We’ve been in business for over 7 years now. What started out as a small drop-shipping operation based out of Encinitas (A quiet community just north of San Diego, California) became a warehousing operation about 4 years ago, when we began designing and manufacturing our own unique bathroom vanity models. With this new adaptation in our business strategy, we also needed to learn how to organize our own shipping to all of our customers across the country.
Most of this learning was of the trial-and-error variety, but within a year, we had hashed out most of the logistical problems that come with orchestrating shipping operations on such a large scale. We figured out how to coordinate shipping times. We learned how to talk with shipping terminals and how to stand up for our customers, ensuring their furniture gets delivered as quickly and safely as possible. We devised new ways of packaging our vanities to minimize their vulnerability while they are in transit from our warehouse to your home.
However, we also learned that shipping damage is – simply – just something that happens. We do what we can to protect our vanities, vessel sinks, and mirrors as much as possible, and we try and go above and beyond for our customers. Sometimes things break in transit, despite our best efforts.
This is why we have a very strict claims policy, and why it is SO important that you notate any damage to your shipment as soon as you receive it. We handle all claims for you, but we need you to be vigilant and proactive about notating any shipping damage or else we will not win the claim. Shipping companies have very strict policies and very crafty liability clauses that will prevent us from getting ANY kind of compensation unless you provide timely evidence of shipping damage.
And it is shipping damage, we’d like to point out – not a quality control problem on our end. We diligently inspect EVERY item we send out of our warehouse before we start packing it and strapping it to shipping pallets.
We think we do such a good job, in fact, that we thought we’d do a little experiment: we decided to stress test our vessel sink shipping methods to see just how much of a beating our shipments can take before they break. What we found out was pretty shocking.
First, this is how we package ALL of our vessel sinks:
The sink is enveloped in industrial bubble wrap, then placed on a ½ inch thick foam pad inside the corrugated box. ½ inch thick foam lines all the sides of the box and the top of the box. When we send vessel sinks with cabinets, we wrap the whole pallet in heavy duty plastic wrap to hold everything in place, and cardboard and foam corner protectors are attached to all corners. We then use thick poly-band strapping with metal buckles to hold everything rigidly in place so nothing slides around or moves on the pallet. This is what the finished product looks like:
We know exactly how our competitors ship their products, and though it eats into our profit, we know that we do a much better job.
Most of the damage claims we receive have to do with our vessel sinks shattering during transportation. So, we decided to see exactly what kind of stress our vessel sinks would have to be subjected to in order to break. We began by dropping the sink from small heights, then we began lightly tapping them with steel hammers, until finally we decided the ultimate test would be to strap a vessel sink to a pallet and hurl it off the edge of our loading bay. This was a ridiculous amount of fun for us, and I think it also goes to show just how little shipping companies care for their freight sometimes.
Obviously, our sinks are pretty tough, and can take quite a beating. A beating that shipping companies sometimes seem absolutely ecstatic to dole out.
So please, when you receive your vanity, do inspect the entire shipment for damage and notate any problems on the Bill of Lading BEFORE the shipping driver leaves your location. This will make sure that they remain responsible for their poor handling, and will guarantee that we can get you a replacement or a repair solution quickly. If we can’t hold shipping companies accountable for their apathy, then we can’t win our claims against them and will essentially have our hands tied when it comes to helping our customers get a pristine-condition piece of furniture without incurring any additional fees – which tend to be massive in this industry.
We always do the best we can to protect your product and make sure you are completely satisfied, we just wish that shipping companies felt the same way.
If you have any questions about our shipping and claims policies, please email or call us today and we’d be happy to go into more detail. And if you want to see more of the great vessel sinks we offer, click over here and peruse our collection.