2 weeks ago our factory asked for a few additional days to complete production, we emailed back and forth with our freight forwarder and were able to book ocean transport that would have us reach the US on February 16th and then reach our distribution center 7-10 days later keeping us pretty close to our scheduled Feb/March ship date.
Last night we received this email from our factory:
During the production, we were very regret to found that our production team had make some mistakes on the assembling for the pins and joints (due to the numerous common pins and small size part), which need us re-work from all over again. And when we getting nearer to the new year holidays, a lot of our workers had left our factory to home earlier than expected, that we are in serious labor shortage situation.
Therefore, we are terribly sorry that we have to inform you the shipment need to be postponed to the end of February. We understand that you really wanted your products to ship before CNY, but based on the current situation, we really do not want to ship your first project with bad quality product;
We are sincerely apologized for this inconvenience that caused.
Obviously this was a big punch in the gut for us. We’ve spent the morning in contact with our freight forwarder informing them of the delay.
As far along as they were, I imagine this was also a difficult email for them to send. I can picture them doing their final inspection and having to make the decision between shipping out our order as is or redoing what needs to be done in order to make it right.
While I’m feeling really disheartened in passing along news of yet another delay, I am glad that our factory partners are not willing to compromise their reputation or ours and are committed to making this line as best as it can be.
Their current estimate for end of February completion would likely see us shipping out all orders in April. Because of the delay we are going to open the BackerKits back up so that you will be able to make any changes, additions or cancellations to your order. Please feel free to contact [email protected] if you require any assistance. We will likely keep BackerKit open until the end of February, only closing down figures if they start to get too close to the final production number for that particular figure.
Thanks again for your understanding and support, it is much appreciated.