Condiments brand Sauce Shop has been forced to apologise to for not delivering “the service that we usually aim for”, following weeks of delayed deliveries to its online customers.
The Grocer was alerted to the issue by a Sauce Shop customer, whose Father’s Day order had not arrived in time for the weekend.
Yesterday, they received an email from Sauce Shop co-founder James Digva, addressed to all customers who had placed an order with the company over the past three weeks.
In the email, Digva admitted: “We’ve had some issues and not delivered the service that we usually aim for.
“A few weeks ago we moved all of our order packing and shipping to a third party company,” Digva explained.
“We operate from quite a small unit (13k sq ft) and we’ve run out of space and so part of our plans to expand our production means this is a step we have to take as a business.
“Unfortunately, that did not go as smoothly as we hoped and things took off for Father’s Day with our gift boxes and hamper.
“The order fulfilment fell behind and we kept being assured that the company would catch up and unfortunately, they did not.”
Playing catch-up
Sauce Shop had since halted its online advertising to focus on existing orders and “sent a few people from our own team to help pack the orders because customers are our priority, we genuinely hate letting people down,” Digva wrote.
“We’ve discovered that orders were being printed, essentially marked as dispatched, but not being dispatched straight away and so we don’t have a clear picture of which orders are still delayed,” he admitted.
“If we’ve let you down for Father’s Day then I am so sorry… This is nowhere near the service that we aim to deliver.
“We will get everything back on track from next week and I hope that any negative experience you’ve had with us this time doesn’t completely destroy your view of us as a business.”
The shopper who passed on Digva’s email claimed they had received it “after I received another email promising I would receive my order in time”.
When contacted by The Grocer, Sauce Shop’s marketing director Al Porter said: ”This Father’s Day we had particularly high demand for our gift sets, while we did delight many of our customers it appears that we have let a small number down and we are working to resolve those specific cases whilst avoiding any issues going forward.
“Our DTC business remains open as normal.”
This comes after Sauce Shop overhauled its website last month to coincide with a “bold” overhaul of its pack designs.
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