Notes from the warehouse: how orders actually ship

Nobody writes love letters to logistics, so consider this the first. Here is what happens between your click and your doorbell.

Orders cut off at 15:00. Everything before that ships the same day. Everything after joins tomorrow’s first wave — no exceptions, which is exactly why we can promise it.

Coffee packs last, on top. Beans are the freshest thing in the box and the most crushable. They go in last, sit on top, and never share a box with anything heavier than the desk mat.

One box size lies. We use four box sizes, and the smallest one that fits wins. Air is expensive to ship and unpleasant to unpack — the internet’s ball-of-airbags-in-a-crate experience is a choice, and we choose otherwise.

The handwritten bit. Every order gets the packer’s initials on the slip. Partly quality control, partly because a warehouse where people sign their work is a warehouse that packs better. Ask the initials a question in a support email — they will answer.

When things go wrong — a crushed corner, a missing taco — reply to the order email. The person who packed it will see it, and fixing it jumps every queue we have.