Well guys… we have made it to the very end of our summer season. I get emotional and reflective on days like today. I am so appreciative that you guys allow me to do this, I am thankful you guys have shown me your grace earlier this year as we relocated and I am incredibly excited about the road ahead. I know where I want this business to go and I can see a clear path to get there from here and my heart is full today.

We faced some challenges internally this year. The summers are always rough, plants don’t always ship the way I expect them to. This year has been particularly difficult with Covid-19. We have turned the pandemic into politics in the US, but please let me assure you that other countries are taking the matter very seriously and Korea is sending less planes (which affects our EMS air shipments) to the US as a result. What this has meant to US sellers is that we order with no idea if we’ll receive our plants as ordered. I have thrown out so many rotten EMS shipments this summer.

Moving forward, until things resume to business as normal, we are only going to use third party services like DHL for our shipments. We import in small orders from single farms to have the ability to hand-select each of our plants, we don’t buy in bulk. I personally hand select every single plant that we bring in before the order is ever sent to the farm. DHL costs us a good deal more, so our prices may increase a little this fall season. We will keep any increases fair, however please remember we are seeing an increased cost to import, we ship all of your plant orders free (even if it’s just one plant), and we enclose complimentary heat packs if you ask for them. I’m not absolutely sure at this stage that increases will be necessary, but if there are any increases this autumn they won’t be much and they are necessary to keep the business healthy during this period. We won’t sell stretched or poor quality plants for retail, and we are taking losses to keep our quality pristine.

Another thing to discuss today is that we are taking a three-week break starting September 1^st. This is imperative to looking at operations and making sure we are fully prepared for our autumn season. We are adding retail, it might be a little later than expected though (we will have to photograph everything), but I think I counted 115 individual non-living products that we want to incorporate into our business plan this autumn. We think we’ll have a beautiful gifting and wellness section for you by the end of October, just in time for the holiday season. We may sprinkle in a few new products each week, or we may release them all at once, not quite sure on the timing just yet.

We are going to be overhauling the Special Requests system. I can’t give too many details just yet, but requests will become a lot easier for everyone involved and you’ll know right away that we’re working on what you asked for. It’s going to be innovative and a really special way to do those moving forward. This platform is already in work and is only a couple of weeks out from being ready to launch.

I would like to publicly thank a few of our special community members who have helped me over the summer- Christel, Eve, Christine and Mo, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is still very much a grassroots operation and I cannot tell you how much you four have meant to me this summer.  

Timelines on future events:

September 1^st- We will open up subscriptions again, with deliveries starting October 1^st.

Thursday, September 3^rd- Our last Lunch Break for a while. This will be your last opportunity to utilize the save 25% sitewide (we will have no limitations on that, it will be your only chance before Black Friday to purchase gift cards at a discount and to save on subscriptions). And just as a heads up we will be extending that through Labor Day to celebrate the long weekend with you all. Gift cards are applicable to our new Special Requests process as well, nothing is changing on that front. Labor Day we may have a special sale upload as well, if time permits.

Early-Mid September- Roll out of the new Special Requests platform.

September 26^th- our first upload. Upload schedule for our autumn season will be released and details will be on the homepage the week before.

This will not be time off for me, I will just be shifting my focus on making CCF even better this season. I will be responding to emails (albeit probably a little bit slower). We will not be taking any new requests until we release the new Special Requests platform. If you feel chatty, I would love to catch up with you over the next few weeks. I love getting emails from friends and when I’m working with live uploads and stuff my schedule can be absolutely brutal, so the next few weeks is a great time to reconnect for me.

Thank you guys all so much for supporting my business. Supporting small businesses of any kind matters more now than it ever has.

Thank you again for being a part of my family, my daily life and I cannot wait to see you in just a few weeks. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

-Crystal