CORONOVIRUS UPDATE

We understand that this is a stressful time for small businesses, and so we want to ensure that we're supporting our customers by continuing to provide a reliable service for your craft supplies for as long as possible whilst also keeping our staff and business partners safe.

With this in mind, we have made the tough decision to temporarily close our website for new orders during the week, and close our physical shop until further notice.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

WHAT CHANGES ARE SPENCER-BROOKES MAKING?

As the situation with Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to escalate in the UK, we have made the decision to close our physical shop, and reduce our shop team to only have one person working in the shop at any given time from Monday 23rd March. This decision is in line with Government guidance to ensure social distancing, and protect both our customers and employees.

Our shop team comprises of three full-time staff - Sue who's husband is a paramedic, Charlotte who is 38 weeks pregnant [expecting Easter], and Emma. Going forward, the shop team will alternate between a designer 2 days a week to cut your orders, and a packer 3 days a week to pack and dispatch your orders - with the designer designing orders from home on packing days. We believe that this is the most efficient way to ensure that our customer orders are made and dispatched as quickly as possible.

Our online presence is managed part-time by Tina. Tina's working hours are Monday - Thursday 10am - 2pm. We will aim to respond to all messages within 24hrs during this time period, but due to reduced staffing in the shop - it may take slightly longer than usual to respond to certain queries.

CAN I STILL PLACE AN ORDER?

*Updated as of 21st April. We are aiming to keep our website open from today on-wards to allow our customers to place their orders as needed rather than solely over the weekend. Though this may change at short notice depending on the current situation, and how we are progressing with existing orders - so please keep an eye on our Facebook page for the most up to date information Facebook page.

HOW LONG WILL MY ORDER TAKE TO PROCESS?

Due to the limitations that we have with staffing our shop, our turnaround time for processing orders is expected to be around 14 working days until further notice. As soon as your order has been dispatched, you will receive an email notifying you that it's on it's way.

The post service is extremely busy at the moment, and in some areas is taking upto 7 working days to arrive. Please bare this in mind when ordering, and allow additional time for Royal Mail to process your parcel.

Please note that all mail is sent via Royal Mail standard delivery. We do not provide tracking for parcels unless they are very large orders [£100+] sent via a courier service.

HOW CAN I CHECK ON THE STATUS OF MY ORDER?

You can view our current design status by visiting our Design Update page. This page shows our current turnaround time, and which date we are currently working on.

Please note that we have temporarily suspended our "next in the machine" update for order processing. This is due to the extremely high volume of orders that we are currently receiving each day, as well as an increase in the number of large wholesale orders being made which take longer to process in our machines.

I FORGOT TO ORDER SOMETHING, CAN I ADD IT TO MY EXISTING ORDER?

No. We are unable to amend or add to orders that have already been placed.

Any additional items required need to be placed as a brand new order when we next re-open, with it's own P&P fee - as it will be processed and posted as a separate order, and in-turn by the time in which it was ordered.

I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A NEW PRODUCT, CAN YOU CREATE IT FOR ME?

No. In addition to the current lock down, one of our designers is due to go on maternity leave before the end of April. This means that from this time, we will only have one designer in our shop for the next 3-4 months who will be responsible for designing and cutting all of your orders. Due to the extremely high volume of orders that we are receiving at the moment, it is unfortunately not feasible for us to offer a custom design service during this time.

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We thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

The Spencer-Brookes Designs Team.