I am currently on paternity leave until September 9th.
Whilst the store will remain open, and you will still be able to place orders, please understand that they won’t be fulfilled during this time. My return will also be phased, so orders will take a little while longer until I’m back at work full-time (note that this store is not my full time job anyway!).
Ben.
OK, so the title sounds a bit ominous, but it is true – I owe my customers, and those who were potential customers, an apology. I’ve been terrible at responding to enquiries and tickets raised on orders where items were missing or broken. I certainly won’t offer an excuse. Whilst I devote perhaps one day a week to MCM, that should have no bearing on my customers – they shouldn’t have to wait weeks for a response.
This isn’t a particularly new problem for me – I’ve always struggled with the organisation side of things (something made sense of by a diagnosis of ADHD) – but the scale of it had got out of hand. I let a pile build up and every time it got bigger I found it harder to tackle. Harder to even start tackling.
Finally, today, I have responded to everyone who has raised a ticket in June and July. Any tickets concerning order dispatch from May and earlier have been deleted – either they will have arrived or the customer has sent a follow-up enquiry. Not ideal, but I had to introduce a cut-off just to be able to tackle this self-imposed situation.
Now that inbox is empty, I should have no problem responding more promptly.
European customers: There is a bug with the tax plugin I have to use which causes problems with orders which contain lots of lines (i.e. independent produts). If you are affected, please raise a ticket and I will work with you to find a solution.
Unfortunately, the only solutions to the actual problem involve either moving to a different IOSS agent, or a different web host. Both are costly and require research, so aren’t likely to happen very soon.
The store side of my business has seen a large decline over the last couple of years, following considerable growth during COVID lockdowns and for some time after. I can’t deny that the growth the store experienced allowed me to become somewhat complacent.
I’m now trying to figure out how best to manage the store going forward. 3D printing, initially through Shapeways, allowed MCM to become a reality. I moved to in-house 3D printing over the years, though still only as masters for resin casting. Now, in the shadow of Shapeways going into administration, the democratisation of 3D printing poses questions for my own little store. I can’t justify holding stock of all my products anymore. I firmly believe cast resin is the superior material for miniature modellers, but I can’t maintain the range in the same way going forward. 3DP resin is a good alternative, and I am working on a way to provide many products as STL files.
This is not a small task – I want to release as many products in one go as possible. Whilst I can provide downloadable products on this store, I need to seriously consider other storefronts where hobbyists go to find STLs. MMF et al. The reality of these storefronts is that I need to have a large proportion of my range available in order to make any kind of profit. This means cataloging, organising, supporting many files. I’ll get there, but it will take a little while.
In a few weeks, my family will be welcoming our second master crafted miniature. This will take me away from the store (and work generally) for a few weeks. I may close the store temporarily during this time. This is probably the best way to provide good service to cusomers, rather than leaving a zombie storefront up and not processing orders. Hopefully, I can keep the site viewable so people can still browse. As a self-employed person, there is no formal paternity leave available, so that period may be shorter than I would like. Perhaps I’ll be able to process some files between feeds!
Anyway, I’m trying to do better with the store, work, and life in general. Thank you for bearing with me.
Ben.
It looks like I’ve finally caught up with orders, with no small amount of help from a friend. I’ve worked hard this week to also catch up with many of the tasks on my list for GCT Studios’ Bushido. As such, I feel this is a good time to take a break.
I’ve only taken a couple of weeks off in the 7 years over which I have been running MCM. Mostly, these have been when my wife has wanted to go on holiday or, unbelievably, our honeymoon. I have worked solidly, though often inefficiently, during the UK COVID-19 lockdown. I feel I’ve only managed in the last few weeks to adopt an effective working practice. You may recall that my father passed away in the first week of lockdown.
I’ve come close to being overwhelmed several times in the last few years, but right now I’m feeling very… compressed. It’s strange, because I’m also really optimistic about the future of the business and feeling like I have figured out a lot regarding my working practice. I need to stretch out, to take the pressure off for a short while, so I’m taking a week for myself. No holiday – I’m not going anywhere – just taking some time to play some video games, painting some miniatures, and tinker with some other personal projects.
During this time, the store will remain open, but orders will not be fulfilled until I return (likely on the 21st of July).
As a side note, myself and a friend run a podcast called Robot Dice Explosion where we discuss games in general, though there is a heavy focus on Bushido. I’m looking to do more with this project, including streaming some video games and tabletop games over on YouTube. There’s likely to be more of that over this week off.
Thanks for your support, Ben.
The Christmas break is upon us! I’m still sculpting away, but won’t be working the store much for the next 10 days. I’m leaving the store open to orders, but please understand that your order will be delayed in dispatching. Any back-orders will further delay the order, as I will have to find time between family visits to do casting. The store will go down for a day sometime over the festive period, so I can do a full stock-take and restock of many items.
In the meantime, enjoy the holiday!
Thanks for a great year, Ben.
Well, it should be working now. I’ve been beating my face against code and plugins for too much precious time these last couple of days, but it should be working.
I’ve not made major changes behind the scenes, but please let me know if you have any trouble with the site.
Also, we’ll be at Salute 2018 🙂
