Teescape: COVID-19

COVID-19 and Teescape Status

July 27, 2020 –
Normal Production Turnaround Times, and more…

Over the last several weeks, we have successfully increased production capacity to keep up with incoming order volumes.  We are happy to report that production times have returned to normal, at 2-4 business days on most orders.

Effective today, we have removed most of the temporary prices increases that were previously put in place.  You will find that all t-shirts, tank tops, and long sleeves have returned to their original, normal prices.

FLEECE GARMENTS – our original temporary price increase on fleece items (hoodies and sweatshirts) was $2.00 per garment.  We have reduced that, but most fleece items remain priced at $1.00 more than the original, normal price, due to increased production costs related to these items.  We will return to these to normal as soon as possible.

Garment Shortages
We have seen an abnormally large amount of garment styles and sizes running out of stock, especially in the Bella-Canvas products.  We believe this is still due to limitations caused by COVID-19 in manufacturing, shipping, and distribution of new garments.  We do not have information on when these shortages will be resolved, but we will be emailing you if you have an order that we can’t fulfill due to these reasons.  Just be aware that there may more than the usual number of items that become limited in availability until this clears up.

International Shipping
The USPS has opened up international shipping to a number of countries that were previously closed.  However, there are still about 60 countries that we cannot ship to.  In addition, shipping times to countries that we can ship to may be extended for various reasons and we cannot predict or guarantee any specific delivery times once we ship the orders.

For these reasons, we are still urging sellers to stop accepting international orders, if at all possible. 

More information on the countries that remain suspended is available here:  https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/?utm_source=residential&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=res_to_intl

We will continue to monitor all of the things mentioned here and will post updates on this page as soon as new information becomes available about anything.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and again thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through what is proving to still be a difficult time.

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

June 8, 2020 –
Extended Production Times

We are very thankful that our employees remain healthy and have not been directly affected by COVID-19.

However, recent events (including COVID-19, the riots and protests, and other factors) have further increased the volume of orders coming in.

While we have greatly expanded capacity and will continue to do so, like others in our industry, we are running behind in production and extending production turnaround times.

Currently, you should expect production turnaround times of approximately 5-10 business days (1-2 weeks), until intake volume decreases or we can further expand capacity to meet the demand.

In addition, we have been forced to further restrict the allowed daily intake volume for some sellers. If you are affected, you will see a notice on our App’s dashboard page when you log in.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and again thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through this difficult time.

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

May 13, 2020 –
Temporary Price Increase and More About International Shipping

Locally, here in the State of Iowa, our area has been very lucky in that the spread of COVID-19 has been very controlled and limited, and more and more businesses are opening up rather than closing.  The steps we’ve taken to protect our employees have resulted in no cases of COVID-19 infection in our facility at this point.

However, our sales and production volume continues to grow, sometimes to even higher levels than Q4 of 2019. At the same time, largely due to the pandemic, it has been more difficult than usual to scale production capacity to meet the demand, mostly caused by the difficulty in hiring additional staff.

While we continue to work toward expanding our capacity to support the demand – by running extended production hours, hiring additional staff, and purchasing additional equipment – the cost of keeping up with such high volumes continues to increase in many different ways.

Due to these short-term cost increases, and also in an effort to improve our service and restore normal production turnaround times for as many of our customers as possible, we are being forced to increase garment prices temporarily.

To help offset some of our additional costs, effective this Sunday, May 17th, at 10:00 PM US Central Time, we are temporarily increasing our prices. All orders processed after that time will be charged an additional $1.00 per garment above our normal prices.  This will apply to all t-shirts, tank tops, long sleeve and ladies shirts.  All fleece items (hoodies, zip hoodies, and sweatshirts) will be increased by $2.00 per garment.  Decal pricing will NOT be changed.

We are fully aware that some of you may opt out of using our App because of this additional charge. But hopefully, for those of you who remain with us, this simple step will not be too much of a hardship and will result in faster turnaround times for you and your customers. More happy customers will only help your business grow, and we hope that if you can sacrifice this one dollar, you’re business will thrive and become more prosperous, which will benefit all of us in the long run.

International Shipping

The list of countries to which we cannot provide service continues to grow. You can find all of the details on the follow page:
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/?utm_source=residential&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=res_to_intl

In addition, we are seeing delays in getting mail to Canada and other countries. It is our understanding that for some countries, the USPS has resorted to sending mail by sea rather than air, which greatly increases delivery times. Unless you specifically target international customers outside the U.S., we would recommend that you consider no longer accepting international orders until delivery becomes more reliable.

As always, we sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding during this difficult and trying time.

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

May 1, 2020 –
International and Domestic Shipping Delays

Please be aware that we are now seeing much longer delays with international shipping at both the USPS and UPS Mail Innovations.  In some cases, packages are sitting for weeks before beginning to move.

If you are continuing to sell to customers outside of the U.S., please explain these issues to your customers and ask them to be patient.  In a majority of cases, we are finding that products are not lost and have simply been delayed.

As always, we make no guarantees about delivery times, especially to international destinations, and unfortunately we can’t provide replacements/reprints for orders when they will likely be delivered eventually.

There are also potential delays with domestic service.  You can find more information about all this on this page:
https://faq.usps.com/s/article/USPS-Coronavirus-Updates-Expected-Delivery-Changes

In addition to this, there are still a number of countries we can’t ship to at all.   As we’ve pointed out before, you can find more information on this page  HERE.

Please continue to monitor this page for updates as we move forward.

Thanks,

The Teescape Team

April 28, 2020 –
Production and Delivery Times Update

We continue to experience increasing volumes of orders, reaching Holiday levels.  Due to capacity limitations caused by COVID-19 and the huge number of incoming orders, it is possible that some, or even many, orders may experience production turnaround delays of up to 2-3 days longer than normal.

We will continue to do everything we can to increase capacity and reduce delays.

International Shipping Delays

As we’ve pointed out in the earlier updates, there are still a number of locations we cannot ship to.  Further, we are seeing delivery times being longer than normal due to delays at those foreign postal services that are operating.   More information is still available HERE.

As an example, we received information from UPS that Canada Post is experiencing “Christmas level parcel volumes leading to delays”.  It seems that many places, including postal services, are experiencing delays for many of the same reasons we have the possibility of production delays.

We appreciate your continued business and understanding and hope you will stick with us as we work through these current temporary issues, while keeping your orders flowing and at the same time assuring the health and safety of our workers.

Please continue to monitor this page for updates as we move forward.

Thanks,

The Teescape Team

April 25, 2020 –
Production Status and New Restrictions

Please read this update carefully, as there are parts of this that may affect you, and other parts of it may NOT affect you.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a rare and unprecedented (and very unusual) situation for our manufacturing business that has NEVER happened before in our lifetime.

As many of you probably know, and many sellers experienced, at the onset of the pandemic, t-shirt sales seemed to drop substantially.

But then in the last several weeks, we have seen sales drastically increase, partly due to our existing sellers receiving increasing order volumes and also partly due to an influx of new sellers requesting Teescape print their shirts. All of this has created a production demand much higher than normal, reaching Holiday Season levels and some days surpassing those levels.

We are working to scale our production capacity as quickly as possible, by extending production hours to near-Holiday levels. We are adding overtime hours for our employees, working additional days, and trying to hire new production staff.

Due to the benefits created by recent legislation it has become harder-than-usual to hire new staff. In addition, we are seeing capacity limitations due to employee illness and low attendance. We have also been limited by the need to shut down more frequently to clean and disinfect production areas.

Because of all of this, it is possible that production turnaround times may be extended 1-2 additional days on some orders, possibly longer on orders with misprints, defective garment issues, etc.

However, In an effort to control the expanding volume of new orders, and prevent our long-time customers from experiencing excessive production delays, we are temporarily taking the following actions:

  1. As mentioned in our April 21 update on this page, we are not currently accepting new, non-Shopify accounts created for the purpose of only Manual Order Entry, WooCommerce integration, or API integration.
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  2. We are temporarily not accepting orders from new accounts connected to new Shopify accounts where the Shopify accounts were just recently created. This is intended only to limit orders placed by sellers who create a trial Shopify account, and connect to our App just so they can submit a volume of new orders and avoid the limitations we put in place on April 21.
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  3. New Shopify accounts that are accepted may not be able to create manual orders in our App. This means that orders must come from a webhook from the Shopify account. IF THIS AFFECTS YOU, you will not see the Create Manual Order button on the Teescape App’s dashboard page.
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  4. Any new accounts that are accepted, and possibly recently created accounts, may be restricted to processing a limited number of orders per day. IF THIS AFFECTS YOU, you will see a notice on the Teescape App’s dashboard page.
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  5. Effective immediately we are temporarily NOT accepting requests for expedited (“rush”) production service. We may, at our discretion, accept a very limited, small number of requests, please contact us at support@teescape.com if you have one or two urgent requests.
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  6. There may be additional restrictions and limitations. IF ANY OF THESE AFFECT YOU, you will see a notice on your Teescape App dashboard page.

All of these new rules and restrictions are TEMPORARY, and we hope they will be resolved shortly.

We apologize for any inconvenience that any of this might cause.

The Teescape Team

April 21, 2020 –
Production Status and New Accounts
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a steady increase in order volume over the last 7 days.

Our production is still operating under normal conditions; however, within the last two days we have seen order volumes that exceed our daily production capacity and are more consistent with the holiday season than a normal Spring season.

We are working to adjust and scale up our production capacity as fast as possible, including adding additional production overtime operating hours and new hiring.

In order to best maintain production turnaround times as close to normal as possible for our existing customers and avoid production delays, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY, we are temporarily suspending the acceptance of all new Manual Order Entry, API-based, and WooCommerce-integrated accounts.

This condition is temporary, and everything will resume to normal as soon as possible, although we cannot predict how soon that will be.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

International Service Unavailable
There are still many countries to which we cannot ship, and this list may increase over those listed in earlier updates.

Please monitor the USPS page for more information available at THIS LINK

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

April 12, 2020 – MORE International Service Unavailable
We are continuing to operate as usual, with most orders still shipping within 2-4 business days, and normal delivery within the U.S. with most packages being delivered in 2-3 shipping days.

However, the USPS is now reporting service unavailable to a total of 65 countries to which we cannot ship.  In addition, we may still have delays when shipping to the following countries: China, France, Great Britain (UK), Hong Kong, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Effective immediately, we cannot ship orders to the countries listed below (in Alphabetical order).  Additional information is available at THIS LINK

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

COUNTRY LIST
Angola
Benin
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Burundi
Cameroon
Cayman Islands
Chad
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Cuba
Curaçao
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ecuador
Fiji
French Polynesia
Gambia
Guatemala
Guinea Bissau
Guyana
Honduras
India
Kenya
Kiribati
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Lebanon
Lesotho
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Maldives
Mauritius
Moldova
Mongolia
Mozambique
Nepal
New Caledonia
New Guinea
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Rwanda
Samoa
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Seychelles
Solomon Islands
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Timor-Leste
Tonga
UAE
Uganda
Uruguay
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Zambia
Zimbabwe

April 2, 2020 – International Shipping Delays and Service Unavailable
We have become aware that International mail service may be delayed longer than normal to the following countries: China, France, Great Britain (UK), Hong Kong, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland

Effective immediately, we cannot ship orders to the following countries:  Cayman Islands, Chad, Ecuador, French Polynesia, Honduras, India, Kuwait, Libya, Madagascar, Maldives, Mongolia, New Caledonia, Panama, Peru, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Fiji, and Botswana

Details of this and more information is available at the following webpage:
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/international/?utm_source=residential&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=res_to_intl

This situation is out of our control, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

April 2, 2020
We are currently operating as normal and at this time we do not expect any significant delays in production.  Most orders are still shipping on time within our usual 2-4 business day turnaround time.

The state of Iowa, where we are located, is one of only a small number of states in the U.S. that does NOT have any “Shelter in Place” or “Stay at Home” orders.  While Iowa has only a small number of confirmed positive cases compared to many other states, our region of Iowa has the smallest number of positive cases in Iowa.

We are continuing to monitor the situation closely.

If anything changes that might affect production, we will update this page and will email notification to everyone on our mailing list.

Thank You,

The Teescape Team

March 24, 2020
We are currently operating as normal and at this time we do not expect any significant delays in production.  Most orders are still shipping on time within our usual 2-4 business day turnaround time.

The majority of the shirts that we print come from three different major garment vendors, each with multiple warehouses around the US.  As a result of the many states that are implementing “Shelter In Place” orders, one of our vendors has closed one of their warehouses, and another has closed three warehouses.  We expect this to have minimal impact on our supply of garments; however in very limited cases it is possible for some colors or sizes of a few styles to become temporarily unavailable, but not to any great extent.

The majority of our printing is done in the state of Iowa.  At this time, Iowa has no laws or orders in place that would restrict our ability to continue production.

We are taking every possible precaution to protect the health and safety of our staff and prevent the spread of the virus.

The situation is changing on a daily basis, both on a state and national level, and we are continuing to monitor the situation and will notify you in the event that there are any changes, especially if any of those will have any additional impact on our production.

We thank you for your business and will continue to do everything we can to assure that orders are fulfilled on time.

Thank You,

The Teescape Team