Amiga Kit Stocks Apollo Team Accelerators

[grond]

Originally Posted by Akira

saying "your card is ready" but not currently having one, is confusing and I understand why people would get upset

Actually that is precisely not how it is being handled. If somebody gets asked for payment and there is no card for this person, it is a mistake already. There may be some slight overbooking because of people that never react to the emails but this should not lead to the payment ending up in limbo.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by grond

If somebody gets asked for payment and there is no card for this person, it is a mistake already.

I disagree. As I said with my example with the 1541 Ultimate, I paid well before there was any cartridge available. People don't seem to understand this way of developing hobbyist devices like this. My second 1541U-II, a Plus model, I also paid and had to wait at least 4 months for production to start again and get a unit about half a year later in total. No complaints from me: I GOT the unit and it's fantastic.

It seems to me here that the problem isn't that people pay and then stuff is produced and they don't get it. There is a queue and people's orders get fulfilled in order. There is no "payment in limbo", I have not really heard of a single person who paid and got scammed/got no Vampire. They all eventually get it.

Majsta said in this very thread: "Cards sent to AmigaKit were from first batch so they waited to get them like anyone else". People are assuming that Amigakit skipped lines and got stock before other people in line, which is untrue.

I think it is FINE and understandable to pay beforehand even if there's no current availability of the product. It assures that a new batch gets produced and whenever it is available, no matter when that is, you get it. People are assuming that being asked to pay means that a card is ready to ship to them, when I think it is pretty clear (to me, but maybe the team needs to communicate it better) that payment ASSURES YOU a spot in that queue and puts you on a "getting a card in due turn of the queue for sure" situation.

[Sinphaltimus]

I'm assuming this :

" People are assuming that Amigakit skipped lines and got stock before other people in line, which is untrue."

Is from my post.

I should clarify.... I do not assume Amiga Kit skipped lines. The customer experience here is that there are people like me who paid months ago and are still waiting. And there are people who paid yesterday who will get theirs sooner. That just feels rotten at first and is easily explained away.

I also clarified that I live with this and my frustrations are my own. No issues with Apollo or Amiga Kit, the "experience" of this just felt bad up front. I paid for my spot in line and I paid less than many, I'll live with that without any ill words towards anyone. I do think the channel of communication on individual orders can be improved, but not at the cost of taking away from production time and prolonging the wait.

Just want to be clear from my end.

[wawa]

imho people who paid should have been served before any reseller steps in. but though, maybe it was a minor issue, like the reselle rhad to be granted a round number of items not getting logistics completely run off track, and this might become a reason of delays in serving prepaid items directly.

whatever. putting it apart immediately wont solve anything. i hope the issues will be soon overcome. if not, it needs to be re-considered. we need to give the vendors some bonus time, cause it is never easy to awitch from one model to another.

[ExiE]

Originally Posted by Overflow

And while waiting is never fun, I do think this is a good thing for the future of the project. It will offload the Apollo Team the transaction/packaging/shipping part of the project, and free up time for production and development.
I realise being the one that ends up between two chairs in a transition period is never fun, but on a big picture scale, this change is good for everyone.

Whats good about that? Apollo team have to cut their margin or the price gets higher again, maybe even both. So it looks to me like only winner there is Amiga kit.
Waiting is natural state of every Amigan so I have no problem with that, but I would rather pay all the money to Apollo team...

[wawa]

Originally Posted by ExiE

Waiting is natural state of every Amigan

no. its not..

[amigakit.com]

All packages packed, processed ready for despatch. Thanks to all that ordered from Amiga Kit. Log in to your account history on the web store for the package tracking.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

And there are people who paid yesterday who will get theirs sooner. That just feels rotten at first and is easily explained away.

First of all I wasn't referring to your post specifically, no.

Second, that is only because they bought from a different source.
The people who paid (more) yesterday and will get theirs sooner are the ones that bought from Amiga Kit, not the ones that bought from Apollo Team directly. If you go on eBay and buy a Vampire, you will get it sooner too. You'll pay the price for lack of patience though.

When you bought from Apollo you knew there was a queue and that you will get served whenever there was availability of hardware to do so. Nobody tricked you into thinking that you'd get something at a certain point but you didn't.

I do think the channel of communication on individual orders can be improved, but not at the cost of taking away from production time and prolonging the wait.

I don't know why that would take way from production time, I do agree that perhaps communication could be better, if people are receiving messages that lead them to think there's stock when all that is ready is the Apollo team ready to take your order.

But again I want to remark this is two guys making the bulk of the work here, manufacturing the cards, manning the orders and everything (I don't really understand the process anymore because I thought they had involved a manufacturing company and this is what made the rices rise) and a LOT of slack should be cut for them because it's a shit ton of work. Issues with ordering and communication are bound to happen.

And if people keep badgering about this kind issue publicly, and creating stress for the developers, people will push them out and we'll end up empty-handed. Kipper had already expressed discomfort with the situation and said he'd quit, and we don't want that.

[Sinphaltimus]

Agreed with everything you said. I envision 2 guys with little spare time. Managing emails and communications should be a third person's task. That's all I meant about taking away from production

[Amiga1992]

I understand now, yeah, it would be great if someone could help them out with that side of it all. But they are also each in a different continent so it makes things even more complicated. You'd need someone helping majsta in Europe and someone helping Kipper in North America.

[Marlon_]

Originally Posted by Akira

(I don't really understand the process anymore because I thought they had involved a manufacturing company and this is what made the rices rise)

Yes, the cards are manufactured at board houses now, but they still need to test each card that they work as expected, which means plugging in to an Amiga and run some tests. And as far as I've read, kippa still hand solders the sockets for the V600 as the board houses doesn't do that.

[kolla]

The V600 CPU socket needs manual modifying (filing down and cutting a corner to give space for a resistor on (some of) the A600 mobo) so it is only natural that a board house doesn't do it. This was an issue with my Apollo630 too, I had to modify it to make it fit properly.

[Signman]

For what it is worth, here is my experience.

After being on a list for months like everybody I was finally notified that one was allocated for me and my opportunity to pay is now. Paid right away and got a notice next day that my card had shipped. This was March 20th.

After a few weeks started thinking something wrong as most shipments for me from the UK or Germany don't take longer than that. I was frustrated as to not knowing contact info or tracking number. Somebody told me to go on to Apollo chat and talk to Majsta.

He was right there and told me to be patient as there was difficulties with the current relations in our countries and gave me a tracking number. After a few more weeks I started thinking they may have screwed up order or shipment was lost.

On day 31 it arrived and the mailing date was exactly what I was told.
So for me everything went as well as it could have possibly done and feel I have dealt with honorable people. What else can you ask for.

As far as people getting upset a bit about this it is really not a bad thing in a way.
I wish I had a product that people were beating down the doors wanting to buy and their only negative feeling is not getting it fast enough.

Now as far as policies and customs checks and the like, not liking so much.

[Sinphaltimus]

Write. Lucky you. I got a notice on March 25th paid on March 31st. Never heard anything back since. I guess I'll have to find M in IRC. I've even sent emails asking to be notified with tracking numbers and eta. Crickets.

Lucky you.

[wawa]

Originally Posted by Sinphaltimus

Write. Lucky you. I got a notice on March 25th paid on March 31st. Never heard anything back since. I guess I'll have to find M in IRC. I've even sent emails asking to be notified with tracking numbers and eta. Crickets.

Lucky you.

have you seen this:
http://apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=4726

?

also ive heard from grond on a1k that some mail services are blocking vampire suppliers mails as spam, due to repeated contents, im not sure if it refers to kipper or igor or both.

[Sinphaltimus]

I've not seen that. I'll have to find him on irc I suppose. Our pm him here.

[majsta]

@Sinphaltimus I have replied you on PM as requested.

People I assure you all will be fine, do you remember how much problems we had in the past and we overcome every single one. Remember CE,Picasso, manuals written on German language, packaging problems, distribution outside of Europe... All of those are gone, pls give it little more faith.

[Sinphaltimus]

Originally Posted by majsta

@Sinphaltimus I have replied you on PM as requested.

People I assure you all will be fine, do you remember how much problems we had in the past and we overcome every single one. Remember CE,Picasso, manuals written on German language, packaging problems, distribution outside of Europe... All of those are gone, pls give it little more faith.

Yes indeed, and thank you for that.

[wmsteele]

@Amiga you do realise that the price difference between buying for AmigaKit and direct from the Apollo team is roughly £10

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by wmsteele

@Amiga you do realise that the price difference between buying for AmigaKit and direct from the Apollo team is roughly £10

You meant to reply to me? No I did not realize, but does that make a difference either way?