Ive always been suspicious about the whole “change in manufacturer” excuse.
The fact that they spent the money on the prototype and was able to showcase them at cons, means they thought they were pretty much good to go. If not, then why advertise.
No manufacturer would take the time to cad, tool, and build a finished product without understanding the means to mass produce. Time, labor, raw materials, machinery usage, extended burden, and dunnage.
More like, Anovos didn’t do a request for quote. Once the prototype was built, it’ll cost this amount of money to create a run of whatever. The amount of money Anovos doesn’t have.
So....their stalling.
Just my humble opinion.
That could very well be the case, but if so, where did all the money collected from pre-orders go?
From what I've heard, the change in manufacturer was for soft goods, not hardware. I would guess that the prototypes they show off at cons are made domestically. Among other things, there were problems with the Solo TFA leather jacket and also the Star Lord jacket. With the latter, the prototype was made with pleather, but they have allegedly (=not officially confirmed, but implied as much at cons and in messages) switched to real leather when they changed manufacturer.
You
can get completely screwed by factories in low-cost countries because there is very little recourse or liability. The last time I had a couple suits made in Thailand, they had to redo the jackets and vests from scratch
several times because they didn't follow my very clear instructions. I asked them to exactly duplicate a vintage 1930s suit, but they basically completely ignored everything I specified and made one using a rejected 1980s pattern. It was
beyond horrible... and they made some unbelievable patterning mistakes! This was a well-known (though low budget) tailoring house , and they DID eventually deliver (several months late) a couple
very nice suits, most likely because they did have a sense of pride, had a name to protect and I mentioned wanting to show off the finished goods on a well-known niche fashion website (fedoralounge). But they could just as easily have stopped answering my messages and I would have been left without anything.
When the Dredd costume group on Facebook came together for making leather suits and armor, it probably took an entire year of back-and-forth before the suits were even close to acceptable. And even when the shop finally started making them, there were serious problems with the finished items. (For example, I got an armor vest where all the plates were
upside-down!)
Remember when HCG finally shipped the oft-delayed Aliens Pulse Rifles and most of the stock had drooping barrels? They probably lost quite a bit on those, and might've gone under if they didn't already have a buffer to cover it and if fans hadn't found workarounds to fix it.
If they can get away with it, many low-cost factories will not prioritize quality. I'm guessing Anovos put in a large order based on initial good impressions, then had to pull out when the results turned out to be disastrous, and lost the investment. Pursuing a case against a small outfit in a place like China or Pakistan when you're a 'small' company in the US or Europe is probably a lost cause. A couple setbacks like that, perhaps due to inexperience, and you'll be struggling to deliver.
Whatever the case, I have a hard time believing they went into it with the intent of just making a quick buck or screwing over the fans. These guys were already well-known in prop circles and initially it went pretty well. As has been suggested by others, they probably took on too much at one point, had one (or several) major setbacks and are simply struggling to recover.
I'm still hoping they'll get there eventually. Am I mad about the delays and lack of open communication? Hell, yes. I make that known to them, politely, semi-regularly. And I don't really cancel, because I've waited this long... I might as well wait a
little longer, even if I'm taking a chance on losing quite a lot of money. But simply raging against them is not going to get the items delivered faster and may in fact do the opposite.
For those of you going to Star Wars Celebration and the various cons in the US... it would be very a very generous and helpful thing for the community if you stopped by the Anovos booth and spoke to them (politely) in person about all this and reported back to us here what they said. (I'd certainly do it if I had the opportunity, but they don't ever come over to this side of the pond.)
