Bones international orders question re: ticker

[sliksham]

I'm hopeful of August but expecting September if I am honest. Even if it ships within the next week I assume it will take a week or so to cross the ocean and then will sit in customs for an indeterminate length of time.

[Teskal]

I'm hopeful of August but expecting September if I am honest. Even if it ships within the next week I assume it will take a week or so to cross the ocean and then will sit in customs for an indeterminate length of time.

 

In Germany, and I think rest of europe too, I think it would need 4-6 weeks. More or less is always possible.

[Laoke]

I dunno. My normal shipping from Reaper is, I think, equivalent to what they're using for the Kickstarter and that takes around a week to get to me. I could easily be wrong.

 

I believe the ROW orders with just a Vampire shipped back in April. Has anyone got data on how long they took to arrive?

[talion78]

I wouldn't go as far as I wouldn't back another, this was their first and bigger than expected. I just a bit miffed that some retailers are getting theirs before me, people who didn't participate in the KS and joined afterwards is getting theirs before me.

 

I wouldn't expect this to happen with a second KS, I'd expect lessons learnt.

 

* More realistic timeframe

* Better Arrangement of logistics

 

We know reaper is doing what they can, but like I said in another thread.....why does everything seem to be last minute. In October last year did no one go we 3200 international orders, let's get something sorted with UPS so they can go when ready. It's not exactly a small order, and UPS wouldn't want to lose this business, just thought a contract would be in place.

 

If there was and UPS aren't keeping it, then surely there's some compensation that can be pursued

[kimbers]

My past packages from Reaper have never taken terribly long, but I guess that all depends on USPS (yes, same company for RoW as they usually use). I have backed a LOT of Kickstarters now and I have to say that Reapers has gone well and has been about average on wait time exceeding the planned times compared to others.

 

Oh, and ReaperBryan usually posts to the Kickstarter comments once or twice a day, and on the forums. Which is hard to find amongst all the others but you can see all his comments by going here: http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/reaperbryan/comments although it may lack context on some not being able to see the other posts at the same time.

 

You can see Bryan's forum posts by going to his profile http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/user/1281-reaperbryan/. This should help people keep up to date quickly without having to search high and low through everyone else's comments.

 

I know from Bryan's communication that they are trying very hard. They started it off expecting it all to be done by the 4th and for RoW and Canada to be done in between US orders, but nothing ever goes to plan, especially when third parties are concerned. Bryan has even had to postpone his family holiday which makes me kinda sad.

[Philip D'Hollander]

Cross posting from what I wrote on the KS itself... just some thoughts, but I guess they might be a sollution or hold some truth...

 

"However, lacking a truck, I might have packaged say 250 RoW parcels per day, put them in the back of a Reaper van or an employee's SUV and dropped them off at the post office on a daily basis. That would take max 12 days or until USPS got sick of the workload in the local post office and delivered said truck. Of course, it is easy to judge from the sideline. However, how long will Reaper keep waiting for the blasted truck? Say USPS only gives a truck in October... is RoW just supposed to wait?"

 

And also:

 

"On a final note: the more I think about it, the more I think Reaper is just pushing the RoW back to the end, so they have room to prep ALL parcels and have them ready by the time the truck is delivered. I don't think USPS is willing to park and leave a truck at reaper for 4-7 working days... at an average of 500 parcels per day (800 for the simple ones, 250ish for the complex ones --> 3100 parcels to be packed).

So, please, Reaper/Bryan: correct me if I'm wrong, but is this a deliberate choice so you can stuff a full container in one day?"

[Heisler]

Taking them directly to the post office is probably not a workable solution, nor could they get anywhere close to 250 packages in a single vehicle except for the company van with the seats out. The Post Office might actually refuse to accept that many packages over the front counter especially if they are international with all the extra work that entails. I'm sure Bryan is actively trying to get USPS moving.

 

Remember that there are retailers who participated in the kickstarter as well and they are being shipped last from what I understand. Shipments to distributors will not go until after all orders have been shipped. Its certainly true that kickstarter retailers may get their orders before international but in general I would suspect that they will get their stuff after just about the same time. Other retailers shouldn't receive stocks until after everything is at least close to being delivered, it takes time to pack distributor orders, ship those out, distributor receives and inventories, take orders and ship to the retailers.

[Suden]

AFAIK, and this is all speculation because we've been given no information on this, the large orders seen over the weekend were the 40+ ones being packed by the Elite Weekend Team. The first truck has not, to my knowledge, arrived yet. If that's correct, then Rest Of the World (ROW) shipping has not started.

 

Warning! Unjustified rant coming. Don't highlight if you don't want to read it.

And, following the pattern we've seen out of Reaper since the start of this Kickstarter, if something goes wrong they clamp down on all information. As I've said elsewhere - it's understandable. I get it, I really do. Not saying anything but good news starves the trolls of oxygen and prevents an explosion of Internet Bile™. But, dang it, it's been 3 months. A quarter of a year. We were told they were shipping in March. They technically hit that mark, but it was technically in March the way that technically I am a hugely entitled man-child. Once they'd done the Vampire only pledges, both domestic and foreign, they had to shut down shipping for around 2 months. Yet again, not a big deal, we always understood once they actually told us what the heck was going on.

 

But we were told, from day one, that the shipping process would be a 3 day cycle of 1 day US, 1 day Canada, 1 day International. They've had almost a year to sort out the logistics of this. And while I'm happy that the Bones are at least flowing, I've got no confidence that Reaper will sort the issues before they ship every single US order, or even that there won't be a gap of a few months while they arrange for a truck to come and pick up the ROW Bones. And the reason I've got no confidence is because of the constantly shattered expectations - and I don't mean exceding them.

 

I like Reaper as a company. My interactions with them since the Kickstarter got me back into the hobby have been shining examples of customer service done right. Unfortunately, that has shone a rather harsh contrast onto the customer service surrounding the Kickstarter.

 

Mistakes happen. 3rd parties can't be easily controlled. The only thing you can control is your own actions in this sort of kerffufle, and I'm losing paitience with Reapers actions around the ROW shipping. I'm asking myself, for the first time, whether it'd be faster to cancel my order and just buy what I want off Ebay or similar. And I don't want to do that! I want to support Reaper!

 

But they're making it so hard to do!

 

 

This is a good way to do a rant. You are frustrated, got it off your chest, and someone not wanting to read it can skip past the negativity. Although, as rants go, it was awfully mild and reasonable.

[Lepordie]

I just wonder how UK customs are going to react to the shed load of bones I've ordered when they do come

[ChristianSt]

Some kind of official update on the ROW-status would be really appreciated.

 

I don't frequent this forum that often now, and from what I am reading here ROW is halted.

 

So if this is correct, then I think it would be an important update. I'm having a vampire+Cthulhu+Khaladrax pledge (Germany), and I'm not exactly sure if/when I should start to worry. Having a simple update what is going on would stop that (just say there is a problem, best to say what is the problem and what is being done to end it or when it will being done).

 

I fought you have learned something out of past problems (that sharing information is a good thing), but (at least from my perspective) it hasn't really changed. [The problem isn't that there is a problem. The problem is that there isn't really that much communication about that problem. Needing to hunt down such import information in the middle of some forum threads or Kickstarter comments just doesn't really work.]

[Foxden Racing]

Some kind of official update on the ROW-status would be really appreciated.

 

I don't frequent this forum that often now, and from what I am reading here ROW is halted.

 

So if this is correct, then I think it would be an important update. I'm having a vampire+Cthulhu+Khaladrax pledge (Germany), and I'm not exactly sure if/when I should start to worry. Having a simple update what is going on would stop that (just say there is a problem, best to say what is the problem and what is being done to end it or when it will being done).

 

I fought you have learned something out of past problems (that sharing information is a good thing), but (at least from my perspective) it hasn't really changed. [The problem isn't that there is a problem. The problem is that there isn't really that much communication about that problem. Needing to hunt down such import information in the middle of some forum threads or Kickstarter comments just doesn't really work.]

 

I'm not a Reaper Peep, but here's what I've absorbed through the forums / KS comments:

 

Last I saw (Thurs/Fri of last week), RoW wasn't leaving the docks until USPS can schedule the requisite supply of trucks to ReaperHQ...but having seen a handful of overseas addresses go by in the past few days, am operating on the assumption that there's at least one pallet for RoW waiting for the truck to show up. It's not a huge facility, so that could also be playing into how much is or isn't already staged.

 

Canada is in limbo until the issue of the rejected orders can be cleared up; I think the orders have all been repacked [thought I saw Bryan say something about that] and are waiting the return of the FedUp rep to certify that it won't happen again. It's also been mentioned that it's a byzantine, complicated set of paperwork, which I can guess slows things down a bit there.

 

Given my interactions with Reaper over the past 10 years or so, there's no doubt in my mind that the only way they won't drop everything and go all-hands-on-deck to get RoW and Canada out when either situation clears up is if they're so close (say, 50 orders or so) it'd be more trouble to resume than to finish.

 

Until the third parties get a move on, though, Bryan's stuck between fire and gunpowder...with customers understandably upset that things haven't gone as planned, and trying to light a fire under the third parties bottle-necking things.

 

The MO to date has been no news means no new developments. What I can say for certain is that KS fulfillment is consuming every second of free time down in Denton. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few packing lists in the wild with 'EP'...Ed Pugh, one of the founders...on it. They've even got Matt (Clark) and Kit (the webmaster) out on the floor packing boxes in their free time. I have no doubts in my mind that nobody's taking this more seriously than Bryan; dude cancelled his vacation and is working on his birthday to get things one step closer to dealt with.

[Laoke]

Yup. I really wish Bryan hadn't cancelled his vacation. Poor bugger must be exhausted.

[LittleBluberry]

Yup. I really wish Bryan hadn't cancelled his vacation. Poor bugger must be exhausted.

 

Yes. But. I know a lot of people who aren't able to relax when they know there is a large project stumbling along without them back home. Or in other words, it might be a better vacation for being postponed. Hopefully it doesn't have to be put off for long.

[sumbloke]

<snip>

The MO to date has been no news means no new developments.

<snip>

 

 

Bear in mind that if you only read the Kickstarter updates (i.e., the official information channel), you would have no information about the non-US orders being delayed. So "no news means no new developments" doesn't hold.

[Philip D'Hollander]

Also, no Reaper/Bryan on the KS comments the last two days... no lunchtime updates as usual.

 

that of course means it's 100% of the time spent on shipments, but the RoW backers are getting (rightfully) restless.

 

I mean (as an RoW, does it show?), how long can it take to get a bloody truck from Dallas to Denton? USPS is postponing 3100 parcels? Missing out on an income like that? Running the risk that your customer is going to send those 3100 parcels via UPS or Fedex or DHL (not happening, I know, but USPS doesn't)

 

Those 3100 parcels will yield between 20 bucks and 61 bucks each (not counting the huge parcels).. averaging say 40 bucks... that's 120.000 dollars for USPS, not small pocket change I imagine...

 

Anyway, my ranting isn't helping one bit, but I'm getting a bit frustrated and sharing the 'feeling left out as RoW' in this KS. Not per se Reaper's fault, although some extra comms ("we have no news, but just wanted to tell you we're still pushing with USPS. We feel your pain") or finding the right buttons to push with USPS would help!