Move over Amazon … Watt-Ahh has a new fulfillment center too! The center is located within the Paleo Park of Commerce off Fruitville Road, approximately 3 miles east of I-75 in Sarasota, FL. We need a larger warehouse with good large truck access for national distribution of pallets of Watt-Ahh bottled water.
Another reason for the warehouse is we currently ship between 50 and 120+ boxes of Watt-Ahh each business day from online sales (via the shopping carts on AquaNew.com and Amazon). We need a work room for packaging and storage of box supplies. Plus the new location is more efficient for UPS daily pickups.
Once we have the warehouse and online shipping up and running, our next step is to establish a point of sale (POS) for customers to purchase Watt-Ahh. Consequently, our weekly Thursday and monthly Southern Run deliveries will be changing (see below). We will announce the grand opening of the POS in the coming months.
We are not moving the existing corporate office and Rob Gourley’s workshop off of S.R. 72 in Sarasota, FL. (the Gourley’s backyard office building). The mailing address will remain the same as well as telephone numbers until further notice on the latter.
Changes to Local Deliveries in Southwest Florida
AquaNew has consistently offered free weekly local deliveries for over 11 years. We appreciate all of the customers through the years who have supported our distribution system … we certainly were not ready for “prime time” with a major national distributor. Our lead driver, Steve Browne, has made doorstep deliveries for our customers over 10 years. You also might have met our other drivers, Nancy, MJ, Stevers along with others through the years as well as Jason and Amy who are helping in order fulfillment. All of them are a pleasure to work with and we have received great compliments for their hard work from the customers.
Sometimes business growth involves more difficult decisions to improve on efficiencies. One of the tough decisions involve the future of free local deliveries. In our analyses, we assume our residential customers consume on average of about one to two cases of Watt-Ahh each week and a delivery of 8 cases once a month (or two months) may be acceptable for them. There are also stores in the local area that carry Watt-Ahh to replenish supplies.
These are our new policies in continuing free local deliveries:
- We will continue deliveries to stores, offices and clinics with a minimum order of a total of 2 cases (either bottle size).
- We no longer accept new residential delivery accounts except for new customers who order 8 cases or more.
- We will continue current residential delivery accounts including those less than 8 cases until we announce that the POS is open to the public. In the interim, we encourage our current customers to think about ordering a higher number of cases to reduce the frequency of deliveries.
AquaNew would not flourish as a business, a survivor of the Great Recession, without the loyal support of our customers, shareholders, drivers and suppliers. We appreciate any feedback or recommendations, especially on e-commerce applications, as we go through this transition.