For starters, the shipping cut off time provided was an example, not our actual cut of time.

He or she does have a point - when you get to a point where you have an actual packaging facility, a half dozen or more employees that you pay well (actual employees on payroll not under the table, 1099'd, or LLC/Corp members), and naturally the increased expenses and logistics that come with all that, things do get far, far more complicated and much more expensive. I know because I started the business by myself in my home office.

Part of our issue is the number of orders we receive per day (we don't only sell kratom). It's too many to drive to the post office ourselves so we have to rely on the shipper's box truck showing up here. In our neck of the woods those trucks and the time which they can stop by are limited. Trying to get the volume of orders ready for pickup by the allotted pickup time with our current cut off, which has to be early enough not to potentially delay orders particularly expedited ones, is challenging to say the least. We're in kind of a strange spot - enough volume to be tough to manage, but not enough to be able to get our way with the shippers quite yet.

Along with paying our employees well and providing the best medical/dental/vision benefits a company of our size can qualify for, we also believe in not over-working them. We try to provide consecutive days off each week with at least one weekend day. We also have to staff for unplanned absences and vacations. Even with our current staffing and not shipping on the weekends management tends to work 7 days per week. We don't want to do what so many other employers do by hiring a bunch of cheap labor and treat them like dirt, but it's tough to treat our employees the way we feel they should be treated and still be able to afford to staff how we would like.

So at this point we've been tossing around the idea of promoting another person to management, hiring another hourly employee, and processing orders on Saturdays. By doing this and making the same day shipping cut off time earlier it would make the work flow much better for everyone here. However, we're not going to do this if it's going to cause an issue with our customers. Which is why we're asking.

P.S. I really like the way you do business! It's been cool watching you grow since your first post promoting the business. Keep up the good work!