmy Buffet Concert Apparel
October 26th, 2007
I received my Beautiful Dress in time to travel to Las Vegas to the Jimmy Buffet concert. You have great staff. Easy, Fast Transaction – Lightning fast shipping. I will remember you in the future!!
Thank You
Kimberly Ison
Arkansas
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MauiShirts does Weddings
October 17th, 2007
Hello Mr. Maui Man!
I wanted to thank you for helping us get our wedding attire before the wedding! I called you two weeks before the wedding freaking out because amazon said that it wouldn’t even ship for 5-7 days but you pulled through for us and ensured we received the shirts in time for the wedding!
The shirts were fantastic, by the way!
Thank you again! Keep up the good work!
A new life long customer,
Corey O’Connor
Corey’s Child Care
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The Good stuff
October 16th, 2007
To: Maui Shirts
I just wanted to write and thank you for such quality products and speedy service.
I ordered a matching shirt and sundress for an upcoming Hawaiian theme Christmas party and wanted something nice to wear.
I was VERY please with the selection of your products, easy to use online ordering and the speed of getting my order within a few days. (I can order something locally and it takes longer to get it shipped to me!)
I will not hesitate to recommend your company to all my family, co workers and friends.
Thank you very much!
Christine Tassone
Uncategorized
The Good stuff
October 16th, 2007
To: Maui Shirts
I just wanted to write and thank you for such quality products and speedy service.
I ordered a matching shirt and sundress for an upcoming Hawaiian theme Christmas party and wanted something nice to wear.
I was VERY please with the selection of your products, easy to use online ordering and the speed of getting my order within a few days. (I can order something locally and it takes longer to get it shipped to me!)
I will not hesitate to recommend your company to all my family, co workers and friends.
Thank you very much!
Christine Tassone
Uncategorized
One Angry Customer speaks out…
September 22nd, 2007
You will love this one.
Here is an Amazon.com customer with two email addresses. She placed an order on July 3rd and expected delivery in 2 days. July 3rd was a Thursday before the 4th of July Holiday weekend. When her dress did not arrive within two days she began a tirade of rude and abusive emails.
She said in her emails that she had placed many orders with MauiShirts.com. And, that her aunt and her mother were also customers. The fact is that she never purchased anything at any time from MauiShirts.com. I doubt that her mom or her aunt purchased anything either.
The dress she purchased was sold out the day before she ordered it. The Amazon.com listing was updated the next morning. Her transaction was refunded the day of her purchase.
By default, Amazon.com sends an automatic email to there customers when their order is canceled or refunded by their associate merchants. MauiShirts.com has no control or input in this type of situation.
The customer did not read her email from one of her email addresses. There is no way that Amazon.com would not have sent this customer an email. She simply did not read it. I replied to her four times, explaining that the dress was sold out and her transaction was canceled and refunded within hours after she placed the order. She sent several emails threatening to report me to the Better Business Bureau about how bad my customer service was. She also promised to go out of her way to make sure all her friends did not shop with MauiShirts.com.
Rather than bore you with her tirades, I have enclosed my last email to her along with her last email to me, which is, by far, the worst email from a customer, I have ever received. Warning. Not for the faint of heart or underage readers.
Here is a copy of my last email to her:
Aloha,
Thank you for furnishing the email address that you used when you placed your single order with Amazon.com.
I have searched the main web sites, MauiShirts.com, Shop.com, EBay and the Amazon.com web site with both of your email addresses spanning 365 days. I find only one order.
I note that this single ORDER # 105-7599236-1375622 was canceled some days ago. The item you selected was not in stock.
If you, your mother or your aunt did not receive a confirmation of your orders when you placed your orders with Amazon.com, then it is an issue you may want to communicate to Amazon.com customer service. Amazon.com automatically sends confirmations when all orders are received as well as notices when orders are canceled and refunded. MauiShirts.com does not have anything to do with Amazon.com order confirmations and notices. These tasks are automated and are the sole responsibility of Amazon.com.
MauiShirts.com does not see your credit card data or process your credit card charge monies in any way, shape or form. MauiShirts.com is not privy to this sort of data. MauiShirts.com does not process your order. Amazon.com authorizes your credit card data to determine the validity of your transaction. Once they determine your credit card is valid, they forward the order on to MauiShirts.com for fulfillment. Amazon.com does not actually capture your funds, charge your credit card, until MauiShirts.com verifies the shipment of your order.
If you did not receive the automatic response from Amazon.com when your order was canceled, you should take this up with Amazon.com as well.
No where in the Seller’s Policy, published on all Amazon.com listings, does MauiShirts.com offer one or two day service. In fact, as it states, in clear and easy to understand language, in the Sellers Policy information and Shipping Information, that we ship from an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean; Maui. No such service is available, nor would it be offered. The standard processing time for ALL Amazon.com orders is 3 to 5 days, sometimes 7 days, depending on the day the order is received on Maui. The only time an order would ship the same day it is received, is when the order is received on Maui, before 10 a.m. Maui time, and the item/s are hanging in immediate stock.
It is impossible to stock every item, in every size, in every color, in every style all of the time. There is a toll free number, easily found on all listings to check the status of an order or to check available stock. This information and more, can be found on easy to locate tabs created by Amazon.com on all MauiShirts.com listings on Amazon.com.
I have forwarded your communications to Dustin Caldwell, Amazon.com data management. He will handle your claims with any further information you need as necessary. I have instructed Mr. Dustin Caldwell to forward your emails on to Amazon.com Merchant Relations for further review if you continue to make unnecessary demands and take this tact of harassment.
MauiShirts.com will not accept any orders from either of your two email addresses from this point forward. I am not accustomed to this type of treatment of shouting and unwarranted demands. As president of this corporation, I have the right to do business with whom I want. I do not want to do business with you.
Please do not reply to this email. I will not see it. I have blocked your email addresses. Unfortunately I can no longer spend any more of my time with
your unwarranted demands and rants. I’m extremely busy, 7 days a week, answering email, and fulfilling 50 to 100 orders per day from reasonable people.
If you have anything further to add or to discuss,
please contact Dustin Caldwell at Dustin@mauishirts.com
Mickey Steinborn
President,
MauiShirts.com, Inc.
www.MauiShirts.com
copy of actual email from the Amazon.com customer:
Note: The word Lual, I think, is Ebonics for Luau
TO HELL WITH YOU,
I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH MAUI SHIRTS EVER AGAIN. I HAVE ANOTHER LUAL FUNCTION LATER THIS YEAR. I WILL DEFINITELY INFORM ALL MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO BE WEARY OF YOUR COMPANY, MAUI SHIRTS. I WILL INFORM THEM OF YOUR RUDE AND DISRESPECTFUL ATTITUDE TOWARDS ITS CUSTOMERS.
TO MAKE MATTERS WORSE, I AM NOT THE ONLY PERSON THAT DID NOT RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION NUMBER AS PROMISED VIA EMAIL PER AMAZON.COM/MAUI SHIRTS.
I COULD REALLY GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT HOW BUSY YOU ARE. ITS PART OF A BUSINESS, ‘MR. PRESIDENT”
AS FAR AS YOU STATING YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH ME. I DON’T WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOUR ASS EITHER!!!!! I DONT GIVE A FUCK. I ALSO AM NOT ACCUSTOMED TO RUDE ASS BUSINESS OWNERS NOT HELPING CUSTOMERS AND GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PROBLEM TO KEEP THEM AS A CUSTOMER.
OH AND BY THE WAY, DON’T YOU WORRY ABOUT REPLYING TO THIS EMAIL BECAUSE I HAVE BLOCKED YOUR ASS AS WELL.
I HOPE OTHER CUSTOMERS REALIZE YOUR RUDE ASS BEHAVIOR AND DISCONTINUE BUSINESS WITH YOUR COMPANY.
LIKE I SAID IN A THE PREVIOUS EMAIL. I WILL REPORT YOU TO THE BBB.
“SIGNED”
PISSED OFF
The Overnight Shipping Enigma
September 22nd, 2007
Aloha blog readers and fellow Aloha Wear aficionados!
My name is Dustin Caldwell. I am the unofficial part time Customer Service Representative and the official Amazon.com and Shop.com guy here at MauiShirts.
This is my first blog entry. I’ve refrained from posting before since the best thing I’ve had to write about has pretty much been the same stuff that grinds Mickey’s gears: the rare customer who is rude, hateful, or possesses the uncanny ability to both manipulate a size 2X dress in such a way so that it will fit into a matchbox and ship it back as a return for refund, and then complain about paying for us to steam out the wrinkles. But now, I’ve stumbled onto something unique, and blog worthy, I call it the “Shop.com or Overnight Shipping Enigma”.
Here’s the crux of it:
As most of you folks out there wearing your brightly colored Aloha Shirts and Dresses know, we ship from the island of Maui, Hawaii. Maui happens to be located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Due to our location, true overnight shipping is not available to people who live in the Midwest and Eastern portions of the US. If you live in the Midwest or East, the fastest service possible, aside from Mickey getting on a jet and personally delivering your Aloha Shirt, (send him an email to price this delivery option), is FedEx 2nd Day. In a nut shell, if you live in one of the aforementioned parts of the country, FedEx 2nd Day will save you money, AND, get your stuff to you just as fast as Next Day. People in Hawaii and some areas of the Western US can get their Aloha Wear overnight, indeed, some of these people NEED their Aloha Wear over night! (I can hear Mickey in the back ground, “the words ‘Aloha Wear’ and ‘Rush’ DO NOT belong in the same sentence”).
So I’ve scratched my head and had several high level meetings with the President of MauiShirts, (by “high level meetings”, I mean that Mickey and I had a chat on MSN Messenger), and we decided to add the following message to our shipping information which appears when a customer is prompted to select a shipping method:
IMPORTANT NOTICE:THERE IS NO OVERNIGHT, NEXT DAY, SERVICE TO THE MID-WEST AND EASTERN MAINLAND STATES POSSIBLE FROM HAWAII. IF YOU LIVE IN ONE OF THESE AREAS, TRANSIT TIME WILL BE 2 DAYS; SAVE YOUR MONEY AND SELECT FED EX 2ND DAY!!!
OK, That message appears right at the top of the screen when the customer selects Overnight Service. That should certainly take care of it, right? Well….you would be wrong in that assumption. For some reason, once every two weeks or so, somebody who lives in New York, Ohio, North Carolina or some other obvious problem shipping destination selects Next Day as their mode of shipment. But that isn’t the strangest part of this enigma, the really weird thing is that this only happens on Shop.com and the Yahoo main web site. Amazon outsells Shop.com 8 to 1, yet this has never happened on Amazon. You are thinking, “that message must be easier to find on Amazon then Shop.com or the main web site”. A reasonable assumption, nonetheless, incorrect. I’ve loaded a cart on both sites and gone through checkout, if anything, the message on Shop.com and the main web site on Yahoo is MORE apparent then Amazon. Its right there next to the box you click for Next Day, screaming at you in CAPITALIZED BOLD PRINT, but for some reason customers on Shop.com do not read it. Therein lies the Shop.com Shipping Enigma. And like the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle and the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa, we may never know the true nature of this baffling phenomenon.
Uncategorized
The Good Stuff
September 7th, 2007
Shirts arrived yesterday. Thank you very much for your help. The shirts were worth waiting for. Love them!!!!
L. Miller, Elk Grove, CA
To everyone at Maui Shirts:
Thank you for another order delivered swiftly and efficiently, as usual. The chilli shirt is a birthday present for my husband and I know he’ll be delighted with it as he’s been casting envious glances at my previous purchases and complaining about how boring most of his clothes are…
Lovely shirts, excellent delivery service. The shirt took eight days to reach me, which from Hawaii to Gloucestershire is, I think, pretty good. Many UK companies do a lot worse! At the risk of gushing, I should say that I also love your web site, especially the old shirts and prints museum section, which is an inspiration and can be relied upon to cheer me up when the UK weather gets dismal.
Best wishes,
Catherine Mason.
Hi Mickey,
The shirts arrived today and they look great! Thank you so much for getting them to me so quickly. I was not expecting them until Friday. The search to find the perfect Hawaiian shirts for my wedding took a long time and I almost ran out of time. We are so thankful for your wide selection of shirts and even though you did not have our first choice the second choice was even better than the first. Keep up the great work!!
Sincerely,
~Lydia
The 2 toddler outfits I ordered arrived yesterday, Aug.29. They are just beautiful and a perfect fit for both! My 2 grandchildren will be the hit of a Hawaiian themed wedding we are going to in Newport, RI this weekend! Thanks so much to you and Trellissa for great personal service to get the order here on time.
We love your products and the service so I am sure you will hear from us again!
Mahalo!
Susan Wohl
Thank you 20,000 times over. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you to the hundreds upon hundreds of loyal customers that continue to place re-orders. Thank you for your repeat business. My customers on this web site, Shop.com, Amazon.com and Ebay have taken MauiShirts.com out of obscurity in a few short years into the top positions on the first page every major search engine. My incredible success has come from people like you. Many Mahalos for your patience and understanding. I will not let the few misguided people dissuade me from my hard work. I will continue to offer the best Aloha Wear on the planet along with fun to read and interesting content.
At this time, I have become overwhelmed and inundated with orders, phone calls and email. I simply can not keep up with the demand. I am attempting to hire more help. I am unable to update the web sites fast enough to reflect exchanges, existing and remaining inventories lately. It common to have two or three people buy the same item when there is only one or two in stock. I can only offer my apologies. I am one to two days behind in sending emails. I’m two or three days behind in my web site updates. I’m working as fast as I can. I’m working 12 to 14 hours a day, 7 days a week in an attempt to stay on top of things. Please be patient.
And, most important, at this time, April 26th, 2007, I can not accept any more rush orders. If you can not wait a reasonable length of time, two, three to five work days for me to ship your order, please do not place a new order.
To the few people who have sent items back to Maui for an exchange or return, please be patient. I will refund you money. Please refrain from calling and sending emails. No one has ever not received their refund.
Again, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued support. I will continue to strive to meet all of your concerns.
Mahalo,
Mickey Steinborn
President, MauiShirts.com, Inc.
Uncategorized
The Irony of the Pink Flamingo
July 7th, 2007
It happened on Friday, the afternoon before the 4th of July weekend.
One week earlier on Friday, Trellissa receives a phone call from a woman that needs a Hawaiian shirt for a party she has been invited to. She says she is known as the Pink Flamingo Lady. She collects flamingo things and would only like to purchase a shirt she saw listed on the Amazon.com web site. It is a cotton R. J. Clancey brand; Pink Flamingo Hibiscus ladies shirt in blue in 2X. She is curious how the sizing and makes this inquiry to Trellissa. Trellissa instructs her to use the size chart that is only available for the Paradise Found rayon ladies shirts. They settle on the 2X large.
The following Friday she calls Trellissa again to ask why the shipment hasn’t been shipped. She had not received the Federal Express tracking number. We frantically run around the showroom in an attempt to locate her paperwork. It can’t be found anywhere. Then we have a brilliant idea. Let’s check the stack of 30 boxes waiting for Federal Express to pick up. FedEx is going to pick up in the next 30 minutes or so. Panic sets in. Lo and behold, there it is. All packed and ready to go. Then, I have an after thought. I never packed a 2X shirt. Hmmm. My hunch is correct.
We unpacked the box. Yikes, it’s a Medium! I placed the wrong size into the customer’s box. Trellissa proceeds to call the Honolulu factory in hopes that they have a 2X in stock, for the possibility of a drop ship direct from Honolulu factory to the customer. They will do this in case of an emergency. Lord knows that rush and emergency do not belong in the same sentence as aloha wear. But, there are exceptions to most everything. Now the bad news rears its ugly head. The factory informs Trellissa that woman’s cotton shirts are not made in a 2X size. It does not exist. We immediately blame the Amazon.com data entry employee.
As a rule of thumb, and as common practice, we always place the blame of errors and omissions on to the person that isn’t working that day. Blame the person not here. It’s a safe practice. But, in this case the web guy did make an omission. A week earlier he was instructed to take down, remove, all 2X listings of cotton women’s shirts. He did so, as instructed, expect for that one listing of the ladies Pink Flamingo Hibiscus Blue shirt. Trellissa made a mistake by not telling the customer no 2X cotton ladies shirts are made. She simply did not know. She was new on the job. I made a mistake by almost sending out the wrong size. That’s how it is around here. The only customer calling to check on her order was the one that was packed incorrectly, and in this case, did not exist.
Needless to say, Trellissa was fired on the spot. This happens about three to four times a week. She is immediately hired back. It’s tough to find loyal workers here on this paradise isle, Maui. I fired myself as well, and indeed, re-hired on the spot. Web data guy was immediately reprehended and instructed to finish his mandate from last week.
After two phone calls back to the customer, we luckily found a compromise. She accepted a Men’s shirt in Large. The party was the next Tuesday. We ran after the Federal Express truck, literally, and handed the driver the box. It will arrive in two work days; Tuesday. All was well. We are human. We make mistakes. As I always say, One mistake always begets another mistake. In this case I was definitely right. TGIF!
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