Great Canadian Mass Shipment Bones Race

[LittleBluberry]

Not Canadian but in the ROW, I just don't understand how this all seems to be a problem at essentially last minute, the KS ended 11 months ago and suddenly logistics is a problem?? Surely it would have been one of the first things to sort.

 

I believe at this point they are waiting for USPS to send a truck to pick up the ROW shipments. I have no idea what UPS is doing with the Canadian orders, a lot of them were already packed over a week ago.

[Niranth]

It would be difficult at best to schedule a USPS truck until you have everything that possibly could be shipped. (For the RoW). The Canadian issue has to do with keeping the import costs with Reaper.

[KevinR]

talion78, on 01 Jul 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Not Canadian but in the ROW, I just don't understand how this all seems to be a problem at essentially last minute, the KS ended 11 months ago and suddenly logistics is a problem?? Surely it would have been one of the first things to sort.

For Canada, the problem seems to be the galling incompetence of UPS: they had a person on-site at Reaper to help with the customs forms but who seems to have given Reaper the wrong forms. The latest news (early last week) was that Reaper was waiting for the UPS rep to return, now that they know what the correct forms are. It didn't help that the Canadian bureaucracy tied things up for something like six months.

 

For international, it sounds like a communications problem or a bureaucracy. For at least the past week, Reaper has been waiting for the local postmaster to drop off a USPS truck so that Reaper can load it. Too many packages for the standard trucks, so my mental picture is that they will be getting one of the city-to-city trailers.

Edited July 1, 2013 by KevinR

[talion78]

I can understand that you can't ship out what you haven't got, just thought agreements and logistics would have been made well before now. Hey ho lesson to to be learnt for next time.

[Crowley]

I can understand that you can't ship out what you haven't got, just thought agreements and logistics would have been made well before now. Hey ho lesson to to be learnt for next time.

 

My impression from the updates that have been posted is that Reaper thought the agreements and logistics WERE made, and the general bumbling of the various post offices has made the process slow and painful.

[Magnus Mercury]

the general bumbling of the various post offices has made the process slow and painful.

 

The phrase "good enough for government work" comes to mind...

[Dan Goodchild]

 

the general bumbling of the various post offices has made the process slow and painful.

 

The phrase "good enough for government work" comes to mind...

Except that the worst bungling came from a certain private company that goes by its initials...

[buglips*the*goblin]

Well, we don't really know. As nice as it is not to be the gypsy curse scapegoat, in the past Reaper has run afoul of declaration forms because their product doesn't neatly fit into pre-existing codes. So while it's possible it could be incompetence, it's at least equally likely to be the result of confusion resulting from a workaround.

 

The only thing we do know for sure is that the accumulation of problems for this fulfillment are the end product of a large chain of variables which must be balanced in order to work smoothly. This is a challenging feat at the best of times.

 

While from our perspective it may seem a simple thing to just order a truck and load it up, in practice this may actually be rather complicated - dependent on timing, truck availability, amount of product to be distributed, where in the chain those products will first be sort out for delivery, the volume of other products in the chain (Reaper is not the only business employing these services) - which also impact back into Reaper's system as they try to best plan out their manpower needs and allow for earliest opportunity to utilize that service without jeopardizing the other parts of fulfillment.

 

Things could be better, they could be worse. I think the logistical difficulties probably break even on this one. Nothing went smoothly to plan, but they also didn't turn into wholesale disaster with the fulfillment line going completely idle while waiting for something to be fixed.

 

For my part, I'll mark that into the win column.

[Niranth]

Hopefully, this is a one-time thing and it will make Canadian shipments less painful for a long time.

[Dan Goodchild]

Actually, we do know a bit more than that.

1. UPS told Reaper that they had to reprocess all of the Canadian parcels they'd packed because something was wrong with them. This, in spite of the fact that a UPS rep was onsite to oversee the process.

2. A few Canadian orders were shipped out before UPS told Reaper to reprocess them.

3. Some of those early shipments made it to their destinations instead of being turned back by UPS/customs indicating that whatever was wrong with them didn't interfere with routing, customs or delivery.

4. It was UPS in the first place that convinced Reaper to deviate from their original shipping plan.

 

Until/unless more information comes to light this is enough to convince me that UPS bears the lion's share of responsibility for Canadian shipping delays by overcomplicating the situation and/or incompetence.

[GreyLurker]

I'm just going to stick with Gypsy Curse and hope for the best before the end of the week

[Pragma]

There's a reason it's pronounced "oops".

[Suden]

Not cool. I feel for you guys -- I was one of the very lucky ones and the sad part is that I'm not ready to start painting any of them yet. This sort of pains me because I *really* want to start but I've committed to doing a little project first involving the assembling, customizing, and painting of a CF-18A Hornet for my father just recently retired. It's already started but I have to finish it still and I had originally hoped to get it done for Father's day.

 

On the flip side, you shouldn't have to pay any extra fees which is fantastic (based on my own experience).

 

M

 

This is the one bright spot in this mess. I had serious doubts Reaper would be able to get these things to my door via UPS without me getting dinged with massive fees. However, the few shipments that have escaped into the wild and found their way home to Canada have been duty free. In light of that, Reaper can take as long as they need, and I will still be happy when it gets here.

[bonelock]

A member of my gaming group here in NS is getting his 30+ item Bones order today. Must have been one of the few that squeaked through. First Bones order to arrive in NS I'd imagine.

 

It would be nice to hear an official update on the Canadian orders.

[czak]

:( Mine didn't make it.

 

United States 07/02/2013 14:10 Received into UPS possession