Topic: [ANN] OpenRigs.com - Aluminium Frames for Mining Rigs - page 9. (Read 52285 times)

The shipping method you chose during checkout was Surface Mail. Delivery and returns policy with timelines for the different shipping methods is here. We're still within the expected transit time period for the shipping method you chose, but I will add it to the list to query later this week:)

On your parcel in particular (different transit dates, so slightly different routes) I am expecting feedback on Wednesday morning, so I will be in a better position to know how to proceed with resolving yours then:)

Heh, I didn't do my research. Post deleted

Click the link in damnsammit's sig. He clearly states that Josh is his business partner in the OP, and Josh is the first poster with this comment...

I'm not a business owner myself but Josh echoes a lot of the sentiments I have as a customer towards this situation. He put them together more eloquently then I would have been able to. As Josh said, I also appreciate the good faith gesture in the form of a shipping refund as equally as I appreciate fluffy's dedication to responding to our persistent reflection of this situation in a thread where he's trying to promote his product. However, what's most important to me is receiving the product that I paid for in a timely manner. I would prefer to not give the hardware store any more fiat for crate frame materials when I have two outstanding looking frames on the way that will fill my needs.


Fluffy, when are you expecting feedback for an expected delivery?

No offense, but for someone recently starting a similar product line based on fluffy's designs, this statement comes off as a little arrogant and self-serving. I understand your sentiment, but at this point it seems like publicly lecturing fluffy on his business practices is more about belittling the competition then obtaining satisfaction as a customer. You can couch this in all the "please" and "thank yous" you want, but this just makes you sound condescending.

Good luck with your business.

Fluff,

Thanks for responding.

In response to this -

- We are not a going concern, we are a bootstrapped startup. That means we have no overdraft facility (the bank won't even consider it without 6+ months of cash-flow). We have extremely thin margins, and every cent of profit goes towards improving our fabrication systems, reducing our JIT fabrication tail, and on new product development. We simply would not have - and do not have - the cash necessary to re-fabricate and re-send parcels.


Might I ask you why it is that I care how thin your profit margins are? When I'm sitting in the business I run and a customer brings a complaint to me about a certain product, I don't sit there and explain to the customer how I make such a crappy profit margin on that item. I fix the situation and don't give excuses. The customer doesn't care about all of the excuses you can come up with. The customer wants ANSWERS not excuses and that is the biggest thing I think you will learn from this experience. Don't tell me why it happened tell me how your going to fix my problem.

I completely understand that money is strapped tight but unfortunately fluffy if you can't financially back your products when issues like these happen than you shouldn't be in business. What if a customer for instance tried claiming that because the shipping presented to us showed as being 4-6 weeks on the website, and that we had assumed we would have those racks by that time they haven't been able to set up their mining rigs. In theory if someone really wanted to get creative they could try and make a claim against your company for hampering their ability to make money. I know this is far stretched but my point is that you clearly have very little additional funds to run your company. If a customer decided to be an ass and pull a stunt like this would it not basically bankrupt you in legal fees? Even if the claim is frivolous you would have to argue those claims and it would cost you thousands in attorney fees which you clearly don't have.  Why you would honestly admit that you have very little money in a open forum is beyond me because all that tells me is that if I EVER have a problem with your company on a future order I honestly have a VERY VERY slim chance of ever having it resolved. I never make my customers wait for me to receive the insurance claim on their parcels if they go missing. We all know that insurance claims sometimes take months, and this is completely unfair and unethical to ask a customer to wait that long. If you decided to reship the parcel and then the first one arrives and it isn't returned to your company, that is what I call the cost of doing business. I have shipped hundred dollar items before and then the package appears to go missing. I then receive a denied insurance request because somehow the item arrived still. I will email that customer ONCE asking them kindly with a prepaid shipping label to please return it. If the customer doesn't return the item I don't harass them I simply chalk that up to being part of doing business. You should of assumed that you would have small issues like this when shipping international and you should have allotted funds in case of a mistake like this.

I most definitely do appreciate you refunding my shipping costs. What I did explain to you privately was that I would actually prefer to receive my item over receiving a refund period. It isn't about how much I paid for shipping costs. It is about the fact that you falsely represented a delivery time frame to your customer who was expecting to have received their item by that time. In all honesty by the time this parcel gets here freaking AMD will probably have a new graphic card generation lol. I know its not your fault once the parcel is out of your hands but to blame not knowing who was affected as a reason for not fixing the situation is just pure ignorance. It's not mine or Wobbzzz fault that you don't have the funds to replace our orders at your own expense. I feel bad for you but from a business standpoint I really don't care how you fix it or what you do. All I care about is the fact that the items I have ordered will be on my door step by the end of March.

I would just like to end this by once again thanking you fluffy for your dedication and help in the matter. I think where you are wrong is by shifting the blame off of your company and yourself and onto any other excuse you can find. Please take responsibility for the mistake even if it wasn't your own. I really do thank you for the quick responses but someone must hold you accountable and unfortunately it seems that I have to be the one.

FYI, happy to report that my order is making progress.

EMS parcel left the South Africa on Feb-28, and it already arrived in Canada today (Mar-3). Now it's just waiting for customs and local postal delivery from Quebec to Ontario.

I may have given the wrong impression - the customer didn't make a mistake, I'm just providing background as to why we couldn't process it at shipping time as air mail. The guys that do the waybills don't care how much a customer paid - they care about what it says on our backend systems, so if it had said airmail on the backend they would have been agnostic to any cost implication and just processed it as such.

I think I've answered the second question at length in my previous post - let me know if I haven't and I'll try again:)

You know, I almost feel bad for you sometimes, Fluffaroo, but then you say things like this.... [bold for emphasis]


You already acknowledged that the error was on YOUR END, so why would you act as if the customer made a mistake in the shipping option? 

If only a "small number of clients" were affected with the error on your end then why not just bite the bullet?

In all honesty no disrespect fluffy but we all shouldn't have to fucking do this.

We are the customer and we are basically being forced to search high and low to find our own parcels.

I'm sorry I know you have made efforts and a good will gesture towards me but seriously come on. If your package goes missing by for instance amazon what do they do? They ship out a new one immediately and take care of their customer. I know you aren't amazon and you most definitely don't have the money to be amazon but that is the way you take care of your customers. Not force them to try and do research themselves. I had no idea my package would be shipped Surface mail or else I would of never ordered it.

An example of how I handle customer service with my company which is completely unrelated to bitcoin at all. One time my assistant/employee accidentally changed something in the backend on our shipping and it had caused the shipping to end up showing up as basically 1-2 dollars for every item no matter what service they chose for shipping and how many items or how heavy those items were. What I ended up with was about 150 orders that had picked Express overnight shipping. I received about 3 dollars per order for shipping on items that cost me around 95 dollars to ship them. Keep in mind I was making about 30 dollars in profit per item.

So we are looking at a total of about 14,000 in shipping charges of which I received about 450 for. I didn't decide to cancel all of the orders based off a mistake. I also didn't ship all of those orders using a cheaper method. I ate a $9,000 loss out of my own pocket because a mistake was made by my company. Just saying that I expected a bit more out of a company trying to be such a big dog.

I most definitely do appreciate all of your help finding our packages, and also the good will gestures you have made. Don't take my posts as being unappreciative of your help as that isn't my intention. My intention is to show you that no matter what you should stand by your customer and do the right thing, not put them through hell.

Josh

Yes, but we'd be screwed on blanket cover due to the volatility of the business - that would only make sense much later on when we have several years of measurable sales under our belt and know what to expect on a month-to-month basis. So we pay per-shipment - we send a weekly dispatch and costing report and get billed based on that over and above our monthly premium. As I mentioned, though, what we pay them under their marine (cargo) insurance policy is cheaper per-shipment than the post office, as well as providing the other advantages highlighted.

You are absolutely welcome to wade through the blackhole that is the post office. In fact, I can give you the details for Capemail right now - you can phone any one of the following 5 numbers - +27 21 590 5712/3/5/6/7 and ask for the International Parcels department. Those are the people that dispatched the parcel and have the most direct access to backend systems. I have gone down that road a bunch of times with no success, which is why I'm trying to escalate things from a hub level, hoping that they will know the right people to talk to. Hopefully you'll have more luck than I did:)

Good deal man. Only having dealt with international orders from Europe and China, I was expecting like 4-6 weeks at most.

A quarter of a year later...

 I'm not sure if I'll get it before I move out of this house in the next few weeks.

I'm removing it next week as soon as we get updated EMS rates - some countries will be much cheaper than they are now:)

You really shouldn't even offer surface mail as an option.