Thanks for your feedback! We have definitely learned a lot from the whole experience. We are glad that the products arrived safely. We also really liked to include a bit of the story behind this design as there was quite a bit of ideas behind it.
About improvement. Yes, during the whole process, we realized that we wanted to offer flexibility in shipping. We now created a system where we can record what is sent and product orders can be split in any way the customer wants. Of course splitting has higher shipping costs due to the fixed "startup" rate, so the system is primarily used to consolidate separate orders. We also realize that during our communication, the desire to split or combine was changed. We realize we might have decided to combine your shipping eventually, where individual shipping was preferred.
Regarding less costly shipping channels, unfortunately, to tap into that, we need to really focus on moving a lot of volume through one courier service. We currently have an arrangement with FedEx, which seems less popular within EU. Since all couriers want a certain volume and we don't have a big volume of shipments, we have to pick one and stick with it. On offer we have FedEx, DHL eCommerce and PostNL. If we look deeper into PostNL, we may get better rates, but we can't rely on PostNL for international shipments. This would add a lot of burden and increase our delivery times. FedEx offers us the least amount of hassle during export and for our imports they are excellent. So we can hit our quota easier. In the end, we as seller need to decide which courier to stick with, and we will probably focus solely in the future to see if our rates can be improved.
We also recognize that we have failed with our timely updates of schedule changes. We are now changing how we run our projects, which should hopefully alleviate this a bit. Both because pre-orders will be made first, and shipped shortly after payment is accepted. And because we have more experience and less chaos in the process. A lot of things behind the scenes could be improved and will be improved based on new knowledge gained.