Online holiday shopping is in full swing now. Here's a quick thread about or workflow so you have a better sense of when you order will be ready...

1. We start all online orders offsite for two reasons: so those of us who cannot be in the store have work and to reduce the total number of booksellers that need to leave their house on a given day...

1A. At the current pace of orders it could several hours to a full day from from when you hit submit till we get our "first touch" on the order. That bookseller orders books we don't have & puts the order in a spreadsheet for the in store staff to work on...

2. The in store staff gathers whatever books are in the store. If everything in the order is in the store, they'll set the book out for curbside pick up or get it ready for shipping or delivery.

2A. At the current pace of things it will probably be 12-24 hours from when the order is added to the spreadsheet to when it is processed in store. So...

2B. If everything in your order is in stock in the store your order is likely going to take about 3 days to complete.

3. If we have to order books from the warehouses it will be 3-5 business days from when we place the order for it to arrive at the store. At the current pace it'll be between 5-24 hours from when the book arrives until a bookseller processes it...

4. If we have to order from the publisher that will likely be even longer. In fact, we can probably only be confident about orders from publishers for another week or so...

5. Sometimes we can have books ship directly from a warehouse but that is only for orders that choose the priority shipping option. Everything else will have to go through the store first.

6. If you've got a big old order and haven't heard from us, odds are we're waiting for something from the warehouses. If you'd like to pick up whatever is here send an email to online@portersquarebooks

7. Finally if you're stumbling on this thread on, like, 12/18 & are afraid you won't be able to get gifts in time all of our Bookseller Bundles are always in stock https://www.portersquarebooks.com/book-bundles  Thank you!