Lost in the Mail: Firebox.com's Christmas Label Catastrophe

Tom Boardman | Founder of Firebox.com

In the initial days of Firebox.com's outsourced warehouse during the bustling Christmas of 1999, we lacked a proper online system for dispatching orders to our warehouse in Wales. This resulted in the somewhat cumbersome routine of printing fulfillment labels in London, mailing them to Cardiff, and then, a day later, affixing the labels to orders. Not exactly conducive to swift delivery.

On a fateful day, our envelope of labels decided to split open somewhere in the postal system, sprinkling labels everywhere. The Royal Mail, with all the best intentions but slightly misguided, opted to post the labels straight to our customers.

You can envision the flood of puzzled calls and emails we dealt with the following day from individuals questioning why they had received a shipping label in the mail rather than their Christmas surprises.

"My label has arrived, but where's my parcel?" they understandably inquired. All we could do was offer apologies for this inadvertent glimpse into the rudimentary workings of early e-commerce.

Thankfully, a few days later, we launched electronic order transfers, ensuring no more customers received packing notes for Christmas.