I have an unfortunate hiccup that is occurring with the project in where the manufacturer has taken my money and stopped responding to me. Note that I am not really that concerned about the money since I have paid via alibaba and they will provide a full refund if they refuse to work on it even further. I have another factory on back-up if I do not receive a response.
I have worked with this company before for my very first project where there were no issues, we originally had issues with communications with the representative to the point where I had to transfer the project to another representative, but it has been nearly a month with no communication.
We were working on a previous project ("Girls Who Really, Really Love You"). The only ones that needed revision were two remaining designs who were pending their 2nd sample before mass-production. At the same time I had inquired with my manufacturer (before Pintober even ended) to see if it would be possible to submit this project (the Persona 5 pins) to be made concurrently so that I could have both projects finished by the time Pintopia rolled around so that I could work on Pintopia with having all projects fulfilled.
I was communicative of this on 10/21/2025 where I told them that this project should not be delayed any further than it has (due to their poor communication) and it would have to be delivered by December.
I then received notice that everything for both projects would be done by December. I figured this would be acceptable since I was only requesting for TWO changes for only colors for the previous project which would be minor changes that would have lead to the perfect design possible. The other girls were all in production at this point and the Persona 5 pins were smaller, only had a maximum of 10 colors each and had minimal screenprinting. I figured this would be an easy addition considering they had made the previous Persona 5 pins and had a reference on-hand to see how they could correspond the remaining Persona 5 members to the set and I was told that December would be OK.
The followed images will be the images where I am asking them about the changes for Monika as well as urging them to complete the samples for the Persona 5 pins ASAP, all of which were unread. I sent these messages on:
Nov 10, Nov 12, Nov 14, Nov 19, Nov 30, and on Dec 7
I have already reached out to ANOTHER representative for this yesterday asking them if they have seen my messages. As of me writing this message I have reached a representative looking to cancel our collaboration, who only told me that they will be looking for a status update ASAP.
Depending on how far they have gotten with the Persona 5 pins, I may be looking to cancel my collaboration with this specific company and moving to a new company which will push back the production timeline.
I apologize that I am not writing to you all under better circumstances, but it's better for me to be clear about what challenges we're facing with this project. The project is not cancelled. It will be fulfilled. It's just a hiccup that occurred. Unfortunately it's definitely not the first time that a project has faced issues - however I still have a 100% rate of completing my projects and that will not change.
For Pintopia, I don't know if I'll partake in it this year. I already have a project lined up for it - but to be honest I don't feel comfortable partaking in another campaign until I know what's happening in these two projects. If I decide that the project has not been making the progress that I feel is necessary, I will pivot my focus to these two projects instead. However, if I get word that all pins are in production or sampling at the very least, I will partake in Pintopia.
I have already started to reach out to another company to have the Persona 5 pins transferred to a different company that I trust. However I may rescind the new collaboration if I find out that the molds, etc. have already been made and they're undergoing sampling. I'm just going to make it clear that it's our last project together and move on from them in the future.
For the Girls Who Really, Really Love You project I want the current company to finish it since they've already essentially completed 4/6 of the designs and I don't want to delay the project even longer.
If anyone has any further questions or clarifications, please don't hesitate to reach out.
