The RPM is necessary at this time for address changes. We do have almost all pledges locked in, but do still have about 100 people that, for reasons unknown to us, have not locked in their pledge.
Even if they never allocate their pledge to any specific rewards, we still need the RPM to get address data*.
*this assumes that they pledged a given level and an exact dollar amount to match, so it's obvious what their reward is (like Selected Vampire, pledge $100).
and you are STILL letting people place new pledges/orders, why?
We were open up front about making Bones to be a sale product that we wanted to be able to sell to retailers for years to come, and not just a "get it on KS or never see it again". Our opening video mentions us wanting to put this product in stores. I've said repeatedly that these will ship to Kickstarter Backers, and after that to retailers and distributors for ongoing sale. (Anecdote time! I am aware of one person who *demanded* a refund and that we withdraw his pledge 3 days after the project closed, because he learned after the drive that these would be available for retail sale after the KS was over, and he felt "cheated and lied to" because he thought he thought he was "buying an exclusive, limited edition, collectible set of figures". Not making this up.) And now, you seem confused about the fact that we're still selling these sets. I'm sorry if we were unclear.
I mean someone brand new can come in and type in a new e-mail address and have access to everything having to do with placing a new order, at a small increase albeit, but still how long is this going to be up, is it simply just a pre-order tool now?
New orders will have no affect on our ability to deliver the current goal, although it might lead to us placing a second order with a later delivery time for latecomers (that is, you will get yours in March, but people who sign up after we have sold out of our initial order might wait another 2-3 months)*. The largest anticipated potential delay that we might see now is Customs, since we do not control their processing time, and have found it to be as variable as 3-8 weeks. a 5 week variance is huge, and a little hard to plan around.
As for when we'll stop accepting *new* pledges, I don't have an answer. But we did need everybody's order to be finalized, and now we're ridiculously close (still right about 100 to go) and that's close enough to have already delivered final numbers for the first order (about 3 days after the last update begging for more pledges to lock in - we dropped from about 1,000 people missing pledges to just over 200 in that 3 day period). Until we have 100% of backers completed, we cannot remove the ability to log in and lock in your pledge. It might even happen that the RPM might not be allowed to be taken down, because of it's utility as an address manager.
I'm told that production in China is moving along very well, and we have asked them to please take pictures of the boxes and boxes of minis that have already been finished. There's over 4.7 MILLION miniatures that were locked in, and over the just about 300 figures we're making, we are getting over 5.5 MILLION figures from China. We're overbuying, so that we have figures to sell to your store, to their distributor, on our website, at conventions, and for people who might order this bundle while it's available.
I'm not trying to sound defensive or aggressive, but I'm not quite sure whether you're simply asking a question, or are upset that yes, at this time the RPM would allow a new sign up to get the Vampire set for a 50% markup, and that I do not have a date when that ability will go away.
I guess I'm just a little dissapointed in being misled into "locking in the order" asap and that these prices would only be available for a short period, when in fact you are using the Pledge manager now as a tool for pre-ording.
Direct quotes from your updates -
The RPM will be live for approximately 30 days, so you don't have to worry that you may have missed it and it went up and down before you had a chance to use it.
Thank you all for your support and patience!
the
pledge manager will only be
active for placing your final reward selections for about
10 days. You will be able to
change your shipping address at any time, but you will have to lock in your order within 10 days. We need to get our final numbers as rapidly as possible so we can get everything finalized by next March like we planned. (<-----this was over a MONTH ago!)
---------------------------------------------
I mean C'mon man first you are telling people to lock in orders because they will only have a month, then you are stating in BOLD, YOU WILL ONLY HAVE ABOUT 10 DAYS!
Now it's almost like you are lauging at those who took you serious because you are allowing the RPM to stay up and have it be used as pre-order form.
I know I'm probably in the minority here, especially at a main reaper message board, I loved everything about the kickstarter and loved everything reaper has done, I really appriciate the great customer service and think you guys are doing a great job handling everything,
except when it comes to this issue.
another more recent quote from a update - The pledge manager will accept your input for about 10 days. After that we’ll lock you in at your pledge level. We need to get moving on the final orders so we can get these figures done by March. Don’t worry, we’ll remind you before we shut it down.
Just be upfront with your customer base, it would have been a lot easier for me to eat the fact that you STILL have the RPM up for people to place BRAND NEW ORDERS if you didn't make me rush into mine thinking it would only be up about 10 DAYS!
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