Dr. JB’s Hummingbird Feeders Back in Business!!

November 24th, 2007

Dear Feeders,

It has been a crazy, exciting, frustrating, enlightening, encouraging, discouraging, thankful and finally successful past two months!

Before the explanation — a word of general thanks. Our customers stuck with us while they waited for up to two months for their hummingbird feeders. We expected many, many, many more to cancel orders, but out of the roughly 5,000 orders we received in four weeks, only about 20 customers canceled; most of them for logistic reasons (i.e., in the middle of a move, or leaving the country, etc.) So, we have a lot to be thankful for, this holiday season. We were hit with a massive windfall of publicity which launched us into an entirely new level of production, and our customers weathered the growth pains with us. We’ll say it again: Dr. JB’s has the best customers in the world.

And now for details. Until August 25, we were selling about 40 hummingbird feeders per week, at a nice steady pace, where four or five family members could easily run the business and correspond with every customer. Then, “the article” ran in the Charlotte Observer. 600 feeders sold on August 25. About 300 more feeders sold the next day. We were in good shape to meet that demand and produce feeders fast enough to re-stock, but … over the next four weeks, newspapers all over the country started running the article about Dad (Dr. JB), his modest beginnings, his “give back” attitude and achievements, and the innovative Clean Feeder that our customers are calling the best hummingbird feeder ever. After the Atlanta Constitution then ran the article, and we meanwhile discovered a defective batch of adhesive that we were using (which halted production), we had to cry “uncle” and turn off the ordering while we caught up with the backlog. Over the following two months, we switched assembly/fulfillment houses, secured a new adhesive, and made many efficiency enhancements to prepare for a new level of volume. So now, all of the backlogged orders are shipped, and we are open again, and we will do our best to keep inventory on the shelves, available for purchase.

But we will never again sell feeders that we don’t have available to ship immediately.

We will promise to ship orders within 24 business hours of the order. However, for now, until Christmas, we will have to make that 72 hours because all of the anticipatory traffic is very, very high. Therefore, if you would like Dr. JB’s Clean Feeders as Christmas gifts, please order them by December 15 to be assured of delivery.

And if you find that we are out of stock, bear with us. We won’t sell products we don’t have, and we will restock as fast as we can.

Thank you again! And happy holidays from the Dr. JB’s family!

Chris Whelan

Entry Filed under: Hummingbird News