This year we’re getting a jumpstart on our traditional Holiday Season Ordering Guidance. Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain challenges and the frustrating unpredictability of a global recovery, we are projecting very high order volumes with minimal delays. While our courier partners are advising early ordering to assure holiday delivery, they are not instituting order cut-off dates, and are still offering deliveries through late December.
The last 10 months have seen a dramatic uptick in reward redemptions from the clients we serve across 185 countries. Businesses of all sizes have used our platforms to create new programs and expand existing initiatives to engage newly work-from-home teams. Throughout this year, CarltonOne has closely monitored reward availability, deliveries and customer care response times, scaling up our operations in sync with demand.
This year, more members are inquiring about holiday ordering timelines. Typically, our vendors and their courier partners suggest that members order earlier than usual to beat the holiday rush. This year is no different, as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to hamper normal operations.
90 days of action — our holiday 2021 plan
Our regional GRS Procurement Managers are in daily contact with our enviable international network of trusted local vendors. We recently asked for their ‘on-the-ground’ perspective on stock availability, manufacturing and delivery. We’ll share our full supply chain analysis with you shortly, but in the near term, the consensus is this: there are no early holiday order ’cut-off’ or deadline dates in our markets, although some orders may take a little longer to arrive. Our vendors and shipping partners remain confident they can deliver rewards within reasonable timeframes. To ensure this, here’s what we are doing for the next 90 days:
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Reward selection on some items will be temporarily limited, due to ongoing raw materials, production and shipping capacity issues. To offset this, our vendors are streamlining their product range, and have stocked up on the most popular colors and SKUs.
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In cases where items may become unavailable before shipping, we will seek to offer an equivalent substitution (e.g. a similar SKU in a different color). Otherwise, we will cancel orders that our supply chain does not have immediately available.
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Members are advised to order early for the best selection and timely delivery.
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To help speed deliveries we are asking members to verify their shipping address and mobile contact number.
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To avoid member disappointment, we will remove rewards from our storefronts when we receive low stock alerts from our vendors.
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We are adding holiday availability guidelines to some of our most popular reward ordering pages, so members will understand if an order cannot be delivered before the holidays.
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We will be launching storefront campaigns throughout November and December to encourage members to order early for holiday delivery.
One of the rewards of dramatic order growth is an acceleration of our CarltonOne eco-action mission. We fund the planting of trees with every order to help fight global warming. So far, our growth has helped grow over 6.6 million new trees. Find out more at eco.carltonone.com
We’re ramping up in all areas of our business to prepare for our busiest quarter ever. If there are other initiatives that you believe can help us deliver an exceptional service experience, please reach out to your Client Success Manager. Have a safe and healthy quarter!
