We’re SO sorry for the wait!
about 2 years ago – Tue, Apr 12, 2022 at 06:12:28 AM

Hello everyone,

As you know this whole experience has been a long and grueling process and unfortunately, it continues to be. I have had a super detailed update drafted for you all for 2 weeks now. We were asked to hold off on posting it by our third parties until they had looked it over, and we STILL haven’t received their approval (this more detailed update will come AS SOON as they reply, but for now we at least wanted to let you know why it’s taken us so long to give you more information)!

To get the shipping process started, we are waiting on third parties to respond to emails and initiate sending the links so that you can all pay for shipping (excluding those who have already paid of course). There were also some system errors that needed to be addressed and ironed out before sending those links out.

As I am writing this, I just received a message from EasyShip saying someone we were relying on to do all of this has been out sick and that he is back tomorrow to initiate our game plan.  All we can do is wait for them and trust me when I sayI know how frustrating that is!

When I initially launched this campaign, I didn’t expect the scale that this project would take on. I thought the numbers we would be handling would be manageable out of my home office in Canada. Although this was still “doable”, I was put under the impression that working with third parties would accelerate the process, lower costs for everyone, and minimize potential error. Knowing what I do now, I’m realizing it’s extremely difficult to rely on third parties that don’t have the same level of care and passion about the project as I do to accomplish things in a timely manner.

I wish you could all see what this project looks like in the back-end right now because the level of logistics we are dealing with is absolutely insane and if you saw it - you would understand the wait. We truly are doing the best we can with what is in our control every step of the way.

I will release detailed information on the entire process in the near future so that you can see just how crazy this experience has been. I have done my absolute best up to this point to ensure that you are updated as thoroughly as possible. Myself and my team are literally just waiting UGGGHHHH!

Here’s what I know as of this moment:

Due to the location of our manufacturers, people will be receiving their orders at different times.

USA, South/Central America, EU, UK

The items are on their way to the fulfillment center and are expected to arrive at LAX in the next 6 weeks.

Canada

The items are on their way to us and are expected to arrive at my studio in the next 6 weeks.

Asia, Australia and everywhere else

Most of you can start to get a little excited.

Due to the location of our manufacturers and one of our fulfillment centers, you will be the first to receive your items. We are waiting for a third party to finish sorting out a minor system error so they can initiate sending the links out to you. This will allow you to pay for shipping if you haven’t already done so. Once these links have been sent, your order will be on its way shortly after.

The exception is if you ordered a signed deck, print, pin set or postcard set, your order will be held back as the signed decks and prints have to go through Canada to get signed, and the pin sets and postcards are currently in Canada and will be bundled up with the signed decks for shipping (there are only 16 of you in this category - and I do apologize for the extra wait on these orders).

I know you have been waiting a really long time.

This has taken so much more time than I ever could have imagined but we are ALMOST at the end of it. I am just relying on others to get organized and for the rest of the stock to arrive at the other fulfillment centers then it’s GO TIME!

I hope that once you finally have these beautiful pieces in your hands, that you are still as excited as you were (AND THEN SOME) when you first ordered them! A lot of love and determination went into this entire process and it really is all for you!

Thank you for enduring this whole insane process with me, what a lesson it has been!

Love you all,

Luna

We're on the move!
about 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 01:40:16 AM

Hello everyone!

We are finally getting things moving! This will be a small update but a really exciting one!

Tell us some good news!

Okay! WE WILL! I am so relieved to tell you that as of Monday, our items will start moving from our manufacturers to their fulfillment centers in Hong Kong, Canada and the USA(LAX)! We have crunched all of the numbers and decided that these fulfillment centers will be the most cost-effective solution for all of our Backers! This process has been slower than we anticipated due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. 

As an example of what's been going on, a couple of days ago, we were told that the items were going to be shipped from our manufacturer in HK on the 15th (Yesterday) and in less than 12 hours, the company went into lockdown due to an outbreak in Hong Kong and the items couldn't leave the facility because the staff weren't allowed in to ship them. I am sure many of you have experienced similar situations in your countries. It's nobody's fault, we just hope you understand! THE GOOD NEWS IS that we have been reassured that they will be back in the office on March 20th and shipping our items will be their first priority!!! We will be stalking the movement of these parcels across the world so that the day that they arrive, we can update you IMMEDIATELY! 

Next steps for us

Now that we have paid the shipping invoices, signed the contracts and have the shipments moving to their fulfillment centers, the next step for us is deciding which size boxes to package your items into while those shipments travel across the world - I know, how thrilling! That may seem like a small thing but it does take a lot of work sourcing and selecting the most sustainable materials. We have environmentally friendly "stuffing" secured and are also looking at tape. It's all in the details! 

EasyShip links 

Now that we have everything moving, we know where your orders will be coming from and of course, where they are going to! We have been in touch with EasyShip and are just waiting for next steps! Now that we have all of the information, this step should be a breeze!

Russia & Ukraine orders

Due to the current crisis involving Russia and Ukraine, Backers from these countries will be unable to receive their rewards as we are unable to ship to these countries at this time. These Backers specifically will be fully refunded UNLESS you have contacted us to make other arrangements. We expect to initiate these refunds within the next 2 weeks so please contact us A.S.A.P. (if you haven't already) to make other arrangements if you wish to do so!

Refunds

To those who have already requested a refund, we're on it! We expect to contact you individually A.S.A.P with our refund policy and to get things initiated if you wish to do so! Thank you for being so patient with us! You're amazing!

We're getting there! I hope you are as excited as we are!

With Love, 

Luna

Where we're at with SHIPPING
about 2 years ago – Tue, Mar 01, 2022 at 03:53:24 AM

Hello there wonderful people!

I know it has been a while since I’ve posted an update concerning the shipping situation.

There is a reason for that, and it’s because fixing the costs consists of so many moving parts that progress for a resolution takes time. I’m going to try to make this as clear as possible.

Why is this taking so long?

Unfortunately, how fast we can move through this depends on how quickly communications can happen between the fulfillment centers, EasyShip, BackerKit, the manufacturers and myself. There are a lot of moving parts at play here and coordinating everything has been very difficult to say the least.

I didn’t want to post any updates on anything that would've been subject to change as that would have caused more confusion than anything else.

That said, I also want to keep you all in the loop on exactly how things are moving forward as much as I can so we’d like to let you know the things we DO know and DO have a little more clarity on.

EasyShip Links Not Working

EasyShip links have been put on hold. You’ll receive new links as soon as everything is set-up correctly so you aren’t over-charged for shipping.

I truly do apologize for the outrageous rates you received (especially my Canadian backers - those numbers were terrifying). The estimates I’d received on rates were not what you got in your inbox. I owe you all the biggest apology for the jumpscare on the rates you received.

USA Orders

USA orders will be fulfilled from LA. This will bring costs down.

Canada Order

Canada orders will be fulfilled from my home office. This will mean no duties for you - just how it was supposed to be, AND much lower rates.

Australia & Asia Orders

Australia and Asia orders will be fulfilled from the Hong Kong fulfillment center. Those rates will remain the same - as far as I could tell, your rates to those areas were what you expected so thankfully. You’ll receive emails from EasyShip as soon as links are active.

Europe & Rest of the World Orders

We are still figuring out if it will cost you less for us to fulfill out of Hong Kong or out of the USA for you. We will update as soon as we have figured out the most cost effective solution for you.

“What if I already paid more than I should have?”

We will refund the cost difference if you paid the higher rates and a cheaper option is available in your area. We’ll let you know how that will work as soon as everything is set up as it is something we are going to manually have to do for every person.

Card Errors

If you were experiencing card errors - we are still investigating that. According to EasyShip, this is most likely a hold-up from your bank in which case there isn't much we can do on our end. That said, we are investigating and making sure nothing on our end is causing the issue before we reactivate the EasyShip links.

“I still haven’t received my link”

Don’t worry about it - we had issues with orders not transferring over properly from BackerKit to EasyShip. That issue is almost resolved and will definitely be fixed before the new links go out. As of right now, links are inactive anyways.

We’re Expanding our Team to Speed Things Up

We have hired an Ops Manager that’s going to be helping us come up with solutions quickly and efficiently. Welcome Candace to our team. This should really speed things up as the situation was getting a little complex for my little artist brain.

We also have a new Customer Service Rep joining us soon so that we can be better and faster at getting back to your messages.

We realized we needed more help and more brains on board to manage the scale things got to. So here we are with additional help so we can move forward more efficiently.

Timeline

I really wish I could give you a crystal clear timeline for when these will all finally start shipping, however, this is so dependant on how long it takes to organize re-locating the stock to where it needs to be, that, until I know exactly how that’s going to happen, it’s really hard to tell to give you exact dates. However, I promise that as soon as this becomes clearer I will bet letting you all know. Our new Ops Manager Candace is on it getting a clearer timeline in order for you.

Refunds

Refund options will be available after we have sorted through this shipping situation. We haven’t forgotten about you, but our priority is getting the decks out. We have been keeping track of everyone who has asked about a refund and we will be contacting you as soon as that system is in place. This is something we are going to manually have to do for every individual person and simply do not have a system in place to make sure this goes over smoothly yet so please be patient with us.

A Break-Down on why this is so Complex to Solve

Pretty much, we have our team here in Canada, EasyShip, BackerKit, the manufacturers, and UFreight in Hong Kong and LA (the fulfillment centers) all trying to coordinate things between each other. We are having to calculate rate options for all your different locations from our different fulfillment locations and figure out which is best for us to send yours out of.
Then there is the question of relocating stock in the proper quantities to the proper fulfillment locations.

Not to mention calculating shipping costs to relocate, duties, labor costs, packing material costs versus relocating (as a lot of packing materials were already purchased), the last items that are still at the manufacturers also need to be delegated to the correct locations.
It’s a question of trying to balance everything out and figuring out per location and per item what the best options are. There are a lot of moving parts.

To be totally honest - this isn’t a cheap thing for me to do and I can’t afford to make a wrong move here so we have to take our time really weighing out and seeing what the options look like, hidden costs and all before making any irreversible moves.

Replying to your messages

Thank you so much for your patience as we make our way through each and everyone of your messages/emails. If you have contacted us and still haven’t received an answer to your question(s) please do not worry. We will get to you - My assistant is doing their best to reply back to all of the questions/concerns as quickly as they can. If any of your questions have been answered in this update we would really appreciate it if you could let us know by replying to your message/email you have sent us and letting us know you have your answer. This will make things a lot easier for Kendra and will allow her to get to the messages that still require answers much faster.
We are also adding another Customer Service person to our team soon so we can hopefully better keep up with all your queries.

Thank you

I really hope this clears some things up for everyone - I really wish I had more and clearer information for you at this time but this is as far as we have gotten into navigating solutions. If there is a lack of updates - it’s usually because I don’t have much information to give you, not because I’m keeping you in the dark.

We are taking this one step at a time to make sure that everything is set up correctly and to make sure all the parts will be completely cohesive before we take any massive action or request your shipping money.

I honestly do not understand how so many things went so wrong - but we are doing our best to resolve everything, just please be patient with us and know we are doing our best to get these out into the world.

So thank you for being a part of my first project on this scale and teaching me the ropes. I appreciate you all so much and thanks again for being here. I’m learning so much, and I look forward to doing everything right the next time around.

Much Love,
Luna

What's going on with SHIPPING?
about 2 years ago – Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 12:39:47 AM

Hello hello hello,

This is a big one so I'll try to be as clear as possible on everything.

The last few days have been chaos as most of you have noticed, and we've been trying to navigate how to deal with all this as gracefully as possible.

What happened?

I took most of the steps I did in how to fulfill this because, as an artist that's very new to running a business on this scale, I thought working with established systems and companies to bring this to you would simplify the process and provide a better experience for my backers - ha - that backfired. And I'm truly sorry for that.

I'd like to take accountability for what I can here - which is not having a better, solid fulfillment plan for the scale the project took on right from the start. I've been figuring it out as I go, this is all new territory and I truly have done my best, though from where I'm at now I do see a lot of things I could have done differently which would have overall made a much smoother process.

Again - my intention from the start was to create BETTER rates for everyone through EasyShip and the fulfillment center, and after the initial estimates I'd received I have been in just as much shock as all of you on what you all received.  

I would have NEVER sent out the shipping rates you received willingly. 

What we are doing;

Easyship, BackerKit, and the fulfillment center are all investigating the million issues that came up with shipping, and we are navigating the best possible way to move forward with better rates.

We are investigating the possibility of two fulfillment locations (the second one being my home office here in Canada). This will at least clear up the absurd duties and taxes the system is automatically calculating to Canada at the very least. 

We were meant to receive some clearer updates from EasyShip last night, but I still haven't heard anything. The timeline on which this all gets resolved is unfortunately largely out of our hands as it mostly involves a lot of communication from EasyShip and the fulfillment center.  I didn't want you guys to wait any longer so I'm giving you all the information I currently have.

Our Boundaries (PLEASE READ): 

There's a few boundaries I'd like to communicate as well in order to best serve you all;

- we will not be answering messages on Sundays or Mondays. There's only 2 of us - me and my assistant- handling everything, and we need breaks. This breather is crucial in keeping us in the best possible mental state to sort you out - these are our days off, our weekend.
- please, be polite when you reach out. We understand your frustration... trust me we are feeling it too, but finding a kind way to communicate your concerns makes it so much easier for us to help you. I set out on this project with the intention of making you all happy - I'm keeping my head up as I need to in order to problem solve right now, but trust me when I say no one is more disappointed in the chaos that's unleashed than I am. This is not the experience I wanted to provide and I'm doing my very best to resolve everything.
- your patience is deeply appreciated at this time. We have received HUNDREDS of emails and messages. We're doing our best to get back to everyone.

- please please please - DO NOT message me on IG or FB about issues. Please use the Kickstarter message box, the contact form on my website, or email [email protected] . I cannot express how much I need that layer of separation for the sake of my sanity. This also ensures quicker responses because my assistant Kendra has access to those and she's the one answering most messages while I do the background work of actually resolving issues.
 

Refunds:

If your reason for asking for a refund is the shipping prices, please give us a little bit to sort that out.

The rates should (hopefully dramatically) improve a lot once everything is sorted.

Any other reason - I totally understand. 

As, until this point, we hadn't received a single refund request, we actually don't have a system or policy in place for that just yet. 

As soon as we do - we will notify you of the policy, your options, and how to proceed.  Our top priority at this time is fixing the shipping so please be patient - we will get to you. 

We have actually been keeping a list of everyone asking for one, so no need to do anything or contact us again about it - we'll message you as soon as a system is in place.
 

Local Pick-Up:

Pick-up orders will be available at Elysium Alchemy (on 9th Ave in Calgary). You'll receive an email about it when they're available there. For the time being - if you received an EasyShip email, just ignore it :) You don't need to fill that out.   

If you wish to switch an order to a pick-up order due to shipping rates, maybe give it a minute for our rates to be adjusted before committing. If you'd still like to switch after that, contact us then and we will adjust your order accordingly. 

"I didn't even receive an email from EasyShip"

Again... yay system errors. I have no idea why, after all the set-up we have done we are still landing on system errors. 

There's a wonderful 1121 of your orders that are refusing to transfer from BackerKit to EasyShip. 

It's going to take us a little bit to diagnose and figure out WHY they aren't transferring over as it could literally be something as small as a dash in the wrong place that is causing this. 

Our top priority right now is fixing rates in the first place, so don't panic, you're not missing out on anything. 

Payment Errors, Time-Outs, and other EasyShip Issues:

You're not alone if you're having these issues. If you can send us screenshots of the error messages you're receiving we can pass those forward to EasyShip to help resolve these glitches and errors as quickly as possible. 

"I already paid for shipping and I'm happy with the price"

Then you're set! You're good to go :) Nothing left for you to do but wait patiently for that very exciting email telling you your order is on it's way!

"I paid for shipping but I didn't like the price"

When we fix everything, if a better rate is available for you, we'll make sure to reimburse you the difference. I'm not sure how that will work logistically just yet so we'll cross that bridge once we get to it. 

Thank You

Despite all the technical errors, there have been quite a few of you that have been extremely supportive and understanding and I just wanted to say we see your kind messages and comments and you are very deeply appreciated. 

And even if you're upset - I still want to thank you for making this project possible. Thank you for teaching me so much about business and for keeping me on track. The lesson's I've learnt from this experience are priceless and I can definitely say that the amount I have grown as an individual through this project is directly correlated with all the things that went wrong.

I am SO EXCITED as we get closer and closer to actually getting these decks into your hands. 

I hope this clears some things up.

Addressing Your Shipping Questions & Concerns
about 2 years ago – Sat, Feb 05, 2022 at 10:50:03 PM

Hey everyone,

I have received some messages about some of the rates some of you are getting on shipping and my jaw honestly dropped while I was reading them.

It's nowhere close to the estimates I received for some of you and if I was in your shoes - I would be upset too.

It's the weekend and things are always more difficult to navigate on weekends as not everyone is working, and to be totally honest I really need to give myself these 2 days off too so I can be more efficient over my week, but I will be sending emails and making calls on Monday to investigate what's going on.

The reason I was going through a fulfillment center was that it was meant to make things cheaper for everyone, so let me make some calls, investigate, re-evaluate, find a solution and adjust accordingly - whatever that will mean.

If you received a rate that actually WAS what you expected or cheaper - please let me know so that I can get an idea on what kind of changes need to happen and whether it's only select cases or everyone that's unhappy with the rates. A lot of payments were already collected so I'd love your feedback on those.

I'm doing my absolute best on my end to come up with the best possible solutions - so thank you so much for sticking with me as everything gets navigated.... thanks for riding the waves with me.

Every bump is a learning opportunity and you are all helping me pave the way to make whatever next project I embark on as smooth sailing as possible.

If you've paid for shipping already and a fulfillment or rate shift does happen, I'll make sure you're sorted and not paying more than you should.

Again my deepest apologies for how insane some of those prices were and for the heart-attack I know I would've had opening that page up and seeing some of those numbers.

Unfortunately, shipping rates are one of those things that fluctuates and can be very difficult to estimate accurately. So know I did my best on estimates based on the information I had available.

To address some of the other concerns and messages - I did my absolute best to make it clear that shipping was being charged post campaign. There was a bolded memo near the top of the campaign page, a more detailed breakdown being very clear shipping was being charged after the campaign further down, I talked about it in some of the updates, and it was also very clear on the BackerKit surveys. I did my best to communicate it to you everywhere that I could and if you missed that memo and were under the assumption shipping was included, I'm sorry you misunderstood but, to the best of my ability, I did inform you.

Unfortunately - if you weren't covering the shipping rates, I would practically be paying you to give you your decks. I don't get Amazon level manufacturing or shipping rates. I'm an individual and kept my decks as reasonably priced as possible. There's a lot of behind the scenes costs associated with a project like this that you don't see.

So that said please understand that that is why shipping was not included.

Comments and concerns are best directed via message :) it's the best way to make sure we see your queries - and be patient with us, it'll take us a bit to get back to everyone.