I just noticed that this thread did not have the final update that it probably deserved.
In fact, Mike, the owner of Cloanto I presume, hadn't received my mails because they were trashed automatically as spams.
Funny, as his mail was also considered as a spam by my mail.
Eventually, he even offered to give me my package in hands as he was in holiday in Paris.
He explained that his company can't afford to stock in advance. So, some delay can occur to the delivery as he has to ordered copies only when a sale is done.
So, finally a good end to this story.
I think it was misunderstood, as we would not encourage to order if there was no product. My reply was about the logistics of fulfillment, which I was feeling bad about. While you hear more about the occasional delay than about the average good experience, I like to focus on fixing the things that don't work. The quote in this case was that we could not "afford to pay per volume at larger centers". It was meant to illustrate how some large fulfillment providers (as mentioned in this thread) charged by volume (minimum cubic space in the warehouse and/or per pallet), and that alone would have driven the price up too much in consideration of the yearly sales of such a product. If you have a small box on a pallet, you still pay for the entire pallet (or the cubic meter, etc.), if that is the minimum. Also, I was not there "on holiday"! :-)
The situation has changed a lot recently, with new fulfillment providers featuring increased automation and integration interfaces also for smaller customers.
In December 2011, also based on feedback such as the one presented here, we started working with a new company, and they ship Amiga Forever and C64 Forever almost in real time from either the US or Germany, whatever is best. If you place an order in New York in the late afternoon, the California warehouse will often ship it the same day (with email notification), and on weekends too. That often results in an amazingly positive experience, well beyond average, and the opposite of some delays mentioned in the past.
We wrote the software to glue it all together, as the various e-commerce providers we had approached couldn't do it. For us it was definitely worth it, even if we carry only two products, because it helped provide a quality experience from all angles. Which is what we love doing, and why it hurts to hear when something goes wrong, and why I am here wanting to post an update to an old thread...
Thank you all for being here and for your continued support, and please keep the feedback flowing!
Regards,
Mike
http://www.amigaforever.com/contact/(now with improved captcha, given the unfortunate spam problem mentioned in this thread)
