Great bag/strange delivery

[Moose]

Hi all,
I received my plum/olive Imago today exactly as expected. Its as great as I thought it would be. I haven't yet put a thing in it and I love it.

The delivery was a bit strange though. It did not arrive in the usual nice neat TB shipping box with the brown tape. It arrived in a box that was 12X12X24 and sealed with packing tape that had Chinese characters along with the word trotters printed on it. It was also missing the sticker that usually comes along with a bag. Down two sides of the box was written made in China in two inch tall letters. The box was pretty beat up.

Anyway, I thought this was strange enough I had to call Katy. A wonderful conversation as always. It is obvious that Mr. Bihn expects his bags to be shipped and delivered in the same expert fashion that he uses to build them. This was NOT that. Katy asked me to take pictures of the box. I'll do that and get them to her.

The only thing I can figure is UPS destroyed the original box and repackaged it along the way. I've looked at every stitch, zipper, tag and strap. The bag seems to be in perfect order. I love the color and think it will work perfectly as an every day bag. The strap is much more comfortable than I expected too.

Happy travels,
Moose

[Darcy]

This is totally bizarre. Don't worry everyone: we didn't suddenly start making bags in a Chinese factory. All of our bags are still made and shipped from the same location in Seattle.

We'll ask UPS to start a trace. Send us your photos as soon as you have them, Moose! We can ask someone to translate the Chinese characters.

[Moose]

Hi Darcy,
I should have mentioned that you have not moved production to China. You make all your bags right here in the USA. That's why I now have four of them. I apologize if I gave anyone the wrong impression.

Where I work we have a young lady from China. I'll take the box in Monday and see if she can translate any of the print on the tape also.

As I said before, its got to be a UPS issue. My experience has always been that your shipping materials, bags and customer service are top notch all the way.

Happy travels,
Moose

[Darcy]

Thanks, Moose.

Question: the packing tape - the box was sealed with it? Or was the packing tape cut and then maybe clear packing tape over it? I guess I could see how maybe, possibly, if our original box was damaged UPS would put your bag in a new box, but I don't think they have packing tape that has Chinese characters on it. :(

[Moose]

Thanks, Moose.

Question: the packing tape - the box was sealed with it? Or was the packing tape cut and then maybe clear packing tape over it? I guess I could see how maybe, possibly, if our original box was damaged UPS would put your bag in a new box, but I don't think they have packing tape that has Chinese characters on it. :(

Hi Darcy,
It looks like two layers of tape are on the box. After further inspection of the box and tape, it appears the box was originally used to ship Trotters shoes from China to a shoe store in Old Town Maine. The tape with the Chinese characters was put on the box first. The Trotters tape seems to be on top of that.

Pure speculation here, but, maybe the Imago accidently went to the shoe store in Old Town, they opened it, figured out it wasn't theirs and sent it on to me in this box. Old Town is only an hour and a half+/- north of where I live. The UPS label was obviously cut from the original box and taped to this box with tape marked Trotters. I found a second smaller UPS tag on the box. The good news is that the bag arrived on time even if it took the scenic route to get to me.

I will send photos to Katy as soon as I can.

Take care,
Moose

[lauragayle]

more on the mystery?

so was the mystery of the scenic route ever solved?

[Katy]

It was! Our UPS representative found that the original package had been damaged in transit somehow and was repackaged by UPS. The whole situation was very unusual!

[Moose]

It was! Our UPS representative found that the original package had been damaged in transit somehow and was repackaged by UPS. The whole situation was very unusual!

Hi Katy,
Thank you for following up. I was curious about what happened. Sounds like you've got a pretty good UPS representative.
Happy travels,
Moose