Still waiting for delivery date?

I am honestly amazed at some of the reactions on here to delays/lack of information about shipping. We have all ordered a completely new device that was only released to manufacture a few months ago and which has received orders probably well in excess of 100,000 units. How surprising would it be to find that the supply chain struggles to keep pace with demand and also has problems keeping people informed. We all surely know that the PI is a low-profit article for two major component suppliers to be selling, and that they each have a massive commercial operation to run selling their main lines of product.

Let's face it, what you have ordered is a toy, no more, no less; not having it for a few weeks won't damage your health or wealth, so would it not be advisable to stop behaving like children who have been denied an ice-cream and just demonstrate a little patience?

To react like one poster who says he is going to tell his boss to boycott Farnell and that he will throw his PI into a corner and not use it when it eventually arrives is surely a massive over-reaction and just typical of our culture that demands everything NOW!

Not my intention to upset anyone, just trying to be a grown-up!

Sam,

Suppose farnell would have a list:

   number-of-orders-before day XXX,

and a list

  number-of-deleveries until day YYY

Either or both can be with "week" granularity. If you don't want to publish the number-of-orders you've recieved because RS may be looking, lookup each of the numbers in the XXX list on the other list and publish the relationship.

Now what would you think costs more effort: Put the list somewhere public, so that everybody can take a guess at when their pi will be delivered, or take numerous support calls in the normal call centers when say 5-10% of the clients who ordered call to ask about their order?

What annoys people here is that it seems the tradeoff is clear: Just publish the list and hope you can prevent 80-90% of those support calls.

Sam,

Suppose farnell would have a list:

   number-of-orders-before day XXX,

and a list

  number-of-deleveries until day YYY

Either or both can be with "week" granularity. If you don't want to publish the number-of-orders you've recieved because RS may be looking, lookup each of the numbers in the XXX list on the other list and publish the relationship.

Now what would you think costs more effort: Put the list somewhere public, so that everybody can take a guess at when their pi will be delivered, or take numerous support calls in the normal call centers when say 5-10% of the clients who ordered call to ask about their order?

What annoys people here is that it seems the tradeoff is clear: Just publish the list and hope you can prevent 80-90% of those support calls.

I am obviously not totally aware of the problem people have had in contacting Farnell, however my main point is still valid. Eventually, everyone will get a PI; no money will be taken until it is shipped; it really is not life-threatening if no-one can tell you exactly when you will get it. Why continuously call customer support? It reminds me totally of the child in the toy-shop crying 'I want it now, why can't I have it?!!'

If anyone can give me a logical, sensible reason why a supplier needs to be contacted repeatedly over the supply of a non-urgent product that will not be charged for until it is shipped, I will be very surprised.

The problem is not that people have to wait for is, the problem is the poor communication and not sticking to dates mentioned before. I have no problem waiting for another month or even longer, as long as they inform me that my order has been pushed back.

If it's a luxuary item or not does not matter. If you agree to something, you stick to that, or inform customers that their item will be shipped late. This is just poor business conduct.

Sam,

Back in December I was thinking: This Raspberry pi would be nice to do home automation. Add a few hardware-interfaces into the real world, and you're set to go.

I decided that it would be an interesting business plan to design, build and sell those myself.

The Foundation didn't plan on offering such products. I'm not competing against them. Farnell doesn't plan on offering such products, so I'm not competing against them. Everybody cool, right?

Then the delays started piling up.

I've heard of people who have looked at the specs of the 'pi. Decided it would be a nice "core" for a project. Whatever that project might be. Some of those projects have a deadline. Say for example a "june" deadline. In November the news was: alpha boards now, you'll be able to buy them before the end of the year. If you're a highschool student and planning a last-year project, does that sound like a showstopper? No! Alpha boards in January. Big announcement in february. Last possible day of february. Not: buy them now, but "buy them at farnell". Farnell wasn't prepared, and couldn't accept payment methods that were announced well in advance that WOULD be accepted.

Here is an example of a final project in a Belgian highschool university:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6QUDKWm_KQ&feature=youtu.be

Suppose that 6, 7 months ago, they had decided to go raspberry. Don't you think they have a right to know when their 'pi will arrive?

I have the impression that for YOU it's "just a toy". And for YOU "it doesn't matter when it comes". Of course it is human nature to think that others will have similar goals and attitude. But that isn't always the case.....

Sam Evans wrote:

 

If anyone can give me a logical, sensible reason why a supplier needs to be contacted repeatedly over the supply of a non-urgent product that will not be charged for until it is shipped, I will be very surprised.

Sam, you're evidently happy with a non-interactive ordering service.  And that is totally fine, for you.

However, not everyone is you.  Others have higher expectations, and some people have actual deadlines, as Roger explained.  For me, I have the high expectations of good quality service to which I have become accustomed from Farnell.  Nothing less than online account self-management and order tracking is satisfactory.

Morgaine.

Well, some people were forced to pay it a lot of time before delivery so... That's the logic for some.