How to Make a Custom Order
My favorite question that I get asked as a crafter is “Can you make this?” – it’s usually followed up with a photo or two. Sometimes people have a specific vision, other times I’m given creative freedom. Either way, I’m super excited to try new things, and I’m almost always responding with an emphatic “yes!” to that original question.
But if you know me, you know that if something isn’t written down, it’s quickly getting forgotten. My former coworkers knew not to walk away from me after requesting something unless they saw me write myself a sticky-note. I have specific spaces in my paper planner for my to-do list each week and I’m still putting alarms in my phone to go off when I need to accomplish a task (there was one that went off just this morning reminding me to log on and pay the mortgage!).
My need for an organizational system is surpassed only by my desire to create a better customer experience. I had someone order something through me recently who asked if there was somewhere on our website to input information, and it was like the clouds opened up and the sunshine hit me in the face with that epiphany – why didn’t we have a space on the website for this type of stuff? I’ve been relying on text messages from friends and alarms in my phone to get my custom orders through, but there could be something better, right?
That initial thought came quickly, but my plan to solve the problem was slow-moving. I’m known for jumping into things and finding solutions through trial-and-error. Now don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of trial and lots of error on the route to this solution, but none of those flopped solutions went public. Most of the ideas I had sounded smart at first, but ended up being more time-consuming and not at all helpful on the back-end of things. A lot of my struggle came from trying to streamline things a bit too much. I realized that creating a custom order involved conversation that no website page or button could streamline. I’d been going too far in the process when I should have just found a jumping point and continued with what was working from there (if that doesn’t explain me in a nutshell, nothing does!).
So I pulled back from all my crazy ideas and created a simple starting point. Now, we’ve got a form on our website to jump-start your custom order process. It serves as the conversation-starter between you and us here at the shop, and it allows us to get started on making your ideas become a reality.
Filling Out the Form
First things first – find the form on our website here. It’s got important basic info to be filled out like your name and your email address. Don’t worry, you aren’t signing yourself up for marketing emails, we just need your email address so that we can keep in contact with you throughout the order fulfillment process and to send you an invoice for payment.
After that, select the product that you’re looking to create. We have a lot of custom order requests for t-shirts and sweatshirts, but there are other options on the form as well, like a custom quote sign or a custom mug. There’s even an option to discuss something new – there’s no cost to filling out the form, so if you’ve got an idea that isn’t listed, there’s no harm in asking whether or not we can do it!
Your next step is to let us know where you are personally in your design process. Like I said earlier, some people already have an image they’d like to use on a design, such as a photo or a company logo. Others have design ideas, but they aren’t attached to a specific look and they leave us some wiggle room in that regard. But even if you don’t know exactly what you want or you want a little design help from us, let us know! Once we’ve connected via email, you can send us your design or idea photos.
There are a few important bits to read on the form before you hit the submit button. Something to note is that we at The Sister Sister Shop reserve the right to deny a custom order for any reason prior to accepting payment for that order. I’ll be honest with you; we won’t be denying orders a lot. However, we also aren’t going to put a profanity-laced quote or a racial slur on a t-shirt simply because you’ve requested it. Also, we want to create a quality product for you – if we think that your request is out of our wheelhouse, we won’t accept it because we don’t want to send you something subpar.
Prior to hitting submit, reread the form to make sure everything is correct, especially your email address! That will serve as our initial point of contact, so if it’s wrong, we won’t be able to reach out to you.
I Hit Submit - What’s Next?
Once you’ve submitted the form, it gets sent straight to our inbox. As soon as we can, we’ll reach out to you via the email address you provided, so keep an eye on your inbox! Also, every once in a while, our emails get marked as spam. If you haven’t heard from us within a week, please check your spam folder to make sure we made it through the spam filters.
From that point, we’ll discuss design with you. This is the time where you’ll send us any inspiration photos or logos you’ve got, and we’ll take all the information you provide to create a mock-up of whatever product you’re requesting. The idea of the mock-up is to give you an idea of what the final product will look like, and it will help us make sure we’ve got the right idea of what you want. The mock-up won’t look exactly like the final product, but it will be close! Once you approve that mock-up, the production process starts. We’ll inform you during our initial conversation how long the production process will take, since it will be different for each product.
Before we ship, we’ll send over a photo of the final product (so you can see what you’re paying for). Then, if you’re happy with what you see, we’ll email you an invoice for the cost of the product and the cost of shipping. After that invoice has been paid, we’ll ship the product and send you a tracking number.
Truthfully, making a custom order with us is something that’s fairly easy. However, it’s not something that everyone knows that we do. Making this form is my first step in bringing custom orders into the spotlight of our business, because it’s definitely the most fun part of the shop for me. If you’ve got any ideas that you’d like to bring to life, don’t hesitate to reach out – we’re excited to get started!
