Adventures On the Purple Planet...and Beyond! Project Update: [AUS/NZ Backers] Fulfillment Update June 24

Goodman Games

CREATOR

6 days ago

Project Update: [AUS/NZ Backers] Fulfillment Update June 24

Hi everyone,

This update is for AUS/NZ backers. Here is the latest on the fulfillment situation. As you all may remember from this earlier update, the pallet headed to Australia was lost and eventually found.

For today’s update, let’s start by quoting verbatim what the fulfillment company recently provided to us:

Just a heads-up — this isn't a great email to be writing. We accepted delivery today of the pallet containing the Purple Planet shipment, but unfortunately, it's arrived significantly incomplete. I've attached our goods receipt so you can see exactly what was received.

I've followed up with the depot teams at Threshman and ICAL to understand what’s happened. They've advised that the shipment had been broken down after delivery and has since been moved around the depot quite a bit. What we received today is everything they were able to identify.

As you'll see from the attached receipt, there’s a substantial amount missing — including what I suspect are the hardest-to-replace SKUs like the stretch goals and limited editions.

For context, we’re approaching end-of-financial-year here in Australia, and nearly every major warehouse is currently in the thick of annual stocktake. I’ve paid for ICAL to do a full audit of every bay where this stock could have ended up, but due to their internal EOFY stocktake, they won’t be able to complete this until Thursday or Friday next week.

I’m not sure what the chances are that the missing items will turn up, but I’ve gone ahead with the search anyway in the hope that we can recover the limited edition and other high-value items.

Will keep you posted as I hear more — just wanted to flag it with you early.

So, what’s next? AUS/NZ backers, I think we’re at a crossroads. Here is what we’re considering, so please provide your input.

First, as a preamble, know that we do anticipate having enough stock to fill most if not all orders, just not necessarily “in Australia right now.” We always overprint by about 10%. We’ve actually taken flak for this in the past, because if we have leftover Kickstarter exclusives we put them up for sale in our online store. But this scenario is a perfect example of why we overprint. Most of our crowdfunding projects suffer some degree of “lost or damaged by the mailman,” and we use the overprints to replace those. This is the first time we’ve had a full pallet disappear, and thank goodness we have extras! I suspect we will be able to replace everything on it, though the overprints goods are probably in the USA, UK or Canada.

So here are the possible options. Think of this as “taking the temperature of the room.” We are still waiting to find out what the final inventory comes out to be. Options are some mix of these:

Fulfill your pledge using a mix of “inventory in Australia” and “inventory shipped in from other markets” – this will honestly vary pledge-by-pledge at this point, and we won’t know for sure until we get the final inventory count
Offer a full refund
Some sort of makeup item. We were already planning to give a credit of some kind when the fulfillment finally finishes. I’m now wondering if we should perhaps also create some special Australia-only item for Purple Planet backers. “My shipment went to the Purple Planet and back, and all I got was this lousy sticker!” Or a one-page mini-encounter. Could be something fun or something more substantial or “all of the above.”
Some combination of the above

What are your thoughts, friends and backers down under?

P.S. We will continue to post updates as we get more information.

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