While we have had no cases of COVID-19 at TOM BIHN, the majority of the TOM BIHN crew — including our entire production crew — is already home and won’t be at work for the next several weeks in an effort to contribute as much as we can to social distancing efforts. As a manufacturer, the reality is that most of our employees need to be onsite in order to work: a few jobs can be done remotely and that crew has been working from home already. A "crew-of-few" (including D, N & T) will be wrapping things up and performing a few essential tasks in the coming days.

Nik, Darcy, and Tom (the owners of TOM BIHN) are working and will continue to work even after everyone else heads home; they're shipping orders, processing returns, and designing and making new bags. Darcy is training on the fabric saw, and Tom and Nik will be looking at the feasibility of the two of them sewing bags that we could (hopefully) make available for purchase soon.

All that is to say: we’re still shipping orders and answering emails, but our hours have been adjusted. Read on below for more details.

To learn more about the measures we've taken in response to COVID-19 in the past several weeks, read about our efforts at the factory in response to COVID-19. You may also want to read our updated instructions on how to clean and sanitize your bag.

All of this means that we’ve adjusted our customer service and shipping schedules, as well as our timeframes for repairs and returns.

Customer Service Hours

Unlike manufacturing, customer service can work remotely! To support that remote work, we ask that you emailus@tombihn.com or live chat instead of calling us on the phone (thank you!)

We're answering emails most days of the week. We're offering live chat support Monday - Friday as often as we can. 

Shipping

We still expect to ship all orders received by 12:30pm Pacific Time on most days. As our shipping schedule evolves over the next weeks, we’ll keep you posted on any changes.

“In Production” Bags

Our standard “2 - 12 weeks” timeframe for any In Production design has been updated to:

“We plan to begin production on this design in mid-late 2020. Sign up here to be notified when it’s ready to ship.”

Repairs

At this time, we ask that you hang on to your bag that needs to be repaired until our production crew is back at work. Please do continue to emailus@tombihn.com to ask about your repair — in some cases, like that of a broken buckle, we may be able to mail you a new one. If your bag does need a repair at our factory, it could be anywhere from 4 - 8 weeks until we’re ready to get back into repairing bags. We’ll be making a list of anyone who needs a bag repair so we can reach out once our production crew is back at work.

Returns

Nik and Darcy will be processing returns during this time, but the process may take a little longer than it usually does. Please allow for it to take an additional week for us process your return once it is received at our Seattle factory. We’ll try for sooner, of course! We want to be able to accept returns as long as we can; if, at some point, we need to temporarily stop accepting returns (due to issues with receiving deliveries, etc.) we'll let everyone know — and we will extend the window in which you can send a return.

We're Thinking Of You

As we do what we do here, know we’re thinking of you. We hope you and your loved ones are well. We'll post updates about what we're working on because we figure, if you're like us, taking a break from the news during the day and reading about other stuff can be helpful. 

Beyond that, we’re thinking ahead about what we can offer — we’re one of the handful of sewing factories in the United States. We believe in the human power to adapt. We believe in the human power to act for the greater good. We believe in humanity’s collective innovation, creativity, work ethic, and endurance. We can do this.