Checking In.
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 03, 2023 at 01:45:44 AM

Hey Gang,

In my last update I said I would make another update on Jan 2nd and here we are.

Since my last update an additional 1100 orders have shipped.

That is with Christmas and New Years and also the midwest of the United States got hit with a pretty epic blizzard and the shipping facility was shut down due to the crazy storm. I know here in Michigan my whole team had to take 2 snow days and it was really bad.

--

The damaged black decks are currently in Texas having new packaging made for them.

I received a couple emails from people asking if the gilded black deck cards are smaller than the regular deck. They are the same size and they are the same playing cards made by USPCC as the rest of the decks.

The tuck cases and outer sleeves were made from scratch by Gamblers Warehouse (These are the same folks who made the custom outer sleeves for all the decks) because the black decks have custom die cuts on the outer sleeve AND the tuck case. 

This is so that even if you don't remove the plastic wrap, you can still admire the gilded gold edges on the deck of cards without removing them from the case (and because its just freakin cool). USPCC does not do this kind of custom work, so Gamblers warehouse custom made all the packaging for the black decks. 

I guess the tuck case template they used is a couple millimeters larger (maybe less that that, I'm American so I don't really know millimeters) than the stock USPCC tuck case, so the tuck case has just the tiniest bit more ullage than the other decks.

Here is a little video I shot for a backer who was emailing me about this if you are interested in seeing a size comparison. -->>

--

I have continued to see confirmations that backers are getting tracking emails when their orders ship.

If you received your order in the past two weeks and never got a tracking email, first search your email for "infoplus" (this is the shipping software) and "Ten Hundred" (this is the sender) and check your spam. And if you use Gmail check the "Promotions" and "Social" tabs too for good measure.

 If still nothing, maybe shoot us an email so I can verify again that the fulfillment partners have the tracking set up correctly. I have checked in on this several times and I think we should be all good, but I am down to keep checking to make sure people know when their stuff is coming.

We can check if there was a typo on your backerkit email, or if this is a repeat issue that needs to be addressed. 

--

Besides that I don't have any major updates since my last update 13 days ago.

Things are doing much better now that the operation has moved to Kentucky.  Josh, the operations manager down there, communicates with me daily and makes sure to ask lots of questions before making any decisions which is a good thing.

The Golden Ticket decks are still being distributed randomly into orders and those folks still waiting have the exact same opportunity for that bonus deck as anyone else.

--

My Next update will be January 14, this will be around the estimated timeline of the black decks being fixed so hopefully the manufacturer will hit that estimated timeline and I can share some news on that along with an update on how many more orders have shipped.

Thanks and happy new year!

-Peter

[Ten Hundred]

I Promised...
over 1 year ago – Sat, Dec 24, 2022 at 12:22:31 AM

Hey Folks,

In my last update I promised I would be back with another update on December 20. So here we are.

When last we spoke there was a lot of frustration on my part at how the shipping was not progressing (and understandably, frustration on your part too).

The Kentucky facility has been doing much better. I am getting daily calls and texts from the operations manager over there. Since the tubes arrived 2,500 orders have shipped from that facility.  Orders are going to continue going out every day this week.

The operations manager in Kentucky said it is going a bit slower than he expected because some extra steps are being taken to reduce damage.

The print shipping process has 7 steps including filling the empty space in the tube with packing materials for protection and taping both ends of the tube to ensure nothing opens in transit.

He told me they're going as fast as they can while still taking extra care to ensure things arrive in good condition.

Approximately 6500 orders remain to be shipped. This number should have another good chunk taken out of it by the end of the week.

Black Decks

In my last update I shared that I ordered extra black decks, but the manufacturer sent me 100 fewer black decks than what I needed to fulfill the orders. 

They are sending me more and I am being told those should be shipping out from the manufacturer around the 2nd week of January.

Then we discovered a manufacturing defect on the black decks. Some of the edges of the die cut areas had a fold, or a tear on the outer sleeve. This defect happened on around 800 of the black decks.

The Vivid Kingdoms, Kings Blood, and Golden Ticket all have the same Triangle Die-Cut out of the front and none of them have this issue, so I think there was some error when the black sleeves were being made.

The fulfillment team went through and pulled every bad black deck that they saw and we shipped those back to the manufacturer to have new sleeves made for them. I am being told the ones with new sleeves should be shipping out from the manufacturer around the 2nd week of January as well.

So out of 2500 black deck orders, we currently have around 1600 available to ship now. We will fulfill as many orders as we can from the good decks we have, and then the rest will go out after we get the new ones back.

The manufacturer says he is prioritized fixing this mistake and hopefully it should be handled quickly.

If a bad deck slips through the cracks and you get a defective one. Please email [email protected] with a couple pics and we'll sort it out.

On a positive note. These black decks look so dang good. They are totally my favorites and the gold on them is gorgeous!

I think a lot of you could tell I was pretty frustrated and stressed in the last update. There were a ton of you who sent kind words and positivity my way in the comments, and some of you even sent personal emails with words of patience and understanding. I got a lot of "Don't stress dude." messages. I wish I was a little better at taking those messages to heart, but I just wanted to say thanks for that and I really appreciate it.

The best way to alleviate that stress is to get everyone the awesome rewards they ordered. I am incredibly focused on that and I am so very sorry at how long this process has been.

You are all super awesome for supporting this project and for supporting my art. I just want to say thank you all again for coming on this ride with me (even though its been a little longer than some of us may like).

I am gonna circle back with you folks on Jan 2 for another update to let you know where the orders are at and what's the progress on the messed up black decks and anything else that needs mentioning.

Thanks everyone.

-Peter

[Ten Hundred]

The final shipments.
over 1 year ago – Mon, Dec 12, 2022 at 03:04:59 AM

This is taking way too long and I am so sorry about that.

This freaking sucks.

I am on the phone daily with the folks shipping the orders trying to get movement on the final orders.

I am incredibly frustrated. 

It seems like my fulfillment partners got slammed with with Black Friday/ holiday orders and just removed resources from my campaign to work on other orders.

Why was my campaign de-prioritized? I don't know. Why are these other clients more important? I don't know. 

Frustrating.

They were so backed up at their Utah facility, that their solution was to load all my stuff onto trucks and ship it express on their own dime, to their Kentucky facility where (according to them) they are much less busy and have a team dedicated to just my campaign. Since my stuff obviously wasn't moving in Utah, this seemed like the best solution. The stuff arrived there Friday. Things will start moving tomorrow according to what I have been promised.

Prints:

The tubes (The ones where prints weren't arriving damaged) were ordered, but they were back ordered till December 13. Orders with prints should start going out December 13. 

Why wasn't this handled earlier? I don't know. I have been discussing the prints and uncut sheets with them since day one. I should have asked to review all the packing materials with them when I was out there in Utah signing all the stuff. I was making signatures the whole time and we came down to the wire there before we had to return home. That was a major oversight on my part and I am so sorry for that. I thought hiring professionals for this step in the process would mean that things would be taken care of to make the shipping run smoothly. This hasn't been the case.

Black Decks:

I ordered 2500 black decks, plus an extra 200 or so in case there was any damage, or if packages got lost in the mail. It's always a good idea to get a few extra than what you need incase any issues arise. 

The folks who made the black decks only sent me 2400 of them and about 10% of them arrived damaged. We are shipping out as many good ones as possible. The damaged ones are being replaced, and the additional decks are being made so that we can fulfill all 2500 orders.

I stressed over and over how incredibly important it was for these premium decks to arrive in absolutely mint condition to my fulfillment partners, because replacing them is more difficult than the other decks. This is how my fulfillment partners said they would be shipped:

In a box with padding.

Brick Boxes:

Brick boxes are done, I have signed the ones I need to sign. My shippers have them. They should be shipping out with all the other orders.

Updates:

I thought my last update would be the last one I needed to post regarding shipping. As I spoke with my fulfillment partners it always seemed as though solutions were in place and the campaign would be wrapping up shortly. This was not the case. I am so sorry. My next update will be December 20 to let you know how the Kentucky team is progressing and any other updates I can share.

I was asking that everything be shipped by Christmas, and my shipping partners said that is a possibility. I can't 100% guarantee that will happen, but it is a goal we have.

--

For many of you, this is your first experience with me, and my art, and how I run my business. I am so ashamed at how long this is taking and how poorly this reflects on me.

Everyday that passes with backers not having their rewards the burning ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach grows. 

I hate to have people frustrated and waiting. I hate to have people who supported me and my artwork have a negative experience. You supported me, you deserve better and I feel like I am letting so many of you down.

Your frustration is 100% valid. 

I am so sorry.

The wait should be over soon.

Thanks

Peter

[Ten Hundred]

Update on Shipping, Black Decks are ready, & more...
over 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 04, 2022 at 07:02:13 AM

Hey Folks!

First off, In my last update I went over the best ways to contact us.

I wanna repeat that here so its part of the latest update:

Email [email protected]

If you have any issues with your order, a lost package, damaged items, incorrect items, please do not hesitate to reach out and we will figure it out.

Ok, cool.

Some updates.

1. 13,000 orders have shipped so far. Which means about 11k orders left to ship.

2. The special edition black decks are done being made and are traveling from Texas to Utah right now.

3.  Both International and USA orders are shipping.

4. My shippers sent me a test shipment with an uncut sheet in the packaging we were going to use. However It arrived damaged, so we had to order new better packaging for them. Some more additional test shipments are on the way to me now, so we can make sure the prints arrive in good condition. This means orders with uncut sheets and prints on them haven't shipped yet and are next to ship. I know this can be disappointing to hear for some folks, but I think it's better for your stuff to arrive in good condition, than to rush it out in sub-par packaging.

5. My shippers have sent me test tracking emails and I received them. The name displayed in Gmail as "Ten Hundred" with an email address of [email protected]

6. The daily instagram stories and posts I am seeing of people getting their stuff and being excited makes me super happy (this doesn't really have much to do with anything... it just makes me happy)

---

Some Early Issues we had...

1. The first 130ish orders were shipped out in just plastic poly-mailers. This was due to some kind of miss communication with the people packing the orders. Some decks were arriving damaged. You may have seen some comments from disappointed backers who got damaged decks.  This led to anxiety among backers who had yet to receive their order. It certainly led to anxiety for yours truly, from day one I was constantly stressing the importance of the decks arriving in pristine condition.

This issue was spotted relatively quickly by a manager at the fulfillment facility and the packaging was fixed immediately. A couple hundred orders waiting to go out were also yanked off the loading dock and re-packaged.

We have shipped replacement items to anyone who reached out to us about damaged goods, and since the mistake was caught, we have had very few emails about damaged decks.

2. Some of the cartons of Vivid Kingdoms decks were incorrectly labeled by the manufacturers as "Kings Blood" or "Kings Blood with Signature" and had the wrong UPC on them. This led to people getting two Vivid Kingdoms decks instead of 1 of each deck like they ordered. The incorrect labels were found and fixed, and this issue seems to be resolved. The affected backers were sent the correct items they ordered.

---

That's it for now.

If you haven't got your stuff yet, your order should be coming up soon.

The shippers are more than half way through the orders.

Even with the early issues, the black decks being finished, and the new print packaging, there hasn't been any pause in shipments going out every day. So all in all things are moving along pretty well.

I'll say it again

**PLEASE reach out to us via email if you have any issues with your order.**

The saga of the Vivid Kingdoms kickstarter is nearly complete.

Thanks so much to everyone. This has been a long and crazy ride :)

Thanks

Peter

[Ten Hundred]

How to get customer service for this campaign.
over 1 year ago – Sun, Oct 16, 2022 at 03:32:53 AM

Hey Gang,

If you have an incorrect item, or a damaged item, or a lost package, or something other issue, it is important for you to be able to get in contact with me and my team.

There are some good ways to go about that, and some ways that are not very effective.

Good Ways:

1. Email [email protected] (the best way)

• This will take you directly to my customer service team and they can look into your issue and if needed forward your message to my shipping team or anywhere else it needs to go to get resolved

2. Contact me through my website.

• This will go to me, and then I will forward it to my customer service team, and then they will handle it from there. Pretty similar to option 1, but there is an extra step of me having to forward it, so not quite as good.

3. Contact Backerkit (the company I used for surveys)

• If it has to do with your survey, or changing your address. They have a customer service team to help. If they can't handle it, they will forward your request to my team.

Bad Ways:

1. Messaging or Commenting on Kickstarter

• It makes so much sense, You Backed the project on Kickstarter, so you should obviously use kickstarter to contact us... and I do have a team member who is monitoring the kickstarter inbox. But the tools on this platform are much lest robust. It is much more difficult for us to search the inbox, attach pictures/ screen shots, and forward messages to the appropriate teams handling different kinds of problems. Email is better and will allow us to resolve your issue much more promptly.

2. Commenting or messaging on any of my social media platforms.

• There is a high volume of activity on these channels and I don't have a team monitoring activity on these platforms. Also very difficult to forward messages to my team, or communicate effectively with customers.

3. Just quietly being upset/ disappointed and not contacting us.

• If we messed up. Please do reach out. We want to make it right and try to have everyone end up happy with their order. Also letting us know, may help us discover a mistake we are making that could effect others orders.

I just wanted to make this clear so people aren't feeling anxious about not being able to contact us.

Thanks

Peter

[Ten Hundred]