It's weird that this is the only type of retail business that I am aware of where delays aren't just expected and accepted, they seem more likely than not to occur.
It's only semi a retail business. There are very few outlets for their products, and the majority of sales go through their own web site. Quite unlike the major licensor, Hasbro, who have products in just about any store that sells any
thing. The difference in scale and market-share is staggering.
It all seems very amateurish. Imagine buying a car and being told "not this month, manufacturing issues, maybe next quarter!" for months on end. Would anyone stand for it?
Keeping the analogy up, you're expecting GM levels of product delivery from something like, say,
Hawk Cars.
Has it always been like this? Nobody told me when I got into this "hobby" that every purchase would be a battle (I don't really consider a series of attempts to pay money to companies for items a hobby, but that's another topic). It's ridiculous, it's tiring, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Sorry for the rant, but it's been on my mind as of late.
No, it hasn't always been like this. Their other properties, Star Trek and BSG (old and new), have much smaller markets and much more lax lincensors to answer to. They never even
imagined the demand for high-end wearable costume pieces for Star Wars would be so high. They honestly figured casual costumers would just go with Rubies and hardcore collectors would go with eFX (a whole other kettle of fish), while the track record of Star Wars costumers was to go with the various fan makers or do it themselves.
Their old business model of shopping a planned product to gauge interest and then build to suit demand had worked just fine. Star Wars customers have proven to be a lot more demanding (i.e., not getting that the example/prototype on display is not an indicator that the finished item is sitting in their warehouse in mass quantity waiting to ship), and the process of research and fabrication and packaging has bogged down far beyond their prior experiences, due to how nitpicky LFL and Disney are. They've had a harsh on-the-fly learning curve over the last five years. They've stopped doing pre-sales to gauge interest, and I imagine it won't be long before they stop doing advance orders either altogether (not even having the stuff actually on boats from China is any guarantee of the quality of what will turn up on American shores) or, like, the instant they've done a final QA check for a few days while stuff is packaged up for shipping.
I have had issues with MonCal/FAC, with SGB, with RS, with IOA, with CROWPROPS, etc. And I say that being friends with most of them. About the only fan maker who has been lucky enough to not have something massively groove-interrupting happen has been KW. For all of those, and ANOVOS, I have usually known the gist of what's been going on. Cal's, Will's, and Gio's real-life issues I've been too aware of, and can easily and readily forgive (and I really miss Will). Currently, I'm waiting/hoping to hear back from Jimmiroquai here, or on Facebook, or via e-mail on a matter of some armor pieces... since mid-September. And that's just to get a price so I can send him money.
With ANOVOS, I was fine with the tiered pre-sales. I do really like the payment plan option. I can stretch things out while I wait for the ready-to-ship announcement, and actually pay off the balance once the thing is actually ready to go. But I'm well used to, over the past decade and a half, sending off money and I'll get the thing anywhere from next week to years later. I got my first two pairs of boots from Gio in about two weeks. He ran into multiple issues around the time his Pit Crews replicas went live, and those turned up -- no shipping notice -- two years later, almost to the day. Given what I've seen of the QA issues and the LFL/Disney safety/approval issues ANOVOS has been dealing with, I
have to take a Galdalfian approach to what I order from them: Expect it... when I see it. Meanwhile, no issues or complaints at all with their Star Trek or BSG stuff.
--Jonah
