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Frequently Asked Questions

Click on the question below to see the answer:

• How can I know if the truck is going to be on time?
• Why do you charge Delivery Fees?
• Why do you charge a delivery fee per invoice instead of based on the volume of my order?
• Can you deliver to my door?
• How long are my items refrigerated or frozen?
• Is there any alternative to meeting the truck to pick up my order?
• Can I get alternatives or substitutions, when the product I order is not available?
• What does it take to make my house a drop point?
• Why does it take so long for my payment to be processed?
• Why do I have to pay for a catalogue? It seems that you are unnecessarily driving up my prices.
• Why is the spelling and grammer so poor in some communications I receive from you?
• Fuel Surcharge? Why is it so expensive?
• Why don't I get everything that I order?
• Do you do Special Orders?
• Why can't I call the driver?

The questions and answers are all listed below:

Question: How can I know if the truck is going to be on time?

Answer: We have a reputation for being at the drop point within 5 minutes of our published schedule. If something beyond our control changes in our schedule we will let you know. The best way to know about any changes like this is to go to the drop point delivery page on this website and refresh the screen to make sure the time has not changed. We will keep each drop point's web page updated as often as necessary to make sure that the time is accurate. For example, if we discover for some reason that we are going to be 30 minutes later than we planned, we have Warren change the time on the web page for the affected drop points. So you can always check the web page before you go to meet the truck to confirm that we will be there. (This information is listed under each drop point, with links on each page to each drop point to the right of the screen.) If you are concerned for some reason, you can always call Heather and ask her how the day is going and if there is anything that would change the delivery time.

Question: Why do you charge Delivery Fees?

Answer: Azure Standard has chosen to hire us as a subcontractor to deliver in Utah and South Idaho. Azure Standard also has delivery routes that are delivered without a subcontractor closer to their warehouse. Azure Standard has different delivery policies for these different routes. Azure Standard is able to cost-average their direct delivery routes with any longer routes. For example it costs less to drive a delivery truck from the Azure Warehouse in Moro, Oregon to Portland 121 miles away than it does to deliver to St. George, Utah, 982 miles away.

Areas that are serviced by a delivery subcontractor which include Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana all must charge extra delivery fees to pay for the extra expense of deliverying to these areas without the advantage of cost-averaging. I am sure that customers who complain about our delivery fees expect a paycheck for work that they do, so please understand the delivery fees are a necessary part of delivery to Utah and South Idaho.

Question: Why do you charge a delivery fee per invoice instead of based on the volume of my order?

Answer: Our objective in charging delivery fees is to appropriately pay for the expense of deliverying your products on time with excellent service. The challenge of making a drop point cost-effective is that it costs a certain amount of money to deliver to each location. The best way we have found to share this expense fairly among all of our customers is to charge a per invoice delivery fee. This then provides the best service to you, our customers, and allows the delivery to be cost-effective. It really gets very complicated to get into all the details of why this is. If you have ideas that you feel would help us, you can e-mail those ideas to warren@azuredelivery.com.

Question: Can you deliver to my door?

Answer: Yes, for an additional handling fee. We can make special delivery arrangements for you for an additional handling fee of $25.00 (or more) extra in addition to the standard delivery fees. Each request will be treated on an individual basis. You may be interested to know that most requests in the past have been around $75.00. This would depend on what is required. It is less expensive to make arrangments to pick up your order from someone who has agreed to hold it for you than if someone delivers your product to your door.

Question: How long are my items refrigerated or frozen?

Answer: We understand how important it is to keep your products at the right temperature to avoid premature spoiling. We make sure that all items that must be kept refrigerated or frozen are constantly kept in a refridgerated or frozen environment until we unload at your drop point. Therefore it is very important for everyone to be at the drop point on time so that your products are not outside for lengthy periods.

Question: Is there any alternative to meeting the truck to pick up my order?

Answer: There are several other options available to customers that would like to order products from Azure Standard and can not meet the delivery truck.

• First, you can consider having UPS deliver your products. However, this is frequently expensive and therefore often cost-prohibative.
• Second, you can choose to drive to Burley, Idaho and pick up your order at the Burley staging warehouse for a small per invoice charge.
• Third, you can make special arrangements with someone you know or with the drop point sponser to receive your delivery for you.
• Forth, we can make special delivery arrangements for you for an additional handling fee. This usually involves you picking up your product at a time that works for you or we can even arrange for delivery to your home.

Question: Can I get alternatives or substitutions, when the product I order is not available?

Answer: This has been a fequently requested service and we have brought this to the attention of the owners of Azure Standard. They are working on the programing required to allow customers to know immediately if a product is in stock, and if not, offering alternatives. It is likely that it will be some time, 2010 or later before this can be implemented.

Question: What does it take to make my house a drop point?

Answer: Please click here to go to our new drop point request page.

Question: Why does it take so long for my payment to be processed?

Answer: At present, the process of getting our customers payments processed takes as long as 2 1/2 weeks. The reason for this is we are responsible for collecting payments from you, and then we must process all the paperwork related to each invoice. After this we have a 3 day adjustment period to make corrections to your invoices, so that we will not overcharge anyone. At that point we send all of these payments overnight to Azure Standard's offices in Oregon. They in turn take several days to process your payments and make the deposits. The deposits are usually made on the following Monday. The banks then can take as long as 4 days to credit and debit the accounts required. So you can see with all of this, that as much as we want to expedite the payment process, it still takes plenty of time. Many of our customers have chosen to pay us cash to avoid this long processing time.

Question: Why do I have to pay for a catalogue? It seems that you are unnecessarily driving up my prices.

Answer: You no longer have to pay!! We now give out a free catalogue to every customer that orders Azure Standard products and meets us at the the drop point. If you need additional catalogues, you can have as many as you want for 50 cents each which helps pay for the printing costs. In the past customers had to pay for catalogues and we are trying to improve our service to you by not making our paying customers pay extra for this expense. Also, some customers have suggested that we stop printing the catalogue so often because they feel it would allow us to lower our prices. Unfortunately this would cut back our business so much that our prices would actually have to go up!

Question: Why is the spelling and grammer so poor in some communications I receive from you?

Answer: We would like to appologize to those of you that are annoyed by the poor spelling and grammer from some of our e-mails and other communications. At present most of this communication is done by Heather, who has had to deal with various physical challenges that make spelling and grammer very difficult for her. She has gone through several treatments to help the muscles in her eyes function better to fix these problems. However, at this point, we can not completely fix all of these errors until Heather has more help, and we do not want to unnecessarily increase the cost of delivery to you.

Question: Fuel Surcharge? Why is it so expensive?

Answer: Fuel prices in our nation have increased tremendously over the past several years. Due to this, many companies, including ours, have been forced to pass this added expense on to their customers in the form of a fuel surcharge for their deliveries. These fuel surcharges are now a national expensive problem. It has become such a problem that the grocery store prices across the nation have raised their prices tremendously over the past year. You might have noticed that prices have sometimes been raised on a weekly basis in 2008. However, most of these same stores have not lowered their prices when the price of fuel decreased at the end of 2008.

We have chosen to make our fuel surcharge honest. Where it seems like many other companies raised their prices with the cost of fuel and have not lowered them, we intend to continue to lower and raise this surcharge based on the real cost of diesel fuel for the delivery truck. For example, the cost of fuel went all the way up to over $5.00 a gallon for diesel in the Summer of 2008, and has gone back down to around $2.90 a gollon in November, 2008. This allowed us to reduce our fuel surcharge by about 40% of what it was in the summer which reflects the real cost difference that we had to pay for fuel. We passed this savings on to you, our customers.

Question: Why don't I get everything that I order?

Answer: There are 3 basic reasons for this problem that we all get to deal with each month.

• First, many of the products we deliver are Organic and Seasonal. What this means is that we deliver fresh and organic products and when the harvest runs out for that product we have to wait until the next seasons harvest to deliver more of that particular product.
• Second, manufacturers from time to time are required to close production on certain products and upgrade their production line. When this happens everyone is unable to get these products for you. These products that are generally fresh and organic foods can not sit on the shelf for long periods of time. While this makes the food much better for us, the expiration requirements prevent us from stock piling large quanities of food while a manufacture shuts down and upgrades their production lines.
• Third, in the last few years there has been a large increase in demand for the products that Azure Standard provides. While we appreciate the additional business, this growth has been difficult to keep up with. Due to this large increase, Azure Standard has experienced a computer software bottleneck. Nobody has an off-the-shelf system that will work for a company that grows, packages, warehouses and delivers products. So the management for Azure Standard is working as quickly as they are able to solve the many technical difficulties that involve ordering and delivering the large variety of organic and natural products available through Azure Standard. This requires custom programing, and lots of technical solutions so that the purchasing department can keep up with the demand for products. Simply put, until the new computer software is developed and on line, Azure Standard will continue to do the best they are able to provide the products their customers need when they need them. Unfortunately we seem to only have about 90% of what we need at any given time. This means that for the next year or more we will continue to have to deal with the problem that we label "outs" (not receiving everything you order).

Question: Do you do Special Orders?

Answer: As much as we would like to be able to accomodate every special order request that we receive, at this time we are unable to accomodate these requests due to some technical difficulties we are working through. In the mean time we suggest that you send an e-mail to purchasing@azurestandard.com and submit any product requests. This will allow the purchasing department at Azure Standard to know that you are interested in these products. They are usually too busy to respond to each e-mail, but should take into account your requests. When they receive enough requests for a certain product it will be added to the catalogue and become available for everyone to order.

Question: Why can't I call the driver?

Answer: We have received requests from some customers to contact the driver directly. Due to insurance and safety concerns, the driver is not available directly to the customers by phone to answer delivery questions. During the delivery time, Heather is in contact with the drivers and helpers at each stop and at multiple other times when it is safe to do so. So Heather always knows more about the questions and concerns that exist for our customers and she is immediately available for you. Heather can also relate any necessary information to the driver at appropriate times when necessary. So if you need to talk to the driver, we need you to contact Heather at 208-429-1989 and let her pass on your message.

Heather Ross

South Idaho Utah Drop Points

208-429-1989