Later June we will be undergoing a change – don’t worry it is a good one – we’re moving!  After over 40 years at our current Vancouver location, the time has come for us to make some changes and move into a warehouse outside of Vancouver.  If you’re wondering why, we’ll put a few notes about this near the end.  We wanted to give our valued customers a heads up as to how this will affect you.

When:

Our last date of operation at our current facility is Friday, June 18th, 2021.  Following this date, we will be shut down for the move into our new facility.  Our current target is to be up and running again before July, we hope to keep production delays to 2 weeks max.  See the Details & Dates section below for more information on how this will affect you.

How This Will Affects Local Customers: 

The primary change for our local customer is that they will no longer be able to pick up orders from our location.   ALL orders will be shipped to ALL customers.  With the increase of photographers using our shipping option due to COVID, we are confident that you will find shipping your orders to be far more convenient for both you and your customers.  You will see that the LOCAL PICK UP option will disappear from your lifethreads studio cart following a May 25 update to studio.

Please mark the following dates on your calendar: 

  • May 26 – LOCAL PICK UP will disappear as an option in your shopping cart – more details on that in a  separate email & blog announcement
  • June 17 11:59 pm – orders must be received by this time in order to be shipped prior to us moving
  • June 18 – is the ABSOLUTE last possible day for orders to be picked up. They MUST be picked up by 3pm this day.  Orders not picked up will be available for shipping BUT it will be the responsibility of the customer to pay for shipping.

Other important things to note:

  • Please note that we do offer shipping direct to your location or
  • Drop Shipping (non-labelled shipping direct to your clients, without invoices or job-ticket info included).   Learn more about how to Drop Ship here.
  • Shipping starts at a flat rate of $15 from us to anywhere in Canada. Please see your price guide (see where to find that here) for current shipping rates.

How This Affects Everyone Else:

Since the majority of our customers already ship all their orders, the largest change will involve the shut down for the move and the resultant production delay.  See below for details on this.

Shut Down Dates and Production Delay:

We anticipate about a 10-14 day shut down to facilitate the relocation.  Orders received by 11:59 pm on June 17th will be shipped before we relocate. During the production downtime, our web sites will continue to function and projects can be built and your orders can be made online like you normally would.  Customer service will also continue, as will receiving & responding to emails, but at a slower than normal rate as it’s all hand on deck for this move.  All orders will be queued for production in the order that they are received and once we’re back up & running, we’ll work long & hard to get things produced and shipped to get caught up as quickly as possible. 

Move schedule and Important Deadlines:

  • Thursday June 17 – orders received by 11:59 pm will be produced & shipped before we move
  • Friday June 18 – local location is shut down (no more printing after this date until the new location is up and running)
  • June 19 – 25 – packing & moving
  • June 26 – 29 – set up & installation of machinery in new location
  • July 2 – we hope to be running as usual again in the new digs!

Why?

The reasons are many but we’ll choose to focus on the positives:

  1. We’re going all online baby!  COVID proved one thing to us – you can survive online only.  SO…we’re diving in with both feet, both hands and our heads too.
  2. The newer larger space will allow us to refocus our energy and efforts on lifethreads and our retail partner brand moving forward. This will allow us to create new products and serve our loyal and valued customers even better.
  3. More space = room to grow!
  4. One of our founders is moving on to his next chapter in life. Freedom for Ross as he retires!
  5. We’re bringing Kaylee into a more fully involved management role. Her keen eye for spotting trends, her relentless attention to detail and her flawless aesthetic sense can only make us better.
  6. Lifestyle. It was time for a positive change in this regard. Balance is key to wholistic health. More from Russ on this later…

There’s probably a million other little reasons, but we won’t bore you with those.

Finally, we’d like to take an opportunity to once again thank all of you for being the fantastically awesome people that we’re proud to know and call our customers.  I can’t wait to see where the future leads for us.  Although D&R was started 40 years ago, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface of what we could be and I’m excited to explore that with you.

All the best,
Russell

P.S.  Have concerns, comments, want to know more?  Please drop me a line at support@lifethreadsalbums.com  attn: RUSSELL and I’ll do my best to answer you personally.

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