Kids on Bikes DISCORD Channel!
over 5 years ago – Tue, Nov 06, 2018 at 01:35:51 AM

Hey Kids!

We've gotten a lot of feedback that people would like somewhere 'non-facebook' to talk to other fans of Kids on Bikes, share their campaigns, and discuss rules!

As a result, we've made a DISCORD Channel for Kids on Bikes, and we'd like to invite you to join us!

 https://discord.gg/etcS4r9

See you all on the Internet!

The Light at the End of the Tunnel - Shipping
over 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 12:47:41 AM

Hey Kids,

So for our remaining EU/CA/INTL backers who have been reaching out via email. We've received your orders and are processing them. There have been some insufficient stock issues at the EU warehouse that we are quickly getting the product to in order to fulfill. But at this stage, 97% of the project has been completed.

If you have an email out with support, try not to create new ones, just follow up on the same thread as it can be difficult to track if people send multiple emails. We are receiving them and responding as quickly as we can.

Thank you again, to everyone for your positive words, and patient personalities. 

The Helpful Hunters Support Team.

The State of Fulfillment!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 12:41:40 AM

Hey Kids!

We've been doing our best to reply to individual comments and requests for tracking/status in a timely manner. Here is an update on the status of the orders. 

US - All orders (including backpacks) Have been shipped.

It seems many (but not all) backers with backpack orders did not receive a Deluxe Book in their shipments. We've done our best to reship books to those folks. But let us know if you're missing a book!

EU/CA - All orders have been shipped, mostly...

We've been hearing several issues from EU/CA backers about items not arriving. Here is a breakdown of what happened:

- We sent in the shipping list on 9.23.18.
- After hearing several issues - investigated the files that were sent to the warehouse vs a fresh export from backerkit.
- We discovered a large discrepancy of backers that were not on the original list sent on 9.23.
- Why can't we just email the backers who weren't on the original list you may ask? Well, we tried to find those specific folks in the data, and it's just not clear who's orders were sent, and who's weren't. Long story short. The data exports for both files are organized in a way that we cannot pick apart the SPECIFIC backers between the two files in the list of 3000 orders. If you haven't received your book by now, please contact us at [email protected] and we'll look into your order specifically (if we aren't already).

As a result, we've been doing our best to address issues as they've been coming up, either via email or comments on the page. We don't really have a 'one shot fix' solution to make up the discrepancies, so we're just trying to handle people who are saying they didn't get their book. On top of that, we haven't been getting a timely enough response from the EU/CA warehouse for reships to accommodate the (with good reason) upset backers - some orders we've even resent from the US, occurring VATS - which is the thing we were trying to avoid by doing all of this in the first place!

It also doesn't help that CA is dealing with a postal strike at the moment.

AU/JP/East Asia - Orders were sent out today.

The boat has arrived, but because of the issues above with CA/EU - we've been checking/double checking to make sure everything is correct. We sent the order file in last night and confirmed at 6:30am PT that it was received and being processed. (to the 2 people who ordered backpacks, we'll ship them separately from the US).

Needless to say, shipping on this project hasn't been kind to us.

TLDR (I don't care about your problems! Where is my book!?):  

If you haven't received your order by now AND are in CA/EU, AND we don't have an email out with you individually, please email [email protected] and we'll do our best to get you your product ASAP.

Final Thoughts

I am sure this update is going to come with a wave of comments about how terribly we are at our jobs/why didn't we see this coming/how irresponsible we are. We get it, it sucks when you put your money to something and all you get is a bunch of 'why it isn't in yet' when all you want is your stuff. 

One of the reasons we are on Kickstarter is because we are a small (but growing!) company. At the end of the day, we are still a pretty small team, and most of the fulfillment has been handled by 2 people. However, we hate that for many of you this has been a difficult Kickstarter - some going so far as to say they'll never back anything from us ever again. That sucks. But we get it.

This project has made us realize we need to make some big changes if we want to grow and continue to do projects that don't result in issues like what we experienced on this project.

Some of those changes are:

- Ship ALL products directly from the plant to any overseas warehouses. Not to the US first.
- Deliver all print files so that product ships out at the same time, in the same container.
- Ask pricing for Tracking from warehouses, and bake that into the S&H costs.
- Hire a part-time Customer Service staff to handle ALL issues/requests as Kickstarters are going into delivery.
- Double/triple/quadruple check backer export files before they go out, even if it means doing the work over again.

No matter what, at the end of the day - we really appreciate ALL OF YOU, that took the time to support this project and bring Kids on Bikes into the world. 

Seeing things like photos of peoples games and hearing stories on the forums and community groups out there (did we mention there is an official Kids on Bikes PODCAST? or that Patrick Rothfuss is playing Kids on Bikes with ONE SHOT RPG?) has really warmed our hearts and makes our team smile.

We have lots of plans for Kids On Bikes in the future, and we hope you'll stay with us for the adventures to come.

OFF TO THE NEXT ADVENTURE!

Confirmation of Shipping - CA/UK/US
over 5 years ago – Wed, Sep 12, 2018 at 01:30:25 AM

Hey Backers!

I know as we are getting very close to the final delivery of the project. Everyone is very anxious. Experience in this project has told us that we shouldn't post updates with any guesses/speculations. So here are the facts.

US: We've confirmed our entire list of 741 orders were mailed on 9/6 Thursday from Savannah, GA - this should be the rest of the orders - including backpacks. Please give them until the beginning of next week top arrive, as many of them are shipping Media Mail. 

CA: We've confirmed our entire list of 96 orders has been shipped. Many have already started arriving. We would also give it a week, especially if you are in more rural areas. 

EU/UK: We're waiting on confirmation from the fulfillment house that all have been shipped. But last we heard from the Renegade Game team, shipments started going out 9/6. Meaning that they should be arriving any day now. Again, depending on your distance from the UK - it may take a week for everything to arrive on time.

For EU/UK - we'll post another update once we've confirmed ALL have been shipped.

AU: Boat is still scheduled to arrive next Friday. Once they're in, we'll be posting another update

INTL Backpack Orders - For this KS exclusive, we'll be shipping them separately- via Savannah GA. So they may come separately from your order if you are outside the US.

Thanks again so much for the passionate responses! For those of you who have reached out with delight of your received products. THANK YOU!

Shipping Update #2 - thoughts and feedback
over 5 years ago – Wed, Aug 29, 2018 at 01:51:24 AM

Hey Kids.

Time for another shipping update! We've previously given you 'just the facts', but now we'll go into a bit more detail.

US - Arriving at Warehouse today. They'll need to process the stock in the warehouse, then it takes about 48 hours for all the orders to go out.

EU - After yet more delays with the carrier, we've switched companies and have asked them to be air-shipped instead. As of an email yesterday, it should leave today - and arrive within 2-3 days. The EU warehouse already has your order sheets so they should process them within 48 hours upon processing. 

CA - We've emailed several times concerning the VATS issues and we've been told it's resolved. We haven't heard back since we sent our last update however 12 days ago, most recently we've emailed Friday and called again today. The stock is no longer in our warehouse, so we are at the mercy of the trucks crossing the border at the moment. We'll let you know as soon as they contact us. If they don't by the end of the week, we'll reship the stock from our main warehouse using a new carrier and file a claim/grievance with the company.

AU - Late last week we've been informed that the stock is still at the freight forwarding center. Cost wise, we can only boat freight it, but the boat doesn't leave until it's full (we sadly cannot fill a boat with Kids on Bikes), they have only been able to give us estimates until then. However, as of an email this morning - we're being told it will debark from California to AU 9/1 which gives it an arrival time of 9/22ish.

Some thoughts on feedback and future projects.

We originally wanted to do several warehouses internationally to keep our backers postage/handling low - to be more 'internationally' friendly and bypass the dreaded "VATS". However, just based on feedback from the comments, we are reconsidering our process for the next campaign.

After this project was Kickstartered, we partnered with Renegade Game Studios - who have been helping us through this process. They have been very kind and diligent in trying to get all the project delivered with us - and working through all the delays. 

What we've learned - if you're interested.

I will say, no matter what, we are grateful for this process. This campaign has shown us what we need to focus on to help better smooth our system of delivery. We've always printed overseas, but the (obvious now) answer is to ship directly to our partnering warehouses overseas rather than route them through our main warehouse in the US. Either that or just collect the postage/handling from backers, based on our US warehouse and fulfill internationally all from one place (which is what we've done in the past).

Thank you again for your continued patience, the end is near.