Grooming Dept

My order is in the hands of the USPS as of yesterday.

I got an email about 05:30PM EST today that a shipment is on the way.  USPS says "Label Created, not yet in system", but hopefully my order will actually be in the hands of the USPS soon.  

Yep, Got the same thing Sat as the next update promise given. Easy to print labels but means nothing until the label is on a box with the product in it and taken to the delivery company. Still waiting after another failed update promise.......I understand selling more than expected and happy for him. Just tired of the being lead down the road of false promise after false promise. This is ridiculous when you know you are just delaying = Will ship Fri.....Will ship next Wed.......Will print label Sat and ship Monday........I wish there would be more under promising and over delivering than the reverse......

I am sad to say this Dave in KY, but IMO your points are clear and well taken.  And FYI my order has not hit the post office yet either.  I know shavers who deal with this by refusing to buy from Grooming Dept directly, but, because they feel that Grooming Dept products are special and like them so much, they will buy them from stockists.  OTOH there are so many excellent products available these days that some buyers just look elsewhere.

All that said, there are considerations which, while they do not excuse frequent delays, do provide what I personally regard as some softening context.  First, Grooming Dept is not the only over-sold, late-to-deliver vendor. Second, shipping delays are not my biggest concern.  While not to excuse how much broken promises rankle - especially repeated ones - they pale in comparison to getting hastily cooked up, made at the last minute, off-spec products.  I would rather the vendor take the time required to send me a well cured, quality tested, properly crafted jar of soap, versus trying to foist an off-spec product on me. Sadly, I have had the "foist an off-spec product" experience on occasion, including rather recently in fact, but not from Grooming Dept.

I got an email about 05:30PM EST today that a shipment is on the way.  USPS says "Label Created, not yet in system", but hopefully my order will actually be in the hands of the USPS soon.  

Yep, Got the same thing Sat as the next update promise given. Easy to print labels but means nothing until the label is on a box with the product in it and taken to the delivery company. Still waiting after another failed update promise.......I understand selling more than expected and happy for him. Just tired of the being lead down the road of false promise after false promise. This is ridiculous when you know you are just delaying = Will ship Fri.....Will ship next Wed.......Will print label Sat and ship Monday........I wish there would be more under promising and over delivering than the reverse......

I am sad to say this Dave in KY, but IMO your points are clear and well taken.  And FYI my order has not hit the post office yet either.  I know shavers who deal with this by refusing to buy from Grooming Dept directly, but, because they feel that Grooming Dept products are special and like them so much, they will buy them from stockists.  OTOH there are so many excellent products available these days that some buyers just look elsewhere.

All that said, there are considerations which, while they do not excuse frequent delays, do provide what I personally regard as some softening context.  First, Grooming Dept is not the only over-sold, late-to-deliver vendor. Second, shipping delays are not my biggest concern.  While not to excuse how much broken promises rankle - especially repeated ones - they pale in comparison to getting hastily cooked up, made at the last minute, off-spec products.  I would rather the vendor take the time required to send me a well cured, quality tested, properly crafted jar of soap, versus trying to foist an off-spec product on me. Sadly, I have had the "foist an off-spec product" experience on occasion, including rather recently in fact, but not from Grooming Dept.

All valid points and agreed. I wasn't trying to single Grooming Dept out. It was just the recent one that I'm dealing with but not the only one. I've told others also the need to under promise and over deliver is part of making a good name, not just the product.

My pre-shave jam. Need more....

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Bluegrass hit on a paradigm that I think works for bidness that wrestles with deadlines and time expectations.

UNDERPROMISE & OVER DELIVER. It works and makes everyone happy. Takes the pressure of the biz and does not create unmet consumer expectations.

My former life as a oil and gas consultant where we wrote YE reports - we made pushed the deliverable dates forward enough to easily beat them. It worked. I think our artisan friends are people pleasers and this leads to the dreaded good intentions paradigm that are inevitably tough to accomplish.



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Bluegrass hit on a paradigm that I think works for bidness that wrestles with deadlines and time expectations.

UNDERPROMISE & OVER DELIVER. It works and makes everyone happy. Takes the pressure of the biz and does not create unmet consumer expectations.

My former life as a oil and gas consultant where we wrote YE reports - we made  pushed the deliverable dates forward enough to easily beat them. It worked. I think our artisan friends are people pleasers and this leads to the dreaded good intentions paradigm that are inevitably tough to accomplish.



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Exactly Tommy. Thanks for understanding my post was NOT a dig on Grooming Dept. I wish him great success. Just a suggestion to ease pressure on himself and at the same time not frustrate the masses in waiting. Peace out

My pre-shave jam. Need more....

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I guess I consider that to be post shave can it be used as both then?

Keto, I use it as a preshave to GREAT effect.... in the shower before egress, and then apply the GD pre-shave gel before face lathering. Honestly, I think I could shave without lather using these 2 products.

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When your order in entered into the shipping system, a shipping label will be printed and a pre-shipment notice will be emailed. However, that does not mean that your order has been picked and packed for shipment. Mohammad is a one-man operation. It is more efficient to process orders in a batch than to process each order individually. Thus, he might print out 50 or 100 labels and then start to package the orders for shipment. Once he has a load of orders ready to go, he has to take them to the Post Office for shipment. The there could be a couple of days between printing of the label and receipt of the package by the post office.

Mohammad released 10 soaps. Several of the soaps were sold out within an hour and nearly all of them were sold out within 24 hours. Thus, the one-man operation was overwhelmed with orders in a very short period of time.

I have recommended to Mohammad that he not release so many soaps at the same time, but schedule releases more frequently. That should help with the shipping delays. Amazon has gotten many of us used to placing an order and having it delivered within a couple of days, but they have huge warehouses, a fleet of trucks and airplanes, and thousands of employees to handle the logistics. Many artisan soapmakers operate either as individuals or a family unit. As such, they wear a lot of different hats.

I think we are living in an instant gratification society these days. Mo is a one man shop and I talked to him right after the release and it was the biggest response he has ever had to his soaps and products. He also did this one under his new branding and the attraction to that alone was huge! I have been riding with Mo and Grooming Dept since the very early days and I guarantee that once people get these new products, they will be ecstatic to the point that all of the talk about shipping time will completely go away. I call Mohammad the “Mad Scientist” because every time he claims that he has a better formula than the last, he ALWAYS delivers something truly special in every way. Anyway, just my opinion but please be patient and you will be rewarded……as always!!


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If you ordered soaps from Mo you probably already have way more than you need, anyway. Use them up while he packs up and ships the new soaps. They will get to you.