Five years of nationwide shipping: notes from the road.

February 2020 was when we made the decision. Regional supply had carried us for 42 years, and the phone calls we started declining (California lodges wanting custom jewels for milestone installations, Grand Lodges outside the Midwest asking about our Past Master jewel program) had become too frequent to ignore. We rebuilt shipping accounts with UPS, added Grand Lodge documentation for six additional jurisdictions, and quietly turned on nationwide by April.

Five years in, three things stand out.

Coastal lodges want overnight. When a lodge on the east or west coast orders a custom jewel, they want it inside 48 hours, not the 6-week Midwest cadence we grew up on. We adapted: our custom jewel department now offers rush fabrication (2 to 3 weeks) at premium, and roughly one in five nationwide custom orders now selects the rush option.

Older lodges prefer phone orders over web. This surprised us. We built out email intake forms and quote request pages assuming that adoption would follow. Instead the ratio has stayed about 3-to-1 phone over email, even for lodges in metro areas. Older Secretaries and Treasurers want to talk to a person about a jewel that represents 25 or 50 years of service. Bill and Dana both do fine work over the phone; the intake form is a fallback more than a preference.

Custom orders reshaped our mix. In 2019 custom jewel and presentation piece orders were about 18% of revenue. In 2024 they were 32%. Nationwide shipping is the reason. Coastal lodges and Concordant Bodies (Scottish Rite, York Rite, Shrine) rarely need regalia we can source cheaper than their regional supplier, but they do need custom jewels, and we do those well.

The warehouse expansion in 2023 was a direct consequence of this shift. More custom, more inventory of high-value blanks, more storage for finished custom pieces awaiting installation. The 12,000 sqft footprint we settled on was sized specifically for that trend continuing.