Sanitize Before Using Supplies Ordered Online

RCS Influencers Seth and Ashley Pietsch say that online ordering requires extra precaution after supplies are received.

Editor’s note: The following is an interview with Ashley and Seth Pietsch of Integrity Insurance & Bonding, Inc. as they share their thoughts on online ordering. You can watch the video or scroll down to read the transcript below.

Hi everyone. This is Karen Edwards. I'm the editor here at RoofersCoffeeShop®, and joining me today are Ashley and Seth Pietsch from Integrity Insurance. And we're going to talk about ordering products online today. Welcome, Ashley and Seth. Thanks for being here.

Ashley Pietsch:

Hi, thanks for having us.

Seth Pietsch:

Thank you for having us Karen.

Karen Edwards:

Tell people who are watching this, ordering products online, how does that affect you? Are you doing it? What should people be thinking about if they are ordering materials virtually?

Seth Pietsch:

Well, I think, for the most part, I think in the last few years, the shift has been changed to ordering a lot of things online and obviously you've got Amazon and different things like that. What I think has changed the most is now with how everything is going on with this pandemic that we're all facing, when you do get things ordered online, back just five months ago, not even that, you'd just grabbed the box and open it and throw it on the shelf and then you're just business as usual. What we are starting to do just as our company is we're, we order office supplies cause we work in an office setting. But when you order something that is a plastic base where you can just put a quick Lysol wipe on it or wash it really quick and then just do the extra little bit of steps that's needed to make sure you're sanitizing as much as you can. As before you maybe not, wouldn't even think of doing that. You just throw it on the shelf and everybody grabs it and there you go.

But from an office supply perspective, it would be, if it is something that you can just quickly sanitize or just wash or whatever, we've been just putting a little bit more effort into that to making sure that if there was some contamination of whatever it is, at least now we're taking the proper steps. So it's not effecting everybody else that may be grabbing that product in the break room or pens or pencils, or pens or highlighters or whatever it is. So just extra steps that we're doing now, just to, however little that may seem, that could create a difference in keeping staff members from contracting some sort of unwanted virus.

Karen Edwards:

Great. Very good points for the office setting. I didn't even really think about that.

Ashley Pietsch:

Another thing I kind of noticed is with the whole quarantine, we have been putting things aside for two weeks, 14 days, which has been helping in that aspect too. But another thing with ordering online is, we were noticing that things weren't showing up for three weeks and something that we needed right away. So we have been actually kind of going down, for us, we've gone down to best buy a couple times and just done it that way since the delay on ordering online has been a little bit longer than usual.

Karen Edwards:

Good point. Yeah. Things are taking a little bit longer to arrive with delays. So from a contractor's perspective, who might be ordering roofing materials online, I know distributors are doing all kinds of apps and ways to make it easy and contact-less delivery. Are there things that they should be thinking about, like to ensure that the product arrives in good condition? Should they be documenting with photos? What are your recommendations for those situations?

Seth Pietsch:

Yes, I think they definitely should be doing precautionary measures as well. A lot of the contractors out there, they do use the supply companies to deliver construction materials to the job site. Most of the time, the supply companies go there, they drop it off on pallets or wherever, or even load it onto the roof, depending on the scenario. And in any situation, when you're having another party deliver materials to you, you absolutely have to do at least an inspection of the material that they bring to make sure that there isn't a defective batch or whatever the scenario is. So regardless if this is a pandemic or not, that's just normal business, best practices to ensure that you're getting a delivery and the product is capable of being installed without any deficiencies. Now sanitizing a load of lumber or roofing materials. That's obviously something that's probably not even feasible do.

But just like Ashley said on the office supplies, if you know you're doing a job in a month and you can store some of the stuff at your warehouse or whatever, and you can have it sit there for two weeks, maybe that's something that you can plan ahead and be a little bit proactive on. But obviously it's a little bit more difficult when you're getting how much ever materials you're ordering. If a big shipments coming in, that's going to be a harder scenario. But you just try to do the best you can and take a little extra measures to keep everybody as safe as possible. And I think that's what we're all trying to accomplish under these certain circumstances that we're under right now.

Karen Edwards:

Yeah. Thanks guys. Some really good, important points, I think, that if people are using online ordering for their products, whether it be office or building supplies to just think about it and take those extra steps and those extra precautions. Good advice.

Ashley Pietsch:

Yeah.

Seth Pietsch:

Sure.

Karen Edwards:

Thanks for being here today, guys. We really appreciate it and we look forward to talking to you next month.

Seth Pietsch:

That sounds great.

Seth Pietsch is the president and Ashley Pietsch is vice president of Integrity Insurance & Bonding Inc. See Seth’s full bio here and Ashley’s full bio here.