I want to take this moment that I have for catching my breath and relaxing to reach out to all our customers. I feel that sharing information with you about what Healthy Pets Northwest is doing and why is important. You and your pets are the reason we are in business.
Over the years we have dedicated ourselves to earning your trust. We have been through many trying times and made many hard decisions based around maintaining that trust. For example, when Natura was sold to Proctor & Gamble (P&G), we just could not put our faith in their brands any longer. Pulling Natura brands like Evo and California Natural was frightening as it meant taking 30% of our top selling products off our shelves. We did it and you trusted our decision and stuck with us. It proved a good decision as a year later P&G recalled its entire line of Natura products.
Today, we are going through even more trying times with even more difficult decisions . We do our best to consider each one and second guess every one we make. Our guiding principle is living up to our responsibility to our community to help slow the spread of coronavirus. We are seeing in China, South Korea and even Italy that “stay home” and “social distancing” actually do slow the spread of infection.
We also understand how vitally important our pet food and supply services are to the health and well-being of the your pets. To that end, we are doing our best to support Gov. Browns “stay at home” order and ensure social distancing while still keeping our stores open. Keeping them open, however, has required us to dramatically change the way we do business. These are the most recent things we have implemented, some of which you may be aware of and some which you may not:
• Reducing our hours to 11 am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday and closing on Sunday.
• Requiring prepaid phone ordering for no-contact, curb-side pickup.
• Requesting that you call when arriving for pickup.
• Not allowing customers into any of the stores.
• Limiting the number of delivery orders we take.
Please allow me to speak to our process, so you know where we are coming from when making these decisions.
First was our decision to reduce our hours. While we would have preferred to maintain our regular schedule, and actually attempted to do just that, it quickly became obvious that the toll on our staff was just to much and was putting them at risk. One weekend we sold a three-week supply of products. In addition to selling huge volumes, we were also receiving huge deliveries from our distributors. We were stretched too thin, and we had to do something before our staff imploded. Reducing hours gave our staff a little time recuperate. Shorter hours also gives us a chance to deal with product deliveries and provides time to clean the stores more thoroughly.
Our next step was to limit the number of customers in the store and to encourage social distancing while in the stores. While most of you were grateful that we were looking out for you, some did not understand what was happening. We had customers coming into the stores with kids and dogs and spending time in the store like they were out on spring break, which some apparently thought they were. It also became obvious that even with limited numbers of people in the store that social distancing was not happening. The environment was not conducive to slowing the spread of the virus.
That brings us to our current implementation: prepaid phone orders for curb-side pickup with no customers allowed in the stores. I know that many customers did not get the message and that I certainly could have done a better job of getting the message out. To the customers that showed up at the stores on Monday and had to stand outside, I sincerely apologize.
We are reviewing and making decisions faster than I would have ever imagined. One bit of advice that we have tried to take to heart is from the Mayor of Seattle. She basically said in an interview about preparing for the coronavirus that if you think you need to do it next week, you’re too late, you need to do it today.
We did considered allowing walk-up customers to order at the door without coming into the store, which is how things went on Monday. However, an incident at one of the stores showed us that allowing lines outside the stores is not the way to go. Customers were lined up in front of the store trying to keep six feet apart according to social distancing requirements when another customer walked up. Instead of getting in line or keeping his distance from everyone, he walked right up to another customer and started asking about what was going on and saying he wasn’t used to the rules. When the first customer he approached got out of line and left, he walked over to another customer wearing a face-mask and started talking to her. That incident just affirmed to us that curb-side pickup was the safest option.
To help with phone ordering, I spent most of Sunday setting up second lines at both the Woodstock and Multnomah Village stores. Now if the main line is busy when you call, the phone automatically rolls over to the second line. If both lines are busy, the phone goes to voice mail. While it is not the perfect solution, it does at least double our order-taking capacity.
This next issue of course is delivery. We wish we had a fleet of delivery trucks running all over Portland, but we don’t. And this being Portland, many of our staff members do not have cars. That in a nutshell is why we are currently offering limited delivery service. We wish we could do more.
I want to say thank you to all of you, our customers. The vast majority of you have been more patient and understanding that we could have ever imagined. For your help and support through this turmoil we will be forever grateful.
Finally, I want to say that we have been in contact with our distributors. Pet supply stores are being designated as an “essential service” both locally and nationally. The ensures that manufacturers are allowed to continue making and shipping pet food, and that our distributors can continue to deliver products to us.
While some products may be in limited supply for a short time due to the incredible demand over the last three weeks, we expect to see things improving. One of a key distributors placed more than $6.5 million in emergency orders on top of their regular orders.
I know this was a long blog, but I felt like sharing our information was important.