DS Overview and Vendor Expectations

Uncommon Goods (UG) has a Drop Ship (DS) program which offers a variety of products that ship directly from the vendor to the customer.  The UG Merchant team will work with vendors to determine whether merchandise will be inventoried in our warehouse or drop-shipped from the vendor. In this section of the manual, the UG Drop Ship program, item qualifications, and expectations of a DS vendor will be described in easy-to-understand language.

Uncommon Goods merchants, when on-boarding a new product, may choose to have the item fulfilled directly by the vendor when the vendor has the capability to do so and the product meets one or more of these qualifications:

  • Made-to-order item at a high price point
  • Customized/personalized items
  • Items including live plants
  • Wall art items that can be framed are fulfilled by our third-party framing partner
  • Certain food items that we cannot store in our warehouse
  • Items that require the customer to submit a photo or materials to complete production
  • Large furniture pieces or over-sized items that are not easily stored in our warehouse

As a UG DS vendor, you’ll be responsible for the final fulfillment of the item to the customer using tools and resources provided by Uncommon Goods. There are some great perks to being a UG DS vendor:

  • All customer service and contact is managed by the award-winning Uncommon Goods customer service team
  • The Drop Ship team is available 7 days a week to assist vendors with questions about customer requests or how to use UG tools
  • The UG DS Extranet, an online portal for managing your drop ship orders, is a one-stop shop for viewing all order information, printing packing slips, printing shipping labels, sending proofs, and sending invoices to our accounting department.
  • API and order feed support for larger fulfillment centers with high volume

We strive to make it as easy as possible to fulfill DS orders in order to achieve our ultimate goal: a happy customer/gift recipient. Our shoppers primarily come to us for gifts, so we don’t want to let them down! We have certain expectations of our vendors to ensure an excellent customer experience:

  • Each DS item has a lead time or production days (number of days from order creation to the date it will ship). If an item has a 7-day lead time (requires 7 days to create) and is ordered on a Monday, the customer will be notified that it will ship NO LATER than the following Monday. You’ll be asked what your product lead time is during the new item set-up process. Shorter lead times usually equals higher sales so avoid unnecessary buffering/padding when suggesting/altering your lead times. Lead times are fixed to 7-day increments.
  • Once an order is placed by a customer, we allow them to make changes to their order or request a cancellation. If you have not confirmed the order via the extranet, we’ll assume you did not start production on the item and will make the change/cancel the order without notifying you. If the order has been confirmed in our system, we will always contact you first about a change/cancellation request before confirming with the customer that it can be accommodated. Confirming orders when you begin production on an item (and not sooner or later) is a suggested best-practice.
  • If your item requires a step between order creation and the start of production (i.e. proof approval by customer, customer photo submission, customer mails in materials), the order will NOT have a ship date applied according to the item lead time UNTIL that step is completed by the customer. If an order arrives and production cannot start due to an error made by the customer or UG, the expected ship date will update based off of your lead time when the issue is rectified.
  • If your item requires a proof to be sent to the customer before final production begins, we expect that it is sent within 2 business days of the order creation date. When a customer places an order for a proofed item on our website, they are notified to expect an emailed proof within 2 business days. Failure to send the proof within this time will result in a chargeback for that order.
  • Once production of the item is completed, we expect that the order will ship via the customer-selected ship method NO LATER than the Expected Ship by Date. UG DS Extranet users can print packing slips and shipping labels from the extranet at the click of a button. Vendors with APIs or order feeds will ship via 3rdparty billing on our UPS account. A packing slip is required in EVERY package. We routinely do blind audits of DS vendors to ensure compliance. We expect that all items are shipped with sufficient packing material to prevent damage and that the external shipping box does not leave excessive void space.
  • Warm Weather Packaging/Shipping: During warmer weather, we ask that temperature sensitive product ship with an ice pack to ensure the item arrives to our customers in good shape.
  • The order must be picked-up or dropped-off with the carrier NO LATER than the shipping carrier’s cut-off time on the Expected Ship by Date. Orders that ship later than the Expected Ship by Date will result in a chargeback for that order if notification of a new ship by date has not been provided to the UG DS team within 48 hours of the original Expected Ship by Date. Tracking information for labels generated through Extranet will automatically be sent to the customer and be added to our system when it is scanned by the shipper – no need for manual inputs! Vendors with APIs or order feeds will need to send a shipping report with tracking no later than 24 hours after shipment. Failure to send a shipping report with tracking within 24 hours will result in a chargeback for those orders.
  • Once the order has shipped and has updated in the Extranet, you’ll be able to invoice us for that order. No order will be paid in advance of final shipment to the customer without valid tracking information. You can invoice at the click of a button using the UG DS Extranet.
  • We notify customers that any items with customization/personalization CANNOT be returned under UG’s Forever Return Policy unless damaged or defective. If a customer says they changed their mind, they will be unable to return the item. If a customer reports a damaged or defective item, we will issue them a replacement order. If the exception was caused by the vendor, we expect that a free replacement be sent. Examples of exceptions that are the responsibility of the vendor to avoid:
  • Incorrect personalization on final product based on the information provided by the customer
  • Insufficient packing material to protect the product
  • Item does not work as intended
  • Poor craftsmanship; does not look like the photo on UG website
  • Wrong order is shipped to the wrong customer (NOTE: we will not allow customers to send a package to another customer, a replacement must be created)
  • Missing components

There are other exceptions in which the vendor is not responsible, and UG will incur the cost of a replacement:

  • Damaged in transit by the shipper when the package has reasonable and sufficient packing material (UG will pay for replacement and file a claim with the shipper)
  • Incorrect personalization on the final product due to an error by the customer service representative who entered the order or by the customer
  • Courtesy exceptions made by the supervisors of the UG customer service team

For most exceptions, the UG customer service team will provide photographs from the customer and the UG DS team will provide explanations for replacement orders that are sent to you.

  • DS items with no personalization or customization CAN be returned under the UG Forever Return policy even if they are not defective/damaged. If a customer changes their mind for any reason and the product can be resold, the UG DS team will accept the return to UG’s warehouse and use it to process the next sale for that item. We will notify you when we do this, and you will not be able to invoice for this order. This eliminates the need for our DS vendors to have to deal with return shipments and issuing credits to our accounting team.
  • Our customers are awesome, but they also have a lot of needs… some common customer requests that the UG DS team may reach out to you about:
      • Rush shipments – a customer wants to receive an order faster than the normal lead time
      • Special customization – a customer may want to customize an item above and beyond the standard options available
      • In both cases, if an additional charge is required by the vendor, we have the ability to pass that charge to the customer.