FulFillment Update for North & South America
about 2 years ago – Sun, Apr 24, 2022 at 08:23:38 PM

What's Going on with my Order

Hey all! We've been getting a bunch of messages about concerns and issues with shipping and tracking. Some folks are concerned about having tracking information that isn't showing their packages moving, and some folks have seen their shipments cancelled. Let's address both of those.

TRACKING INFORMATION & SHIPMENT TIMING

The way that the warehouse system messages about labels and tracking, and the way the information works in FedEx system has caused some confusion. A package has several states:

1. Label printed & tracking number created
2. Package picked up
3. Tracking information populated
4. Package shipping
5. Package delivered

The warehouse software sends out a message as soon as step 1 happens. However, it can be a day (or more over a weekend) until steps 2 and 3 happen. In that case you'll see your tracking sitting in limbo. At this point it is out of our control, but is in process. So, if your package is not moving by this Friday, April 29th, then we'll investigate. But we expect all these packages to be on their way as intended (except the few cancelled and re-processed ones mentioned below. )

CANCELLED ORDERS

The short of it is that we ran out of the Sci-Fi Bundles and some Industrial Starters at Greater Than Games, our fulfillment partner. 

This is partly because of the shipping fiasco we've mentioned in previous updates. We made the choice not to ship everything from Panda at once. Instead we opted to share shipping with another vendor, ship what we needed for fulfillment, and then fill the container up with as much as we could. Unfortunately we didn't get any additional Industrial Starters in that shipment.

So what now? To address the bundle shortage, we are able to produce the missing bundles with the product we had from this shipment, but this is taking some time to do as the pieces have to be gathered at the warehouse. To address the Industrial Starter shortage, we have bought back some Industrial Starters from one of our retail vendors, and those should arrive this week to Greater Than Games.  All these corrections had their original labels cancelled, and will have new ones created soon. We have another container of product slated for shipping in May (hopefully with an August arrival date) that will restock us with the remainder or what we produced, including the Industrial Starters.

We are still short four Neutral Industrial Starters. We do have the limited edition Red Industrial Starters available right now and are going to reach out to the affected backers and ask which of them would be interested in a switch.  If there are no takers the remaining product will ship out in August.

FINALLY
It's worth mentioning also that we've realized we need to be more careful in how we message certain things. We said fulfillment was complete in a previous message. To us that meant that the warehouse had processed all the orders to leave, but they weren't finished shipping yet. We realize now that was a poor way to phrase that as many of you haven't actually seen your packages yet. AND we were blindsided because the cancelled orders issue cropped up after that. Lesson learned on our part and we'll be more careful about what we message when in the future. 

We will continue to reach out as soon as possible to your support questions, but please be patient if it takes a couple of days for a response. 

North and South America Fulfillment is now complete!!
about 2 years ago – Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 12:49:57 AM

First Let Us Talk about the Stretch Goals

Some backers have asked about where the stretch goals are. Very simply put, we've included all stretch goals into the products you've received.

Some crowd funding campaigns take the approach of having a base product, and then including all stretch goals as additional items not packaged with the base product.  While other campaigns include the stretch goals as part of the final product.  We are the latter. We use the crowd funding campaign, and all your support and help, to determine what our final products are going to contain.

North and South America Fulfillment has Shipped

We have completed fulfillment (in the Americas)!! What does that mean?

You should have received a shipping notification with tracking information. You may be asking why my package hasn't moved yet? Well once the box has been closed and the shipping label created is when the notification goes out to your email (and ours, rest in peace little inbox). These packages then get picked up and scanned to start their journey. If they were boxed up later on Friday afternoon, they may not have been picked up until yesterday. Some backers have already begun to receive their rewards this past weekend, but please let us know if you haven't seen your stuff show up by next Friday the 29th. That will give us some breathing room to deal with those backers that may have had unfortunate mis-packs as we are all human and sometimes we make mistakes. 

On another note some of you may be receiving multiple shipments for late-pledge add-on items. Those shipments have also gone out, so you should have received another tracking number.

UK Fulfillment

Let's keep our fingers crossed!

ROADMAP UPDATE

Here is the latest roadmap.

• All artwork has been delivered to Panda Manufacturing - COMPLETE 
• Blank punch-board samples received - COMPLETE 
• Blank punch-board samples reviewed and approved - COMPLETE 
• First color samples received - COMPLETE 
• First color samples reviewed and approved - COMPLETE 
• Mass Production start - COMPLETE 
• Full retail sample received - COMPLETE 
• Full retail sample reviewed and approved - COMPLETE 
• Mass Production complete - COMPLETE 
• Outbound freight to our fulfillment partners - ASIA & OCEANIA COMPLETE, US COMPLETE, EU & UK EXPECTED APRIL 
• Fulfillment shipping to you started - ASIA & OCEANIA COMPLETE, US COMPLETE, EU & UK EXPECTED MAY 
• Fulfillment shipping complete! - ASIA & OCEANIA COMPLETE, US COMPLETE, EU & UK EXPECTED MAY 

Almost there!

-ONWARD!!!

TinkerTurf Backers Fulfillment Update
about 2 years ago – Wed, Apr 06, 2022 at 09:23:18 PM

US Backers Please Note

Some guy named Roy is said to be delivering our container to our fulfillment partner today.

We expect this to be processed in and then start fulfillment!! We will update when that happens.

EU/UK Backers Please Note

The UK/EU shipment is aboard the EVER ACT/1183-003E which departed March 31, with arrival in port estimated April 30, and from there around a week for delivery to Spiral Galaxy to process and send to you all. Link here: https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/EVER-ACT-IMO-9893905-MMSI-352978199

TinkerTurf Shipping Updates, AdeptiCon, and More!!!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 07:41:46 PM

SHIPPING UPDATES /  WHERE IS EVERYTHING?

Backer rewards for Asia/Oceania have started fulfillment to backers.  Product for EU/UK backers is on the way to the fulfillment center and we expect to hear more on ETA for those backers soon.

The ship carrying rewards for North America docked at the Port of Los Angeles March 13th. Arriving at port is half the battle; the other half is getting the container offloaded from the ship, loaded onto a truck or train, and sent to the fulfillment center in St Louis. We expect this to take up to 30 days, based on information received from fellow makers as well as from backers of this Kick who are familiar with the freight industry. 

ADEPTICON 2022

Lane and Chris will be attending AdeptiCon 2022 March 23-27. We purchased the booth space in 2019 and shipped our booth and product to the show (and back) in March of 2020. Boy, has a lot happened over these past three years. We're so, so excited to finally be able to attend this event, mingle with fellow enthusiasts, and roll some dice. 

We were hoping to have backer rewards fulfilled and product from the new sets available for sale at the show. Sadly with all the freight delays that's just not going to happen. We will however be showing off production samples and conducting pre-order sales at the show*. We'll also have limited stock from our first Kick available for purchase. If you're attending, stop on by booth 407 and say hello! 

* Pre-orders from the show will ship after we have fulfilled to all backers.

WEBSITE & SHOP UPDATE

All-new assembly instructions are now available on the site. Inspired by LEGO and Ikea, the new instructions show step-by-step assembly and are false-color coded for clarity. 

We also took this opportunity to update the look and feel of the site, most notably with a rebrand of the shop from TinkerTurf (a product line name) to TinkerHouse (the company name). Why? Well, we've been busy tinkering during Covid and have some all-new stuff coming this summer that you will hopefully be very excited about. 

Let us know if you'd like to see something you think would improve the store experience. Just email Chris and let him know ([email protected]) and he'll do his best to incorporate your suggestions.

ROADMAP UPDATE

Manufacturing is complete and we are diligently seeking a feasible freight solution.

Here is the latest roadmap.

• All artwork has been delivered to Panda Manufacturing - COMPLETE
• Blank punch-board samples received - COMPLETE
• Blank punch-board samples reviewed and approved - COMPLETE
• First color samples received - COMPLETE
• First color samples reviewed and approved - COMPLETE
• Mass Production start - COMPLETE
• Full retail sample received - COMPLETE
• Full retail sample reviewed and approved - COMPLETE
• Mass Production complete - COMPLETE
• Outbound freight to our fulfillment partners - OCEANIA COMPLETE, US & EU EXPECTED APRIL
• Fulfillment shipping to you started - OCEANIA STARTED, US & EU EXPECTED APRIL
• Fulfillment shipping complete! - OCEANIA APRIL, US EXPECTED APRIL/MAY, EU EXPECTED APRIL/MAY

Steady on, backers. We're almost to the finish line!

-ONWARD!!!

WE'RE ON A BOAT!
about 2 years ago – Thu, Feb 03, 2022 at 06:58:22 PM

WE'RE ON A BOAT!

Thanks to some extraordinary collaborative effort between Tinker Chris and our fine friends at Greater Than Games, the inventory for backers in North America is in a container, and that container is on a boat bound for the USA. The specific vessel is the "APL LE HAVRE" and you can track it here:

https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/APL-LE-HAVRE-IMO-9461881-MMSI-566407000

The APL LE HAVRE vessel is scheduled to arrive at the Port of Los Angeles on February 21st. Now, we've all seen the news reports about hundreds of ships off the coast of California waiting to be unloaded. Or of a shortage of dockworkers to unload ships, and a shortage of truckers to drive trucks. But let's have a little optimism at this start of the Year of the Tiger! If everything goes well we should be able to receive this freight to our fulfilment center in St. Louis and start fulfilling to North American backers by the beginning of March.

UK/EU and Asia/Oceania backers: our manufacturer says they will be able to start getting that freight sent out after they return from the Chinese New Year holiday. 

Happy New Year! We're on a BOAT!

-ONWARD!

PS: While we all wait, may we suggest a game?