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How Order Status is communicated to clients...

Former Member

Just to be clear, this is not a question on asking for delivery dates, but a question on HOW status is/will be/could be communicated to clients trying to buy an RPi.

 

As it stands, most clients who have ordered have seen the the "expected ship date" on the item page from Farnell/Newark.  This date changes regularly, and with issues like to RJ45 port and sourcing problems, it gives a bit of a measure of when clients can expect to have theirs.

 

However, the date on the item page is rather "one-dimensional".  I would believe that anyone ordering today would look at the date and say "okay buy mid-March, receive end-July".  But who does this date apply to?  Does it mean that every order other than the first 10k is expected in July?

 

Anyways, you can see that I am just trying to get some transparency.  I am sure that Farnell/Newark by now could get their sales dept to make a list of all orders made with date/time and determine how may they need and then start allocating future production plans to filling orders within the Farnell network.  This way, at least internally, Farnell could figure that a specific customer order is #24129 out of 156196 which means that they would receive an RPi out of the 1st batch of 50000 or the 3rd batch of 10000, etc.  Then when a client checks his order status, he could get more than "back-ordered".

 

I really do understand that no one is really clear on what is happening at this exact moment, but is someone working on how to better inform the clients of their individual status?

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  • in reply to Former Member

    For my order (via Element14 in Australia) the status simply went from Pending to Processing, and then some later it appeared in a box.

    There was no email or anything else regarding the order. No expected dates.

     

    This is generally how all the orders go, so it's not unique to the RaspberryPi.

     

     

    Cheers

    Mark

  • in reply to mcb1

    I am in the U.K. and managed to place an order (by 'phone) with Element 14 on 7th March.

     

    My order status has, and is still, just showing as 'Received' which doesn't really help me at all, and I still have no idea when I will actually receive my Raspberry Pi.

     

    I would have thought that something along the lines outlined in the first post could, and should, have been put in place by now.

     

    This would have gone a long way to relieve the frustration currently being experienced by many potential customers.

     

    Oh, and the 'updated FAQ' which Jenifer mentions in her reply has not been updated since 27th April, which is over 3 weeks ago now, in which time a lot has happened!

     

    Despite the above assurances, the expression "Could do better" springs to mind here, I'm afraid.

  • in reply to Montala

    There have been some further updates by Jennifer on the R-Pi website. She has been bombarded with order numbers for here to research there.

  • in reply to mcb1

    Mark Beckett wrote:

     

    For my order (via Element14 in Australia) the status simply went from Pending to Processing, and then some later it appeared in a box.

    There was no email or anything else regarding the order. No expected dates.

     

    This is generally how all the orders go, so it's not unique to the RaspberryPi.

     

    Mark, that's not how ordering from Farnell works in the UK.  I use them regularly, last time was just 3 days ago, and you always get the same triple of emails for every order, with these subject lines:

     

    • Your Farnell Order Acknowledgement - FARNELL-REF
    • Your Farnell Order Confirmation. Your Reference: YOUR-REF, Our Reference: FARNELL-REF
    • Your Farnell Order Has Been Shipped. Your Reference: YOUR-REF, Our Reference: FARNELL-REF

     

    And the 3rd and final email always carries the tracking number for the carrier used.

     

    It's a very efficient and informative service, one of the reasons I enjoy ordering from Farnell.  If this quality of service is not maintained for Raspberry Pi orders, then I guess I will be less happy than I am currently.

     

    So far, the signs are good, in that I received just one email:

     

    • Thank you for your order (in body: "YOUR ORDER HAS BEEN RECEIVED", FARNELL-REF)

     

    It's formatted differently to normal, so I guess Pi orders aren't using their normal order process.  I don't see any problems currently though, other than the long wait.  I hope that once the boards become ex-stock, I can just go back to using my normal Farnell ordering process for repeat orders.

     

    I won't be ordering any future Pi boards until the product is available ex-stock, because this pre-order and wait process is an utter pain, and reduces the pleasure of ordering from Farnell markedly.  But as a one-off, I'm putting up with it.

     

     

    Morgaine.

  • in reply to morgaine

    Morgaine

    Sorry but the system at this end of the world doesn't seem to work that way.

    Sure we get the order confirmation email, but thats about it.

     

    The single email thing seems to be for goods in stock (usually overnite) , goods out of stock, and the Pi.

     

    I've my account settings and there is nothing in the notifications to exclude emails, etc.

    There is no tracking number given, even when the order is completed, and the sent date, only appears when its despatched.

     

    So slightly different system, but still it works, and is competitive.

    Yes I also use Element14 for lots of things as well.

     

     

    Mark