If you have landed here, you may be brand new to working with us. If so, welcome! We're happy to have you join our clay family. On this page and the other pages linked above, you can find tons of information about how we do things here. Now, we are NOT going to make you read through this and present you with some kind of Apple-inspired check box that you agree to the terms and conditions, BUT, if you call to ask a question that we have answered here, we WILL just refer you back here. sooo.. you know, the decision is yours....
In general, we are individual-focused. No two shoppers have the same needs and preferences and we do try to tailor our services to your needs. Online shopping can be very cold and impersonal but we still try to connect with our customers - we love it when people put comments in to their order about their preferences. This can be anything ranging from something you couldn't find on our website but were wanting to order, or ok'ing substitutions, or just about anything you want us to know or answer. (please don't ask us to explain nuclear fusion though, we are not rocket scientists)
We also put a high priority on our staff and their needs. This means that sometimes we are closed for extended holidays so that our people can travel and spend time with loved ones, or if the weather is bad and the roads are dangerous, we stay home. We try to provide as much notice as possible when this happens. Please always check our website FIRST for the most accurate information. After that, we try to post an update in social media, and also we try to remember to update our google hours, oh and our phone system, the front door of the store, and anyplace else we can think of where people MIGHT look for information, but...well, there are so many these days. Yesterday someone told us our hours are wrong on yelp....oops.
OK, so if you're still with me and you are just looking for the answer to "how do I place an order." Here you go - you can order on our website without logging in or creating an account or anything (but if you do, it will likely help out future you, and then future you can give past you a high five and just totally break the space time continuum, which could be fun...) You can select pick up in store (if you live close or are driving through our flyover state of Kansas), or you can click ship/delivery. (you can find out more about delivery options on our delivery page) If you are within about 250 miles of us and you have met the weight minimum, you will see delivery service via our truck, otherwise you will see some variety of shipping options from USPS, UPS, FedEx, and possibly FedEx Freight. For more on that, check our section on shipping. You need to enter your complete address to get shipping rates (including your phone number). THEN you need to enter your BILLING address, and that address has to match whatever is on file with your credit card company if you are paying by card (we also do PayPal and we're working on Venmo, and if we forget to update this little note once we have that set up, we may ALREADY support venmo. depends on when you are reading this). If you have any problems getting through checkout, you might visit the "help me" link that shows some commonly reported problems and their solutions. OR, you can always call us or send a contact form. Sometimes we even respond to contact forms in the evenings, but at some point, we all go to sleep....so if you are a midnight shopper, you may have to wait a bit for an answer.
You can also call us to place an order, but please don't ask what the shipping charge will be. We don't know. Our website has this fancy program that basically calls up the shipping company, puts all the details of your order in, and spits back out the rate. Our brains don't have that call up program installed, so we have to wait until we pack it all up, weigh it, put in your address and then we know. Sometimes we can guess, and we're usually close. if you're good with that, (or if you are picking up) then ordering by phone may be a good choice. You can also email in an order, or even send one in the US Mail. We did, however, have to discontinue accepting orders by carrier pigeon, because they kept crashing into the glass windows and it's very messy.
What happens after I place my order?
CLICK HERE for specifics about pick up orders • CLICK HERE for specifics about shipments
First you will get an automated response from our website with a copy of your order via email. This lets you know your order has been received by our computers. A live human being will then review your order. We do this several times each day. Once we have pulled down your order, and started to look at it, you will get an email through our order tracking system to let you know we are reviewing it. This email may also include notes specific to your order in addition to general information.
How long does it take?
Well, that's one of the many "it depends" questions. If you ordered a handful of tools and glazes and little stuff to ship out or pick up, we probably will have it ready in an hour or so once we look at it. (please don't hold us to that or we have to remove helpful information like this...you know the thing about the bad apples, right? we like our honey crisps like we like our customers...sweet and worm-free...wait. that doesn't quite ...well anyway......
If you are getting a literal ton of clay but it's 3 boxes of this and 8 boxes of that, well, actually we're pretty quick with that too. A lot of chemicals that need to be weighed out - that will take longer. we may need 4 or 5 hours for a long list. Not that it takes that long, but we are pretty serious about accuracy, so to ensure that, we make sure that we have an uninterrupted block of time to measure those out and double check our work.
If your order has to ship freight, we need to get it early enough in the day to fully process it, build it AND have it shrink-wrapped and on the dock before about noon in order to have it picked up the same day...again, depending on how complicated it is, we often can do this lickety-split for you, but I would expect it to leave our building the next day.
Deliveries are probably the biggest factor because we try HARD to fill the truck before we send it out - it's better for the environment and better for overall overhead which translates to better for your budge (lower delivery costs for you). More detail on that in our deliveries section.
Other factors include winter weather (many products can freeze and problems range from completely unusable after thawing to just inconvenient to no problem at all). You can read more details on our weather holds page (if this happens, you will also be informed via email that we are holding your order, and you do have the option to overrule our decision...you are in charge of that, we just provide advice), pre-ordering a product or ordering something that ships from the manufacturer - these are USUALLY (theoretically) marked on the items themselves, and we try to give guidelines for lead-time), but sometimes those things are out of our hands because we're not processing them
Here's a list of basic emails you will get during the process of placing and receiving your order. (You can reply to any of these emails you get and our whole staff will be able to see your response):
We are preparing your order - we are starting to gather all of the items for your order
We have a question - something has come up that we need your input on
Your order is ready for pickup - For our local customers picking up their order, you will get an email when your order is ready for pickup along with instructions on where to pick up. We'll also send you a friendly reminder if you miss your originally intended pick up day, or if your order has been here for about 2 weeks. We just want to make sure you know. :)
-OR- Your order is waiting for the carrier to pick it up -If you live further away and are having it shipped, we will let you know when we have it all packed up and ready for the carrier. (You should receive a separate email from the carrier with the tracking number so you can follow your package's progress on its way from us to you)
-OR_ for deliveries: Your order is being scheduled for delivery//Your order is being finalized for delivery//Your order is being loaded for delivery - the first of these gives an estimate of when we hope to deliver, sometimes this email comes BEFORE we start pulling your order, sometimes after. We deliver about 80% of orders in the original range given in this email. After that, you will either get the email that we are finalizing your order (with the zeroed in delivery date) or you will get an email with a rescheduled date range. Once you get that finalized for delivery email, you can expect the delivery to happen UNLESS something crazy happens alike a freak weather storm or an illness that strikes a large number of our staff. In this case, you will get an email to let you know. Lastly, once we are loading the truck for delivery, you will get that final email to let you know we are on the way and also what stop you will be (sometimes we are able to include this in the finalizing delivery email)