From design to delivery: how ordering works

The order begins in the designer. The size and the variant are chosen there, the logo is uploaded, and the bottle is shown in 3D while the design changes. The quantity governs the price, and the price updates in the same screen, so there is no surcharge that first appears at checkout.

The design can be saved and opened again later. That is useful when several people in the company need to look at it before anyone places the order, and it means a design that has been started is not lost because someone had to go into a meeting.

This is also where the quantity should be set. The price follows a staircase with fixed steps, so a quantity that sits just below a step can cost more per bottle than a slightly larger run. Trying two or three quantities in the designer takes half a minute, and it is the simplest way to see where the steps fall.

Once the order is placed, an order confirmation goes out by email within 15 minutes. It contains the order number and a summary of what has been ordered: variant, quantity, design and delivery address.

The confirmation is the receipt that the order has been registered. It is not an approval of the print. That comes in the next step, and it is the company itself that gives it.

Read the confirmation as soon as it arrives all the same. The quantity, the variant and the delivery address are easiest to correct at this stage, before the order has moved on. If no confirmation arrives within a quarter of an hour, it is worth checking the spam folder before anyone places the order again.

Pure Arctic sends a proof that shows how the print will actually come out. The buyer goes through it and approves it, or asks for a revision. Two revisions are included in the order.

Production never starts without an approved proof. That is a deliberate brake. A mistake caught in the proof costs an email, while the same mistake discovered after production costs a whole order.

Spend the review on what can actually go wrong: the spelling of the company name, the right version of the logo, that the web address on the label works, and that the colour is the one the company uses elsewhere. Those are the expensive mistakes, and every one of them is visible in the proof.

After the approval, the order goes to production and a confirmed delivery date is reported back to the buyer. The delivery promise is day 10 at the latest after an approved proof. It is the approval date that starts the clock, not the date the order was placed, and that is the difference worth planning around when the bottles have to make a particular day.

Along the way, nobody should need to ask about status. Pure Arctic reports at every step, including when something departs from the plan, and especially then. A customer who has to ring to find out where the order stands has already had worse service than agreed.

The goods are sent to the address given in the order, with tracking where it is available. When the delivery has been confirmed, the invoice is sent. Never before.

A week later a short follow up arrives. It exists so that the next order runs faster than the first, and so that any deviations come out while they are still fresh. If something about the delivery is not right, it is better to say so then than to leave it until the next time.

The process itself asks little of the buyer, but the four points below are the ones that actually move the order along. Have them ready from the start and the rest looks after itself.