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Re: Ages Three And Up - Product and PreOrder Updates
Thanks for all the love and critical feedback here... I know that transparency is not going to walk back any frustrations caused, we get it and we will just do better to not allow those mistakes define us.
Specific to issues with communication, we can only assure that our ticketing system is managed on a daily basis and it's intensive. If something is missed, no matter what the reason, it sucks for all of us. But it can happen and our goal is to cut these incidents out.
Regarding distribution, appreciate omegacanuck chiming in on that. It's very accurate to the challenges retailers are facing. Especially when volume is involved. It is also something that specifically affects the most popular items.
Hasbro for example this past couple of years has seen tremendous growth globally and with massively popular fan lines such as Studio Series and WFC Trilogy. This is the first time in a long time I have seen Hasbro do the kinds of allocations they are doing recently. Multiple shipments and different assortment runs has really been prevalent in timing of product releases. There are some figures in certain regions that never even show up for the big stores.
In response to BC slow downs, it has been a terrible year for that. Mainly the floods we have dealt with in the past 2 months have slowed down transportation for carriers.
It also came at the worst time possible for those who owned properties in the flood area as this happened right before winter. Literally all routes cutoff in the beginning and only slowly reopening 1 or 2 routes for essential transport in the weeks following.
For online retailers on the west coast this meant having Canada Post hold customer packages for extended lengths of time while it moves through the queue.
We got to the point of having to hold back packages as there were so many packages being held by Canada Post. We were not only uncomfortable with that, but you can probably guess how much additional customer service inquiries started coming in about why tracking isn't moving. Answers only Canada Post have.
We did start being a bit more clever and with the help of some really great friends and fans out in Ontario and Alberta we were able to get a lot of movement on packages in December.
It came at a higher cost, but manageable to get packages out on time for the holidays.
Special thanks to our people out in Toronto and Calgary that helped make that happen. You are amazing!
Boris
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