Just spoke to them mainly about when I can go to pick them up as I don't fancy on paying last minute ticket prices. I really hope they give me at least 1 day notice, so I am the first one to get them to hash
The lady on the phone (one of the new I assume) was very reserved on giving any details and couldn't even tell me if its more likely to happen this week or next week. So for the time being we just wait
In regards to shipping she told me that the original shipping price for the Jupiter was subsidized by them, because it costs more to send.
And the current shipping price for the Upgrade modules is in fact the real actual price of UPS.
She said that each Upgrade module is being shipped separately in its own box with its own tracking number and it weights around 300g.
So the reason you pay $60 per module is they are not going to ship them as one package and save on posting.
Cyper :
Thank you for putting in the effort!
A big Sighhhhhh..... for KNC.
For quite a while I sold into high tech because I was good at analysis and hardware design -- so I had an advantage over the many teenagers that were selling "Micro Computers" etc... I could design the hardware and write or advise on the required software from everything to data collection in oil fields to astronomy... the latest mathematical techniques for solving large matrix systems etc.
But, it was not enough to be technically adept. I quickly learned that I had to become a logistics effort to satisfy clients all over the country -- and then all over the world. I had to learn all the shipping rates, the best way to ship the companies available and everything from LTL to Full Loadout and everything in between... (Later years when I worked in Latin America for family companies I had to start learning which airplanes could carry which cargo by weight and volume restrictions... and where the appropriate customs facilities and trans-shipping points could best be reached -- not to mention which customs officers were least problematic.) But back to the original tale: Then I had to direct and manage the staff -- and the company president and vice president that believed that engineers were trained monkeys and were a replaceable commodity -- and could be replaced every day if need be... but that too is another tale...
You can't just have the best hardware -- once you have that, the next step is top-notch marketing and great logistics. If you want proof -- look to IBM -- which took Apple out of the Office Computer market in any meaningful way for the longest time -- and spawned a whole PC industry while they were at it... Industry consensus was that many companies had far superior hardware and software to IBM (in mainframes, PCs and everything else). What you bought from IBM would work -- it was just that so many competitors beat them on price and performance. So why was IBM bigger? They were more reliable and could deliver within reasonable schedules and had so many people they could cover off even if an office (maybe even an entire region) got wiped out by the flu or whatever. In general they got the logistics, installation and maintenance right -- and that could sometimes outweigh every other factor.
So what's the point? Somebody at KNC needs to take a long hard look at their logistics and support -- and fix it.
Forcing me to pay for two shipments through customs is a small irritation -- but if someone else gets all of the logistics and support correct -- I could well accept inferior hardware. Draining your customers wallet to cover up your problems can work -- but only for a while.
If they continue to deliver superior hardware -- they can get away with inferior logistics and support. However, if a competitor becomes close in performance but then gets everything else right -- KNC will quickly drop off the map.
There are lots of companies that have been through this cycle and gone away -- especially in high tech.
Maybe Bitcoinarama can make the point with the "powers that be".
