Hey Everyone,
This is a comprehensive update regarding three Melgeek Runs: Mojo60 Keyboard + Bee Carrying Case, 'Plastic' Keycap Set, and Aviator USB Cables.
As an overarching discussion of the situation, the bottom line is all three of these runs are extremely late and have lacked consistent communications and updates from the vendor (and by extension Drop). We understand how frustrating it is that you've trusted us with your money and your questions go unanswered and for that we sincerely apologize. Ultimately our internal operations have failed to provide the level of service that we aspire towards and we're reviewing our procedures to ensure that this doesn't happen to this extent again.
Moving forward we have a few announcements.
1) All users that participated in any of these runs, will receive a $15 Drop credit added to their account, regardless of whether they've cancelled their order, continued with their order, or cancel their order in the future. These credits will show up in your account on Monday Nov 23rd.
2) As alluded to in the point 1, anyone wishing to cancel their order may do so, just contact Customer Service and they'll look after you.
3) When the Melgeek products arrive at our warehouse, whatever extras (via cancellations) are available will be listed for sale on our site at the same price as the group-buy prices. You can cancel now, get your money back, receive your $15 credit, and THEN re-order the product when it's in-stock and available (keeping in mind you run the slight risk of someone else clicking buy before you). If you're uncertain about the product ever shipping, or uncertain about the quality of the final product, we suggest that you take this option as it removes any doubt about "why do you have my money and I have nothing to show for it?".
4) We're still sorting through the mess of coordinating inbound shipments with Melgeek. Stating the obvious, these products are ready many months after they were expected, and arranging freight shipments, during COVID, during the holiday season, is not straightforward. Shipping these products via air is not economical (we're talking $50+ per unit at present day rates since we have no previously reserved space), and getting space on an ocean liner, which we're currently arranging, is difficult at best. We'll get there, but it's going to take ~6 weeks for it to arrive, slating delivery most likely in January 2021. Once it's booked onto a freight ship, we'll have an estimated arrival date of the ship, which gets us an estimated customs clearance date, which finally gets us an estimated shipping date. End of January 2021 would be a safe bet at this point, with a couple weeks of built-in buffer (i.e. if things go smoothly, mid January, if things don't go smoothly, end of January).
Please understand that we've coordinated over fifty thousand group-buys on our platform with over eight thousand vendors. These runs associated with Melgeek rank in the lowest percentile in terms of proper communication and professionalism. The updates that community members have gotten from discord channels are better than what we've received in direct vendor queries. While they may have fantastic products, their operating style is incompatible with our platform. We will not be running Melgeek products on our site in the future.
I'll reiterate that this does not in any way excuse us from not communicating these problems to you in the past. Keeping you in the loop is important and has entirely fallen through the cracks. I'll be posting weekly updates from now on, even if it's to say "there's nothing to share with you".
Thanks for your time and patience on this. None of us want to be in this situation but we're here now, and we're going to make sure we all get through it.
December 4th Update: Cargo is physically on a ship, expected to arrive at our warehouse on Jan 5th.
December 11th Update: Cargo is still physically on a ship somewhere in the pacific, expected to dock on 12/29, and expected to arrive at our warehouse on Jan 5th. (We currently have a ship sitting outside of Seattle with a different product, that can't dock because of high port traffic, hopefully this won't be a problem by 12/29.)
December 18th Update: No news, just expecting things on track with last week's update.
December 30th Update: Still on a ship, but the most recent update of delivery has slipped to 1/15.
January 13th Update: Tracking shows that it should arrive at our warehouse on 1/15
January 17th Update: These are at the warehouse. They need to be unpacked, counted, etc. Ideally start shipping end of this week.
January 28th Update: These are 96% done.