Holiday Season 2024: What to expect
All the news, all in one place
We know it's early. But we want to make sure everyone is aware of our Holiday Cut-Off Date. Every year has its own unique challenges and as you know we make each of our bags here in our shop. Please know we will try our best to get your orders to you as fast as we can. The last thing we want is to ruin your holiday. That's why we want to be extra clear about what you can expect for this year.
It is our intention to be transparent about what is going on in real time. If we find that we've reached full capacity we may even stop accepting orders. We've had to do this a couple times in the past and don't want to make promises we cannot keep. We are so grateful you've decided to support small business and continue to let us grow this dream.
That being said Tuesday November 8th will be the last day we can accept orders for December 25th delivery. All orders placed after the Holiday cut-Off will be added to January's Production Schedule
This may seem too early. But we would hate to ruin a celebratory moment. Placing your order after this date means you're ok with not receiving your order in time for Christmas. We will make every effort to get your bag to you as promised. But like we saw last year, some things will just be out of our control.
If you are thinking of getting a bag from us this Holiday season our advice is to place your order as early as you can.
End of 2024
Accessories: We are hoping to add a few accessories to the line-up for the Holiday season, including a tassel bag charm, a bridle cardholder, and maybe one other item.
Burgundy: If you missed Burgundy for the first round of Pre-Orders, we are expecting to have it back right before the Holiday Cut-Off date.
Packaging changes: Continuing our mission of sustainability. You might see a new kind of shipping box from us made of 100% recycled cardboard, made of 95% Post consumer waste. Because this new company offers lower minimums we are able to get boxes to fit each design so we aren't being wasteful by shipping air. We are testing these out, they are currently unbranded and will included a branded kraft tape similar to what you are used to seeing from us. As always we are trying to reduce our impact wherever possible.
Dust bags: We have begun working with another small business and friend of ours to produce dust bags that are a better fit for some of our designs. In a similar way a smaller minimum order allows us to have dust bags with a closer fit and help support another fellow small business at the same time.
You'll see a customer feedback survey coming your way either in November or Early 2025. We truly value your opinion and are always looking for ways to improve our operation, designs, and content for you. We'd love to know what you think of our education newsletter series.
Spring 2025
New Designs: We're launching an addition to the Maeve lineup. This is be on the larger side and might just be the business bag you've been waiting for. Since you all loved the Maeve Crossbody you can expect to see this design launch in our fully lined Milled collection.
With the addition of new designs we will need to consider which designs we will be discontinuing. We'll be streamlining the Milled collection as well. If you have strong feeling about who or what color should stay or go, we'd love to hear from you.
Red will return for a limited run in Spring 2025; and we are considering one more color for 2025, which could also be a limited run, but haven't made any final decisions yet.
Order System Update: Lastly, we've been discussing changing our order system back to Order Weeks. Being open the first 7 days of the month and then having the rest of the month for production and shipping. This gave us the ability to stop ordering when we hit our monthly capacity, and helped us batch more efficiently and get your orders out as fast as possible.
In June we switched to being open with posted lead times. For now we are going to be continuing Ordering as it is. We want to give it a fair try and will re-evaluate at a later date. We aren't trying to be confusing here, but are trying to find the best compromise between lead times and our production scheduling. With this method, during the Summer, lead times have settled in the 6-7 week range, this may increase as we get to busier times of year. We are hoping to avoid long waiting periods.
Reminder: we will be closed the last two weeks of December for some rest.
I know that was a lot to take in, but that's why we wrote it all down.
Thanks for everything and for helping us continue to build a sustainable, made in USA business. We can't do any of this without you.
Leanne and Nick
Hemlock + Hyde
