There is so much that goes into getting a little envelope of Kingfolk goodness into your mailbox. We dream it up, design it, make it, pack it, and send it on its way. And I promise you . . . we want it to get to you just as much as you do.

With the holidays coming up, I wanted to have a little heart-to-heart about shipping. Some of you have experienced frustrating delays, and I know waiting for something you’ve paid for can take the fun right out of looking forward to it.

Maybe it’s a gift. Maybe it’s your monthly subscription. Maybe it’s something you ordered because you needed a little encouragement and couldn’t wait to sit down with your Bible.

Whatever is inside that envelope, it matters to you. That means it matters to us, too.

I also know most people have never had a reason to learn how the postal system works. You order something, we ship it, and it shows up. That’s how it should go! But when something goes wrong in between, it can be hard to understand what happened or who can help.

So let me explain a few things from our side of the packing table.

There are two parts to getting your order to you

The first part happens here at Kingfolk. We’re responsible for preparing your order, packing it, addressing it, and getting it into the mail.

The second part happens within the postal system. Once USPS has your order, it travels through their facilities and delivery network before reaching your mailbox.

We can work hard to get your order out our door. We cannot control how quickly it moves after that, which facilities it travels through, or when your local carrier delivers it.

That doesn’t mean we stop caring once it leaves us. It just means there is a part of this process we physically cannot manage, even when we would really, really like to.

If I could personally retrieve every delayed Kingfolk envelope and deliver it to your front porch, there are days I would be tempted!

Postal delays are real

I want to be honest about this: the postal system has serious service problems, and those problems affect small businesses and the people who shop with them.

Mail can be delayed. Things can get misrouted. An order can take much longer than expected, leaving both of us wondering where in the world it is.

That is frustrating for you, and it is frustrating for us. We’ve put time, materials, care, and money into something that hasn’t reached the person we made it for.

But a delay does not automatically mean an order is lost. Sometimes the very thing we’re worried about finally shows up after taking the scenic route.

That’s one reason we ask for patience before sending a replacement. We’re allowing time for the original order to arrive.

Not every Kingfolk envelope travels the same way

This is especially helpful to understand with subscriptions.

An envelope sent as a First-Class Mail letter is different from a package sent with USPS Tracking. Ordinary First-Class letters do not include the same tracking service that packages do. There isn’t a package-style tracking history we can pull up to see where that envelope was last scanned.

We use letter mail for some subscriptions because it helps keep shipping costs, and the overall subscription price, affordable. The tradeoff is that we have less visibility while that envelope travels.

If you prefer to follow your subscription’s progress, choose the tracked shipping option where available. Tracking gives us more information, although it does not guarantee that a shipment will arrive without delays.

And if someone else receives their subscription before you do, that alone doesn’t mean yours is missing. Even orders mailed together can arrive on different days.

Tracking is helpful, but it has limits

For orders with tracking, the updates you see are based on information recorded within the postal system. They are not a live location showing every moment of your package’s trip.

A “shipping label created” message means the label has been made. By itself, it does not confirm that USPS has received the package.

Once USPS has accepted it, later updates help show its progress. But if that information stops changing, we may need to ask USPS to investigate.

We can check your order details, review the available tracking, and help with the next steps. We don’t have a separate screen that shows exactly where every envelope or package is hiding.

I wish we did. It would get a lot of use around here.

Asking you to wait does not mean we’re brushing you off

This is probably the part I most want you to hear.

In the history of Kingfolk, we have never told someone whose order didn’t arrive, “Oh well. We aren’t responsible for that. We aren’t replacing your order.”

We have always replaced orders that needed replacing at our expense. That means making or pulling the products again, packing another order, and paying postage again.

I share that because I want you to know our history and our heart. We have consistently shown up for our customers when shipping has gone wrong, including when the problem happened after an order left our hands.

We have also asked people to be patient.

Both of those things are true.

When we ask you to allow more time, we are trying to give delayed mail a reasonable chance to arrive before sending another order into the same system. Replacing every delayed order immediately creates costs that a small business simply cannot absorb indefinitely.

We want to take good care of you and make thoughtful decisions that allow us to keep taking good care of this whole Kingfolk community.

In my 20 years of owning a business, it’s rare that a package disappears entirely. But with that being said, sometimes it travels all the way across the USA and ping-pongs from hub to hub before finally ending up in the correct mailbox.

A few months ago, we had a package that we were shipping from our shop in Tennessee to Georgia that ended up in Puerto Rico and although it was delayed, our customer did, in fact, receive their order.

We don’t know why the postal system does the things they do, but we have seen some crazy tracking and delays.

Please remember who is answering your email

On the other side of that message is a real person. We don’t have any type of AI robots here.

She’s a real person with a family and homeschooling her 2 boys while also fielding emails.

And she’s amazing at what she does.

She’s a person who wants to help you. A person who did not cause the postal delay and cannot fix it with the click of a button.

We are a small team. We make things, pack orders, answer questions, solve problems, and do our best to care for the people who support this business. We also make mistakes sometimes. When we do, we want to know so we can make them right.

You are always welcome to tell us something hasn’t arrived. You are welcome to ask questions, express disappointment, or let us know something went wrong. You do not have to pretend you’re happy about a frustrating situation.

I’m simply asking that you speak to our team with kindness, even when you’re upset. Please give us the opportunity to help without assuming we don’t care.

We do care. Very much.

A few things that help, especially around the holidays

Order early when something is needed for a gift or a particular date. Allow room for both our order preparation time and the carrier’s delivery time. An estimated arrival date leaves less room for unexpected delays than many of us realize.

Double-check your shipping address at checkout. Apartment numbers, ZIP codes, and old addresses are easy to overlook, especially when your phone fills things in for you.

Know which shipping option you selected. Letter mail and tracked packages offer different levels of visibility along the way.

If something seems wrong, contact us with your order number and a short explanation. That helps us look into your specific order and give you the next steps.

If we ask you to wait a little longer, please know there is a reason. We’re drawing on what we see from shipping orders every month and giving your mail time to arrive. We will explain what to watch for and when to follow up.

We’re grateful you chose Kingfolk

I know you have many places you could shop. The fact that you choose to spend your money with our little business is something I never want to take lightly.

Our heart has always been to make tools that help you get in the Word. We want the experience of receiving those tools to be a happy one, too.

We’ll keep doing our part to prepare your orders with care, get them shipped, and help when something goes wrong. As we head into this busy season, I hope this gives you a better understanding of what happens between our packing table and your mailbox.

Thank you for trusting us, for being patient when the mail takes longer than it should, and for remembering the people behind your happy mail.

With love,
Kerri