One of the biggest debates going on internally right now is how to handle the FOC list. While we know that the accepted industry standard is to wait until Friday to provide the ability for FOC orders due to the list being "final" at that time, there's a few issues we have with doing so. 

Sometimes "Final" Doesn't Mean "Final"

While publishers and suppliers say the list is "final" on Friday at noon, the reality is that it never truly is. There's often additions and removals made even after Friday - and that's not to speak of the issues that arise later with printers, distributors, etc. 

No matter what we do, there's frankly no assurances FOC books are going to be available or delivered on time until they're in our hands. This is true and unavoidable for everyone in the industry. There's always the possibility of delays and even cancellations. None of which we can predict. We can only react and correct. 

That said, the list is admittedly more volatile and subject to change earlier in the week. The new finalization moniker is meant to communicate at a glance when the FOC list is past the industry standard time for "finalization" - which is Fridays at noon and what we know many of you currently in the beta are used to. 

Here are the Current Options:

Immutable decisions we've already made:

• 23:59 UTC-4 (aka EST - Ben note) on Sunday will always be our cutoff - as noted by the current timer.
  
  
• The list will be updated/curated every day after initial pull at noon and midnight until cutoff occurs. 

So the decision up in the air really comes down to when the FOC list is initially made available each week.

1. We don't pull until Friday after noon.

So you'll have effectively a 60 hour window each week to place your orders. The FOC list will feature as little volatility as possible this way. 

2. We pull earlier in the week (currently starting on Wednesday morning)

This option gives you the most amount of time to check out FOC and get your orders in each week, but also features more volatility. 

Planning for Disruptions

Our main plan for disruptions is to build out swift communication and adjustment functionality for communicating with you all when a book gets pushed back or taken off of FOC and why. In addition to email correspondence, we're considering a way for you to log-in and check on your current orders at any given time - seeing refunded or otherwise delayed books from each given order.

Please keep in mind that anything and everything discussed in these posts are subject to change.

We have a lot of plans for giving you as much optional control over your orders, shipping, subscriptions, etc as possible. It's of course just going to take time to see them all to fruition.

Any and All Feedback is Greatly Appreciated!

While we always appreciate feedback, we really need your input on matters like this. This is a matter we expect to be going back and forth on for quite some time, and feedback will be heavily weighed in any decision on the topic moving forward.

Thanks for reading and for your understanding as we go through building this service out from the ground up, 

- The ECGCE Team