Sometimes We Give Free Damas

What’s going on fam - welcome to the first article in what I hope becomes a recurring blog for us.

Today, I will touch on a topic that we get asked a lot, the packaging and shipping process for Cereal Kendama.

As you may already know, Wen Chuen and I hand pack each kendama from our place in Singapore before sending it out. This is a time consuming process but the only way we know what leaves our hands has been checked.

We’re not perfect, we’ve definitely had some misses along the way but have always been available for said customer to get in touch.

That said, let’s get into the process!

To start - there are 2 types of shipping available for our customers. Standard and DHL.

Standard is easy. It applies for most customers who have bought a single kendama and is shipped through our local post office Singapore Post.

The last mile is then handled by your local post (e.g. USPS). While this has traditionally worked for us, the pandemic has cause parcels to be delayed like crazy and pushed us to find an alternative - DHL.

When a purchase is made with Standard Shipping - I check your kendama and then place it along with a sticker sheet into a bubble wrap, dama bag and then finally a padded envelope. We found that because of the way the local post handles packages, it is often safer to have multiple layers.

After that, I cycle to my local post office, drop your parcel off and a tracking is sent to your email within a day.

DHL is slightly different. The quality check process is similar, however instead of dropping them off at the post, it is picked up from us.

In addition to that, DHL weights are in blocks of 500g and automatically calculated on our website. Customers purchasing a single kendama can choose this option as well, but pay the same amount for shipping 1 kendama or 2 kendamas because in both cases the parcel is under 0.5kg (1.1lbs).

Because of that, sometimes when a customer purchases a single Cereal Kendama and chooses DHL, I drop in an extra ken or tama just to make their time worth.

Likewise, for larger parcels of 4 or more kendamas, Wen Chuen and I tend to drop a little gift inside as a thank you for the support.

This is probably why you see mystery boxes being crazy hauls.

Shipping has and will always be a challenge for a small company like us shipping out of Singapore, 10000 miles away from the US.

It is something that we can’t change, and therefore when someone decides to put their trust behind our brand, we try our best to make it worth their time.

Much love,
Jon