BattleTech: Mercenaries – CGL does a shipping booboo? Internet rages!

[dawfyddParticipant 11991xp 0]

Does it not say that UK should start shipping this or next week then take 5 weeks to complete? Or did you mean UK to complete shipping by January at the earliest?

It is a pretty crappy situation though, especially for Oz & NZ backers

[tankkommanderParticipant 6428xp 1]

4-5 weeks at this time of year seems a bit hopeful.

Oz backers have it worse.

And the poor folks who backed Leviathans 🙁

If KS had an ounce of sense they would ban them from the platform. At what point will KS realise that these shenanigans are damaging the platform? I have now stopped backing anything on KS as i’m just fed up with the lack of any policing of bad companies.

[limburger 21754xp 1]

Crowdfunding platforms have no incentive to ban any company, because they already got our money once the project funded.
They literally can’t care about what happens afterwards as there’s plenty more and zero laws that could be enforced.
Success rate of crowdfunding from my own point of view is still 90+%
Battletech is one of the few tabletop gaming related ones that managed to make a mess of things. I’ve had more bad luck with tech-based crowdfunding.

// —

The community section has +/- 1488 backers in the UK. And as the UK hub includes Norway that number may be even higher (and it might not show late pledges … ).

That would have to be +/- 300 each week.
60 every day (assuming 5 day work week)

Smaller kickstarters have needed more than 5 weeks to ship that amount under the best circumstances, so anyone expecting that needs to a reality check. I doubt CGL is getting priority handling by anyone at that hub.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6428xp 1]

I just checked the GamesQuest blog and Battletech Mercs does not even appear on the list.

https://www.gamesquest.co.uk/blogs/gamesquest-blog

 

[dawfyddParticipant 11991xp 1]

I think I saw somewhere that it may not show up as QML & CGL have specified any queries to go through them and not Gamesquest….

[limburger 21754xp 1]

They keep mentioning QML … but I wouldn’t be surprised if QML subcontracted out to someone else like GamesQuest.
As that could explain the complete sh!tshow with the logistics for this kickstarter.

A quick google confirms that scenario as likely, because the QML website literally mentions their use of ‘fulfillment partners’ (with no direct info on who that could be …) GamesQuest and HappyShops have been responsible for a lot of kickstarters that I’ve received so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was one of them.

@dawfydd I’m guessing that’s because QML is supposed to be ‘in control’ of the entire operation.
I’d have expected CGL to take responsibility for that sort of thing, but otoh … the scale of this kickstarter and the size of CGL (which appears to be a two man team at best) would make that unlikely.

 

 

[tankkommanderParticipant 6428xp 2]

GamesQuest are doing the fulfilment in the UK (and I think the UK hub also serves Norway).

They sent an email on 8th November to UK backers asking for address confirmation…

Your parcel from QML & Catalyst is currently being scheduled with our warehouse. You will receive a separate email once the items have been despatched. We ask that you submit any address changes before end of day, Monday 11th November.

If you have any queries which do not relate to an address change, we ask that you reach out to the team at Quartermaster Logistics – http://www.qmlogistics.com/contactUs.html

[jamescutts 6929xp 0]

Yep its been known quite a while that GamesQuest are the subcontractor QML are using for the UK and EU fulfilment. I think the majority of the logistics’ issues for this KS have been a result of CGL ham fisting data entry and only ordering 30 of one of the coins rather than 3000 and either QML, CGL or both being very optimistic or naive with expected timings.

Based on experience GamesQuest have always been fine with the KS they have managed that I backed, so I expect no issues from them.

[limburger 21754xp 0]

As a receiver of pledges I’ve never had any issues with GamesQuest either.
I really think the problem is at CGL, which remains odd as this isn’t their first kickstarter … (or their first project as a business).

OTOH … it’s been my experience that companies aren’t quite as organized or structured as their outside appearance suggests.
You can make a lot of (expensive) mistakes if your margins are good enough. It’s often the difference between ‘surviving’ and thriving for a business, and you won’t know which side you are on until disaster strikes.

[jamescutts 6929xp 2]

I’m slowly getting the impression with a lot of this is principally CGL but its really hard to say as they lack any transparency.

Forgetting the RoW existed earlier in they year could either be CGL or QML to blame really but we’ll never know. If QML said its all ready to ship then as the logistics contractor you’d take their word. Equally CGL could have miss understood and then very poorly communicated.

However either way that point is a little mute as it turned out at that time there hadn’t been a stock check for the RoW hubs, again hard to say whos fault, could swing either way. That CGL sat on the shortage reports for several weeks while they went swanning off to a convention is clearly a CGL issue though, as is the amount of time it seemingly took to then action them.

As for why things are short, its a mixed bag really, CGL have admitted they cant spreadsheet and misordered at least that one coin, however the rest of the unknow shortages haven’t been explained, could be manufacturer, could be shipping related, could be mis counts by QML, who knows?

Come back the to present and the week before last the update said UK shipping would begin the next week or week after, we’re now in that second week and no signs as of yet. I fully expect we’ll get a “next week” updated at the end of the week. Again hard to say the cause here, CGL could be flat out lying, QML may be passing on incorrect information to the, GQ may be passing incorrect information to QML, at any stage something could be being misinterpreted. However for me there has been so much retrospectively incorrect information provided by CGL that I would question why they seemingly are very trusting and optimistic or just dont have the ability to plan ahead, e.g. if UK shipping starts this week, the 5 week window lands squarely over Christmas, so it wont be a 5 week window it will be 6 at the least.

As for why CGL are having issues despite this not being their first Kickstarter I think it comes down to the size and complexity of the campaign, which is ultimately on them. I’d also point out, elements of the clan invasion Kickstarter still haven’t been delivered to backers of that.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  jamescutts.

[grantinvanman 2214xp 1]

Canadians who did this are going to be even more screwed as Canada Post has been on strike for 11 days now, 10 million parcels behind (in that time?!?); and no clear end to the strike.

[tankkommanderParticipant 6428xp 0]

There are reports of UK backers getting an email from DHL with a delivery date, so things do seem to be moving along.

As for what went wrong with this KS one has to watch a lot of the Tuesday Newsday and read between the lines of the updates. There was an issue with CGL misreading a spreadsheet and under ordering by a factor of 100.

CGL also seem to have decided that even with $12m raised it was not worth hiring an experienced project manager. Instead they left a lot in the hands of a contractor who has zero experience.

And of course CGL were busy with other unfulfilled KS’s (got to feel sorry for the backers of Leviathans as it is very late and the minis look like bad christmas cracker toys), as well as going to a LOT of trade shows and events, and starting up sub companies to handle board games and roleplaying games.

Based on everything they have said it seems unlikely that CGL will learn the lessons in order to make future KS’s run smoothly. Back anything else from this company at your own risk.

I for one will just be glad to get my stuff and never deal with them again.

[limburger 21754xp 0]

The mistake in shipping costs was unlikely to be the only issue, because that would have been fixed without any of us noticing.
Underordering by a huge factor sounds like a logical explanation for the issues they’ve been having. (this also makes me wonder if they even thought of what to do with retail after the kickstarter … because if you don’t have enough product for backers then surely retail is going to be an even bigger issue ?)

As I’ve said the ‘missing’ stuff must have been critical or else they would have been shipping stuff months before.
The lack of info on what exactly was not available/missing is an attempt to hide their mistakes/incompetence.

And then there’s the very real possibility that they were using the funding from this kickstarter to plug holes in previous ones … (something that isn’t a ‘new’ thing either … )

I guess it is tempting especially if you got ‘soo much’ that a little won’t be noticed.
Except that kind of thinking tends to lead to a slippery slope (and into the abyss if not stopped).
// —
latest update claims that EU backers should be getting address confirmation mail.

I guess it’s time to check our spam folders in the next weeks/months.

[jamescutts 6929xp 1]

todays update, short, maybe a bit too short.

Hey there backers!

Short update this week:

US/CAN/RoW without hubs: Fulfillment continues.
UK: Fulfillment began on November 20th!
EU: Address verification emails began getting sent out over the weekend as the hub checks in the shipment!
AU: Ship still in transit.
Asia: Fulfillment continues.

Have a great week, everyone!

[limburger 21754xp 0]

‘began getting sent out over the weekend’ … I keep wondering if they meant that it has already started or that it will start next weekend. (any OTTers have such a confirmation mail yet ?)

For a company that managed to fck up shipping costs I’m not sure if they are aware they typed ‘began’ or ‘begin’ 😉

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