Has my order shipped yet?
This blog is dedicated to our behind the scenes production process & our not short but not so long shipping times! Before placing an order with us we encourage everyone to check out our production and shipping page so that you feel more comfortable purchasing from us knowing what to expect.
To start with we operate on very low profit margins primarily due to the way we source & manufacture – all local and ‘on-demand’. We are very proud of who we are, who we partner with and of our business model which is founded on ‘On-Demand Manufacturing’. This means we do not carry inventory so everything is especially made for you & therefore may take a little longer...but trust us, it’s worth it!
Our production times for most orders range from 2-10 business days. The time it takes to make a piece of wearable art depends on the item we're making and the amount of orders our manufacturing partner already has lined up in their queue.
Shipping time is separate from production time, and depends on your destination. For example, we may get an order for a pair of leggings which usually take 5 business days to get through production and then maybe 3 business days to ship to New York; or we may receive an order for a cell phone case which takes 2 business days to be produced and then maybe 13 business days to ship to Iqaluit, Nunavut. We estimate transit times for international, USA, and Canadian orders on our production and shipping page. Any time you have concerns about shipping, contact us and we'll be glad to guide you and/or upgrade a shipment.
For all of our wearable art clothing pieces it takes about a day for our artwork to be printed, and then up to a full day to be heat pressed onto the fabric. After that, the fabric heads off to be cut, all done locally in Montreal, Canada. Also, the thread colour, zipper colour, strap colour and our Artist Generations labels are connected as needed with the correct fabric. This process can take up to a full day as well. Then the fabric and any necessary notions head off to the sewing machines. Sewing can take up a bigger chunk of production time as our manufacturing partner uses multiple machines with different purposes for each product. A tote bag may take 1-2 days to get to get to each of the 3 sewing sections and the riveting machine needed to assemble it. Essentially we need to allow for a minimum of 3 business days for our orders to get through production. Our average of late has been 5-10 days due to high volume & holidays but generally most of our orders ship out after one business week, not bad for a completely unique & custom product!
For our non-fabric products like our fine art prints & cell phone cases the production time is usually lower for a couple of reasons. Some of the products require the use of only one or two machines and the machines our printing partners use are smaller and easier to keep physically close to each other. This makes it possible to have dedicated staff who can each work with all the machines for those items. In fabric production each section, printing, pressing, prep, sewing and quality control requires a much larger dedicated team.
So that’s our current process in a nutshell! We realize it’s not always ideal and do understand that sometimes for whatever reason you just really need it right away! We are willing to work with our manufacturing partner to get orders out by specific dates, as long as the request is reasonable and feasible. Sometimes by some fluke miracle we might even have your item or an equivalent in stock so never hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to work with you to figure out if rush shipping is required and what the additional cost will be, if any.
Hopefully this helps to explain why our orders do not ship out the same day! We still love our customers and hope that we make up for it by producing beautiful wearable art that they can truly enjoy knowing more about us & everything that we support!
As always we’d love to hear from you so don’t be shy, comment below and let us know what you think!
