Why haven't we put out a single article all year?

• October 26, 2016
• 42943x

Quite a few things have happened in the last 365 days. Let's start with the positives.

That is, the stuff we had our hand in. Not all of it is apparent at first glance. But everything has had a singular purpose:

That you have an even better service at Teahouse.

Here's a short summary:

What we've worked on over the last year?

1. NEW VIDEOS

We came up with and made 5 video tutorials on how to properly pack a parcel. Or a bike. Or your luggage. Or your expensive electronics.

We probably won’t be making any new videos for a while – they are a lot of work. But we're sure these will help. We'll publish them soon!

 

2. ORDERING IMPROVEMENTS

You may have noticed a major new feature on our website when you're sending multiple orders – now you can put them all in en masse.

We're also overhauling the whole site. For example, we're preparing a system for the automatic sending of your package tracking numbers.

 

3. YEAR-LONG CONTEST

A year ago, we came out with a Facebook contest „selfie with a driver“. That one-off event grew into a perpetual contest (for now).

Every week, one of you will win free transport. In the past year, 52 people have already sent their packages worth more than 1 500 pounds free of charge. Do you want in?

 

4. TEAM EXPANSION

You are still sending packages like crazy, so we have recruited 6 more employees to help the busy people in customer service.

The biggest help, however, is recruit no. 7 (or maybe 007). New operations director, Lukas Vacik, who is our most important agent.

 

5. TWO POUNDS FOR EVERYBODY

We couldn't help ourselves: we just like giving stuff away. Since December 2015, we've added more: 2 pounds for everybody in the Teahouse Wallet.

All you have to do is recommend us to a friend. If they fill out your email at the end of their order – you'll get this recommendation bonus.

6. DISCOUNT STRUCTURE

We had a bit of a mess in our discounting. So we have given it a clear structure – we focused mainly on student and corporate discounts.

We've set exact discounts for each different circumstance and because of that we are now able to give students and companies discounts much faster than before.

The pound, TNT & Brexit: which affected us the most?

A couple of things happened during the last year that put a few kinks in the corporate brain.

And we had to pay more attention to them than our blog.

From the top:

October 2015: PACKAGE FOR A POUND CAMPAIGN

You are sure to remember that crazy campaign. We know we do – because it took us a long time to recover from it. It almost bankrupted us.

Our accounting felt its overwhelming consequences for a few months afterwards. A campaign of a similar size to the “Parcel for a Pound” event will not be repeated soon.

But we'll surely think of something else (but smaller). Don't worry.

February 2016: TNT PRICE HIKE

We had just gotten out of the gutter after the last campaign, when we received another unfortunate blow. The carrier TNT increased its prices across the board. And by quite a bit, too.

We faced a choice. Either we pass the transportation price increase on to you (unthinkable), or we fight TNT and negotiate with them. We did the latter; however, it took a lot of time and extra effort from us.

But it's a win-win situation in the end, because we managed to keep the previous prices and we negotiated further cooperation with TNT. It's one of our strategic partners and we don't want to change.

July 2016: BREXIT SHOCKS EUROPE

One last thing. The United Kingdom surprised all European countries (and possibly itself) - and decided to withdraw from the EU.

Some of the transport prices at Teahouse are fixed in pounds. But when the pound behaves like a Third World currency, that's a bit of a problem.

We'll see how it all turns out in the end.

In any case, we don't have a good feeling about Brexit.

And we suspect our customers (not just those from the UK) feel similarly.

What do you think of Brexit? Where does it leave us all?

Let us know in the comments below. We'd like to know.