Hello backers and followers, 

I have been meaning to write this post for several months, but until recently I didn’t have all the material I needed to show the depth of the problem. Let me summarize: Shipping physical orders is taking much longer than I anticipated. I employed a contractor to ship all product to backers in the United States, and he turned out to be so incredibly bad that it simply has to be documented to be believed. However, I am solving the problem myself by printing and sending the orders myself. I have already shipped several orders and I’m going to do all the rest until all physical orders are complete. I do not wish to point fingers or make excuses; I’m simply writing this post in the interest of transparency. If anyone is to blame here, it is myself for the choices I made.

That being said, let’s start at the beginning. 

At the end of the campaign, I wanted AVS 3D printing to handle all the physical orders for the United States, which was most of them. He gave me a good price and the pictures of sample prints he sent were good. He told me he could do 3 at a time, so I paid him for 3. 

An “order” consists of a pitch, 2 dugouts, 2 turn trackers, all markers (turn markers, skill markers, ball markers), and at least 2 teams. From experience I can say it takes about 2 days to completely print a small order.

Only 2 of the orders arrived. The last one didn’t make it because the contractor made a categorization error in customs so when it went to Canada, it required a $200 import fee for an already $500 order. 

I solved that problem by shipping the order myself from within Canada. I drove to Canada and shipped it from a Canadian UPS store, bypassing all import fees. I happened to be in the area for a tournament, you see. 

 

Those first 3 orders took 2 months to finally ship. When I finally got confirmation that they shipped, I placed 3 more orders. My thinking was that not having to print them myself was worth the money, and I trusted they would be quality, because the sample prints had been. Even if they were a little later than I wanted, it would still be fine. This was my mistake.

The first of the orders arrived and they looked like this:

 

Not only are the prints atrocious, he didn’t even send all the parts. He only sent 1 of the 2 required pitch halves. He also included a team from one of the other orders, and had to send a separate shipment of the missing team to the neglected customer. 

After receiving these photos, I immediately purchased additional 3D printers, knowing this contractor had completely dropped the ball. I made these mistakes right by contacting the backers, printing the parts, and sending them replacements. 

Then I started printing sets in numerical order after the second set of 3 orders and mailing them to customers myself. I have been doing that ever since. 

Behold the Port-O-Bowl Print Palace: 

Meanwhile the 2nd set of 3 orders were still pending. I told the contractor to send the parts directly to me instead of directly to customers. My thinking (once again) was that even if there were a lot of print errors, there would still be enough good prints in there that it would save me sufficient time.

The email exchanges were getting more and more tense. Basically, he kept delaying, making excuses, and even feigning illness. He pretended to be his son emailing me from his business account because he (the contractor) was in the hospital from a stroke. Strange, the son had exactly the same bad grammar, lack of capitalization, and run-on sentences as the contractor himself! What are the odds? 

Anyway, finally, the 3 pending orders arrived. It will take far too long to document the breadth and depth of the problems, but here are some of the greatest hits: 

 A wood elf team where half of the players were missing limbs (and some limbless humans thrown in for good measure)…

A goblin team with an extra human lineman and Bomber Dribblesnot instead of the normal goblin bombardier… 

3 sets of Star Players totally missing said Bomber Dribblesnot…

All Griffs in those 3 star player packs missing the griffon wings on their helmets (Gold griff at the end is my own for comparison)…

 

Players with huge supports still on them and cured… 

Players badly washed and cured together…

 

All of the above issues were distributed across all teams.

All told I ended up tossing half of the prints into the garbage. 

You might be forgiven for thinking that maybe the players broke during shipment, which is why they were limbless. But they didn’t. There were no limbs floating around in the bags into which he had separated the teams. He was going to ship them like that! Thank goodness I had him ship them directly to me.

All told, I paid this contractor for 6 orders. Only 1 of them arrived in a satisfactory condition. It took several months to get here. The time savings I thought I was paying for were not only nonexistent, they only added to my workload. 

I am shipping all the orders myself now, as I am convinced that for now, I’m the only one capable of quality control. 

I have shipped 8 orders personally, and none have arrived with a complaint. In fact if anyone has said anything, it’s to praise, not complain.

So that’s it. I apologize for those who are still waiting on their physical orders. I haven’t forgotten you! I am simply making absolutely sure that everyone is satisfied, and it is taking much longer than anticipated. Rest assured, the Port-O-Bowl Print Palace will be working nonstop until everyone who backed during the campaign has their product! 

Happy Thanksgiving! Next update: More teams!