ANOVOS issues (ANOVOS ONLY discussion)

yeah, Anovos obviously hired slave labor and kicked back. They are clearly starting over. Myself, I used to work at LFL and know people at Disney. This letter is going to some big wigs tonight - and to home addresses (not included here)


Christopher Holm
c/o Lucasfilm Licensing
1110 Gorgas Ave., San Francisco, CA
94129


James Pitaro, Chairman - Disney Consumer Products
c/o Disney Interactive
500 South Buena Vista
Burbank, CA
91521


Dan Brooks
c/o Lucasfilm
1110 Gorgas Ave., San Francisco, CA
94129






I ask that someone at Lucasfilm and Disney both, step in to clean up the proceedings at Anovos costuming.
It is a disaster.
On the heels of Force Awakens I threw down three thousand ****** dollars in March of 2016 to purchase a Kylo Res costume, the prototype of which I saw in person, complete and on display at “Wondercon” in Los Angeles where I purchased it.
Anovos, that day, gave me an estimate of Summer 2016 delivery which was not fulfilled. Obviously in this culture and with regard to costumes Halloween is something of a central event but I let it go with all of the “understanding” that was requested.
Now, after having delivery estimates already delayed twice, I was told a week ago that my purchase was “scheduled to be delivered by the end of the day Sep. 21” only to be notified today that Anovos now “estimates” that it will be delivered between January and March - two full years and two Halloweens after having purchased it.
Things like this are supposed to be fun. They are unnecessary purchases. They are only supposed to be fun. Fun, connecting with family and friends over the characters YOU own, is the only thing being purchased in a product that is otherwise useless. I would consider getting a refund but for the confidence I have always had in any Disney follow through which compelled me with every degree of comfort and assurance to get the stupid additional lightsaber for 200 bucks, needed footwear for 200 bucks, stupid voice changer for 100 bucks, etc., all of which I will have to eat if I back out.
Please reconsider the vetting process at Lucasfilm and Disney which you currently use in assessing a request from anyone in application of a license to sell your copyrighted material. It seems to me that if anyone employed by or associated with Anovos enjoys this holiday season with any kind of a smile at all over perceived personal, family, or financial progress then Lucasfilm and Disney both are not dong their jobs with regard to the integrity of their brand.
Additionally, please legally confine Anovos to no choice other than the fulfillment of unmitigated satisfaction with regard to this product.
 
karmajay said:
Anovos is not perfect but I also have 5 Anovos helmets since TFA launched. To call it a disaster is a bit of hyperbole. Decide with your wallet, if the delays aren't acceptable to you request a refund and move on. At least with Anovos you WILL get a refund.
Click to expand...

I agree. There have been lots of delays, but All my orders have arrived eventually (so far) and the quality has been excellent. Anyone who can't deal with that should just stay away.
 
Strongbow said:
I agree. There have been lots of delays, but All my orders have arrived eventually (so far) and the quality has been excellent. Anyone who can't deal with that should just stay away.
Click to expand...

Thank you guys for responding. I appreciate the encouragement but what folks don't see is that their customer service (who I contacted only twice this summer - have not been hounding) reassured myself and others that this product was indeed, according to the estimate, scheduled to ship by the end of the day on Sept. 21st and that we should expect tracking information very soon. I would be nowhere near as upset if they were truthful and both trusted their customers and informed their customer service. Anovos uses their customer service to hide from us. That is what has me and others.
 
Who says it wasn't the truth at the time?

The rep on the phone could have been told the items were shipped and were going to be in the wharehose Sept 4th. Then, they get them Sep 4th and during quality inspection (Anovos' own or LFL's) found issues with it to the point they could not go out. That info might not have been available until right around the 20th. Once they found out, they updated things accordingly.

I'm not saying that happened, i'm saying it could have.

People here seem to be under the impression that everything is under Anovos' control. It isn't. They can hire Company X to make Product X, but the can't make them do it 'right the first time', can't make them come in at a certain time, etc. For what they're ordering they're on the small potatoes side of things. If (pulling a name out of thin air here) Hasbro calls the same shop and wants 100k figures, for example, Anovos is likely getting bumped.

I'm sort of in your boat. I'm still waiting on the Tie Pilot Wingman helmet. It went on sale originally 12/14. I've gotten other things, however. I get it, though, after 3 years I think a bit of an apology is in order. I understand the process however. I don't necessarily like it, but I get it. Same thing applies at my office really. If i'm working a small project and a major one comes in, the little guy is gonna take a hit. It's the way of big business.
 
darthjones2 said:
Thank you guys for responding. I appreciate the encouragement but what folks don't see is that their customer service (who I contacted only twice this summer - have not been hounding) reassured myself and others that this product was indeed, according to the estimate, scheduled to ship by the end of the day on Sept. 21st and that we should expect tracking information very soon. I would be nowhere near as upset if they were truthful and both trusted their customers and informed their customer service. Anovos uses their customer service to hide from us. That is what has me and others.
Click to expand...

I've been in hobbies where I depend on fan-produced items for a very long time. AS such, I've gotten quite used to delays. Now I agree that as a business they need to do better at estimating delivery dates and managing their suppliers. I have to manage suppliers and estimate delivery dates in my day job, and if I missed as often and as badly as Anovos does, I'd get a stern talking to. And as a customer, you can express that frustration and tell the company that you'll take your dollars elsewhere. In some cases, you may want the item enough that you are not quite so sensitive to delivery dates. I tend to not be. When I order from items in this hobby, I pretty much settle in for a long wait. I don't believe promised delivery dates and I don't get worked up over them. I find that to be a much lower stress approach to this. If the wait exceeds my patience, then I request a refund and move on. I don;t lose my temper. I let them know the consequence of their failures and move on. It's just not worth an ulcer. :)
 
Hey, Strongbow and cboath! You make excellent points. Truly. The weird thing is that, in almost no time at all you each wrote the kind of simple, acknowledging, and respectful sort of message that Anovos should be able to better convey at more regular intervals through an informed customer service dept. It is easy. :)
 
If you think Anovos is bad, you should have dealt with Efx, they don't acknowledge anything and they have had people who purchased scout trooper helmets in 2014.
Anovos isn't perfect, but I believe the effort is there. There is also just a lot of new people to this collecting hobby that have the expectations that these are regular retail companies and that everything should be quick and perfect. I have bought items from Anovos and RS Propmasters, nothing was ever on time, but i knew it would get to me eventually.
 
Thank you too, leviticus. I think I would be totally fine - truly - if what customer service says reflects what is actually going on. Truly. I don't mind the wait - it is a GOOD thing if Anovos rejects something because of amazing quality control. They HAVE TO TRUST though that, if they are open about this that we will be supportive, ON THEIR SIDE (Anovos, you reading this?), and glad to wait for any company who is watching out for their customers so aggressively.

Thanks again cboath, Strongbow, and leviticus for your time and thoughts. :)
 
darthjones2 said:
Hey, Strongbow and cboath! You make excellent points. Truly. The weird thing is that, in almost no time at all you each wrote the kind of simple, acknowledging, and respectful sort of message that Anovos should be able to better convey at more regular intervals through an informed customer service dept. It is easy. :)
Click to expand...

There's one more bit, too.

I was talking to someone who said Disney, moreso than LFL, limit what their vendors are allowed to say to the public. They can say it's been delayed, but they're not so much allowed to throw vendors under the bus so to speak.

I get that right now especially it would be nice to hear them say..."We here you and we're sorry. Things have gotten delayed and it's frustrating to us and we're doing everything we can to get this out to you as soon as possible. Problem is, after 2-3 it basically is a form letter and then people get offended that they're getting a form letter.

One of the owners of Anovos used to be fairly visible here and dealing with customers as best he could not being in CS. However, i think the powers that be might have put the kibosh on that.
 
The other matter is that ANOVOS' old business model -- that served them well for years -- was to do pre-sales to gauge interest in a product and then make quantity to demand. They had much more control over production and much more say over what was "good enough to go out the door". Getting the Star Wars license has been a very mixed thing for them. On the one hand "woo, we get to do Star Wars stuff!"... On the other hand, having to deal with Chinese factories on a scale and timeline they hadn't previously, being answerable and subordinate to much more hands-on rights-holders who vetoed test items they received, packaging they'd done, etc.

That, plus customers expecting that when they ordered something it would ship the next day, has seen them shift their later items to a "guessing how many people will want one and not saying anything until it's almost ready to go" approach. There have still been unexpected issues, but more and more of their newer items are hitting with some reliability. Unfortunately a lot of their earliest offerings have been most hampered by the delays -- including the Kylo Ren full ensemble...

You do have options. There are always options. They have your order, and they will fulfill it -- at some point. You can get a Hasbro Black Series helmet and do the fairly minimal modding needed to get it pretty much film accurate. Folks have researched the fabrics and techniques. It sounds like you have the lightsaber and boots. I don't know how much you look like Adam Driver, but you could even skip the helmet and go as unmasked Kylo. And when the ANOVOS ensemble arrives, pick one to distress or do as an alternate version of Kylo's costume from some scene or event that is distinct from the other.

I've pre-ordered the Standard Line First Order armor kit and helmet. It comes with the underbelt and joint gaskets. One has to get blasters and boots on their own. There will be a soft-good pack at some point that has the bodysuit, gloves, and neckseal. So rather than wait, I've sourced those elsewhere. If ANOVOS' versions are noticeably better whenever they're available, I might upgrade to them. But one thing I've learned over and over again in the thirty years I've been actively costuming is that -- whether it's something you're making yourself or something you're getting from elsewhere -- stuff is going to happen. Obstacles. Delays. Deaths. Illnesses. Unplanned moves. Job losses. You have to approach this as relaxed and "enh, it'll happen when it happens" as possible, or you'll go mad or have a stroke.

All my costumes from my first decade of activity are gone. I outgrew them. I topped out at 6'1" by the end of middle school, so I thought I was good. Didn't realize my ribcage would expand to that degree or that my shoulders would widen so much in my 20s. Wool Starfleet uniforms, gone because I couldn't cram my shoulders into them any more, and I hadn't left allowances for letting them out if I grew. Live and learn. My first "modern" costume is my Royal Guard, started around '01. It's... wearable? But I still have a lot of refining and upgrading to do. I need to remake the tip of the pike. I need to better secure the red tint over the outside of the smoked visor. I need to get the right fabric and make a new cape. I need to make more accurate inner robes. I need to finish the jumpsuit and armor all of that needs to be fitted over. I need to finish my good suede opera gloves... I've been waiting sixteen years to get it done to my satisfaction, and counting. So I don't get too fussed at a year or three for something to come through, even when there's poor communication.

--Jonah
 
Hello, Jonah! Again, those are all great points and great thoughts. I myself have been doing costumes for about as long as yourself and am well-acquainted with delays and wait times/ the unforeseen, etc. I think I have morphed through several Vader costumes at this point and have been modifying Indiana Jones over the years until it was spot on. My Vader too is screen accurate now.

When I ordered the Kylo outfit I felt it was good to do given that I no longer have the time to do costumes. Basically spending money instead of time. If Anovos had said, when I bought it, that I could very easily not have it for the next 2 Halloweens I would still consider having purchased it. I may not have too. But on the day I purchased it in March of 2016 I was told there was a good chance I would have it by Halloween. I never bothered them, simply waited, and had no problem with them missing Oct. 2016. I still did not bug them after that but what drives me nuts is that their "shipping calendar" may as well not exist. It does not correlate at all with anything. And that is disconcerting. Anovos has proven that the calendar is nothing more than shipping "hopes" and on THEIR end.

If the wait is too long they should be giving interim updates to their customer service employees so that folks do not feel like they are being kept in the dark. I emailed them only twice this summer and asked what the chances were of getting this thing by Oct. 2017 and got back "it is still scheduled to ship this summer and you will be getting tracking information shortly!" from customer service.

Which means, if they are as professional as they want us to believe, that I can safely start planning for some Star Wars plans this Halloween.

Turns out customer service was either in the dark or told to mislead.

Notice I am not talking about the wait here - I am talking about them saying one thing and doing another. I DO want Anovos to deliver a product that is truly perfect and durable. And I sympathize with their frustrations. Truly. They should just tell us - it would build my confidence in them instead of corrode it.

But I agree - the lesson is to look at the product and go, "wow, cool...it would be cool to own that one day in the unspecified future. Make sure not to get excited or anticipate. Make sure not to plan for anything. Stop caring either way. Forget that you bought it. Just like the quiet idea that yourself or someone at your address will get a very well made product of some kind some time in the future."

That is my current approach.

As for this year, Anovos sent the head and I have great boots and saber. I will wear them with my Sith bathrobe!




Inquisitor Peregrinus said:
The other matter is that ANOVOS' old business model -- that served them well for years -- was to do pre-sales to gauge interest in a product and then make quantity to demand. They had much more control over production and much more say over what was "good enough to go out the door". Getting the Star Wars license has been a very mixed thing for them. On the one hand "woo, we get to do Star Wars stuff!"... On the other hand, having to deal with Chinese factories on a scale and timeline they hadn't previously, being answerable and subordinate to much more hands-on rights-holders who vetoed test items they received, packaging they'd done, etc.

That, plus customers expecting that when they ordered something it would ship the next day, has seen them shift their later items to a "guessing how many people will want one and not saying anything until it's almost ready to go" approach. There have still been unexpected issues, but more and more of their newer items are hitting with some reliability. Unfortunately a lot of their earliest offerings have been most hampered by the delays -- including the Kylo Ren full ensemble...

You do have options. There are always options. They have your order, and they will fulfill it -- at some point. You can get a Hasbro Black Series helmet and do the fairly minimal modding needed to get it pretty much film accurate. Folks have researched the fabrics and techniques. It sounds like you have the lightsaber and boots. I don't know how much you look like Adam Driver, but you could even skip the helmet and go as unmasked Kylo. And when the ANOVOS ensemble arrives, pick one to distress or do as an alternate version of Kylo's costume from some scene or event that is distinct from the other.

I've pre-ordered the Standard Line First Order armor kit and helmet. It comes with the underbelt and joint gaskets. One has to get blasters and boots on their own. There will be a soft-good pack at some point that has the bodysuit, gloves, and neckseal. So rather than wait, I've sourced those elsewhere. If ANOVOS' versions are noticeably better whenever they're available, I might upgrade to them. But one thing I've learned over and over again in the thirty years I've been actively costuming is that -- whether it's something you're making yourself or something you're getting from elsewhere -- stuff is going to happen. Obstacles. Delays. Deaths. Illnesses. Unplanned moves. Job losses. You have to approach this as relaxed and "enh, it'll happen when it happens" as possible, or you'll go mad or have a stroke.

All my costumes from my first decade of activity are gone. I outgrew them. I topped out at 6'1" by the end of middle school, so I thought I was good. Didn't realize my ribcage would expand to that degree or that my shoulders would widen so much in my 20s. Wool Starfleet uniforms, gone because I couldn't cram my shoulders into them any more, and I hadn't left allowances for letting them out if I grew. Live and learn. My first "modern" costume is my Royal Guard, started around '01. It's... wearable? But I still have a lot of refining and upgrading to do. I need to remake the tip of the pike. I need to better secure the red tint over the outside of the smoked visor. I need to get the right fabric and make a new cape. I need to make more accurate inner robes. I need to finish the jumpsuit and armor all of that needs to be fitted over. I need to finish my good suede opera gloves... I've been waiting sixteen years to get it done to my satisfaction, and counting. So I don't get too fussed at a year or three for something to come through, even when there's poor communication.

--Jonah
Click to expand...
 
darthjones2 said:
When I ordered the Kylo outfit I felt it was good to do given that I no longer have the time to do costumes. Basically spending money instead of time. If Anovos had said, when I bought it, that I could very easily not have it for the next 2 Halloweens I would still consider having purchased it. I may not have too. But on the day I purchased it in March of 2016 I was told there was a good chance I would have it by Halloween. I never bothered them, simply waited, and had no problem with them missing Oct. 2016. I still did not bug them after that but what drives me nuts is that their "shipping calendar" may as well not exist. It does not correlate at all with anything. And that is disconcerting. Anovos has proven that the calendar is nothing more than shipping "hopes" and on THEIR end.

If the wait is too long they should be giving interim updates to their customer service employees so that folks do not feel like they are being kept in the dark. I emailed them only twice this summer and asked what the chances were of getting this thing by Oct. 2017 and got back "it is still scheduled to ship this summer and you will be getting tracking information shortly!" from customer service.

Which means, if they are as professional as they want us to believe, that I can safely start planning for some Star Wars plans this Halloween.

Turns out customer service was either in the dark or told to mislead.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the biggest failing I've noticed. They hadn't realized when initially offering those products that they'd run into so many unexpected delays. I know I've always hated giving "negative reports" (letting someone know something wasn't done yet). I'd always rather spend that time and energy working on the whatever. But I do agree even a blanket "okay, this process is going to take longer than we expected. Issues we hadn't had to deal with in the past. For all the things offered prior to [whatever date], expect them... when you see them" would have helped the customers know even in vague terms what was going on.

But I agree - the lesson is to look at the product and go, "wow, cool...it would be cool to own that one day in the unspecified future. Make sure not to get excited or anticipate. Make sure not to plan for anything. Stop caring either way. Forget that you bought it. Just like the quiet idea that yourself or someone at your address will get a very well made product of some kind some time in the future."

That is my current approach.
Click to expand...

*lol* I do my best to do the buy-it-and-forget approach. Honestly, even if everything is prompt and no issues, I miss when I was a kid and the UPS truck rumbling up the driveway meant a present for me.

As for this year, Anovos sent the head and I have great boots and saber. I will wear them with my Sith bathrobe!
Click to expand...

Casual Friday Kylo? Answering-the-door-in-his-skivvies Kylo? I like it. :)

--Jonah
 
Does anyone have an idea on how long it takes for anovos to get items back in stock? I was going to order a Vader cape last week and the website indicated that they had them in stock ( low stock notification on the tabbard/robe ) a day later EVERY vader item that had been in stock had the " interest list available" notification next to it.
 
Darctic said:
Does anyone have an idea on how long it takes for anovos to get items back in stock? I was going to order a Vader cape last week and the website indicated that they had them in stock ( low stock notification on the tabbard/robe ) a day later EVERY vader item that had been in stock had the " interest list available" notification next to it.
Click to expand...

No one anywhere has that information. The only suggestion I have is to ask Customer Service but I'd say there is no way at all you'll get that by Halloween if that was your intention.
 
I too, have about 5 Anovos helmets and have never complained. I'm kind of disappointed though because I recently received my Phasma helmet and it has all these weird scratches I've never seen before. I reached out to the place I bought it and they said to contact Anovos, and when I contacted them, they said I had to go through my seller. I just want to know if this is normal or if I should push for a replacement.

So yours has them all too? You can see them all over here.

LhVibZtl.jpg


Compared to the image Anovos used.

x_anotfahelmet004_a-700x700.jpg
 
Guys, those so called scratches are NOT scratches. They look more like hairline cracks if you look closely. I received my Phasma helmet and it has those. I found out its actually issues with the clear coat they applied to the chrome paint. The clear coat started "cracking" due to some defect in the paint application after leaving the factory from what I can deduce and also read in facebook. Some are saying it is due to humidity or temperature during transit that caused the cracking. I have seen returned my helmet to the local retailer I purchased from to get an exchange.

- - - Updated - - -

And like Verbal21's Phasma helmet, you will notice the hairline cracks is more noticeable on the bottom part (duck bill??) of the helmet.
 

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