Hello orlaag. Thanks for the constructive post. I hope I could answer it in details.
orlaag wrote:No offence but this is goal post moving. I originally mentioned I was considering USA order only to be told with confidence to wait for Jan '18 so I did, then that gets delayed but hey these thigns happen. Wish I'd ordered parts or whole stick via USA now and sadly my confidence in EU store is not perfect. Then eventually the container arrives and doesn't even contain what we were told it would. No sorry or anything, from an individual defensiveness is fine and understandable but from a company it looks bad. I have shipped a lot in from Asia to UK, been involved in some large volume shipping too and it isn't that hard in the EU, especially not Holland. Even considering keeping price down doesn't answer what was missing and fact "enough for all" wasn't the case despite polls etc knowing what the demand was.
Hmm, I don't want to argue that rev.A story is not pleasant but just want to tell that Jan'18 was never promised for EU market.
Anyway, I agree with you that MCG start should be organized better. Me, and VKB in general, definitely learned from it.
Shipping indeed does not cause a shortage of items in cargo.
I explained earlier but it seems there is still unclarity on this. There is one source of all VKB products, it is our manufacturing facility in Shenzhen. All markets, but EU, get direct shipping from the factory warehouse. For EU customers, VKB has to produce it, form a cargo and ship it to our warehouse. It always makes time lag of 1-2 months compared to availability in US, Russian or Chinese markets. Indeed, the shipping itself is not a problem but it is difficult to produce new product in right quantity to meet the initial demand. Any delays caused by testing or any issues to fix, make the demand growing. For example, whole batch of MCG for EU has been enhanced with spring washers based on experience of early MCG customers. So, the whole MCG batch for EU was re-assembled and re-tested again. Having polls would not help as the cargo has been formed based on the availability and not on initial demand.
Another interesting fact is that from VKB experience polls does not match with actual sales and difference is high. Apparently, people who participates in polls cannot be directly mapped to the whole audience. However, it is irrelevant for the first EU batch due to shortage of some variants anyway.
Pre-ordering is much better and that's what I plan to implement in very near future.
orlaag wrote:I'm not having a go here but admitting a mistake goes a long way with companies. I've had to do the same myself at times and admit mistakes that were not my fault but by someone I represented and customers appreciate it more otherwise it gets hard to take you on your word. I already have a sour taste over the EU experience although much of that is probably far beyond your control as sole rep it is on you to communicate it and in fairness you often didn't.
I agree that it was lack of communication from my side. It should be communicated more often. But I have never lie or provided any easy promises. You can see on the website news or on this forum. No news or messages were deleted or changed. In October I announced availability MCG in February, before Chinese New Year. Unfortunately, it has been shipped in March, after Chinese New Year. I never promised anyone that MCG will be available in January. But already in November, I mentioned March. The exact date is very difficult to predict as it depends on manufacturing and new products are always come with delays, especially, the product like MCG which contains three microcontrollers only in a grip.
Ask me about availability of T-Rudder pedals : ) That's I could answer much better. Anyway, I learned from it to not communicate any dates for new products.
orlaag wrote:Can you confirm the rev A products will be in this Aug/Sep batch?
Rev.A grips as well as rev.B grips are planned for the next batch. Rev.A grips have a priority and they will be produced on base on pre-ordering. The pre-ordering will be opened as soon as I have green light from manufacturing. I do expect it in Aug/Sep but still need to get concrete dates from manufacturing.