shipping schedule visualized

There was a point they were dropping a new figure like every week last summer and fall, and I think they fell way behind because of it. As you've seen, there has been a major lull in new activity due to catching up. I'm sure things will even out once they've caught up, don't get too worried.

But conventions, Goodsmile & premade sales are all good. We have the 3a members money already so they can wait.

… I also notice a disturbing trend of nearly all the licensed stuff being completed in a timely manner. Transformers I guess being the outlier.

dedguy wrote:… I also notice a disturbing trend of nearly all the licensed stuff being completed in a timely manner. Transformers I guess being the outlier.

Judge Death is 2nd Q 2015 and no sign yet... 'august' was the last update.

I mean 2 months isn't terrible by 3A standards.....

Oh I kinda missed the 2000AD stuff.

dedguy wrote:… I also notice a disturbing trend of nearly all the licensed stuff being completed in a timely manner. Transformers I guess being the outlier.

this is normal, licensing Are mostly contract so that as to make it in a relative good time.
In fact, license is probably the priority. If bubble bee took more time its probably because of it if the warehouse is slowing down.

Its totally understandable. To survive or existe Threea need to have license to bring money in. ThreeA said a couple of time there line is not for profit. And I belive its true if the$ get 0$ lost after everyone is paid I think Its a big win.


contract bring money, they work on license and after work they play on Threea toy line

None of that makes this okay. ThreeA's sale and delivery model is fucked. I don't know if they're jut horribly disorganized or what. I've bitched about the paying up front with little to no notice before so I won't go into detail about that.

But the norm for releases being "announce release date, miss release date, announce another release date, and then just continue doing that until it's actually released" is not okay. They're not exactly new at this at this point. There's no excuse for this problem just getting worse and worse every year.

i agree ded, well said. that is well beyond the norm and def not in a good way.

i also think to imply that threeA doesn't profit of the selling of Ash IP/lines is silly, of course they do.  That was the main source of profit before they got to the point where they could get any licenses to begin with. It also adds to this mentality of putting Ash/ThreeA up on a pedestal as a hero that can do no wrong status. Implies that we as customers are lucky they do any Ash lines at all cuz they only break even. Again i dont believe that for a second, maybe for certain figures but overall, no way or this company wouldn't have grown to the point its at now.

The business has grown, but the company hasn't. That's why we're seeing all this customer dissatisfaction. It get's so tiresome to see these frustrations return unadressed, I feel 3A wins, our complaints don't matter, passion for the brand dies... now I should remember to make my next 5 comments "positive" to balance this one out...

dedguy wrote:Oh I kinda missed the 2000AD stuff.

Everyone does.

*sigh*

fluppeco wrote:The business has grown, but the company hasn't. That's why we're seeing all this customer dissatisfaction. It get's so tiresome to see these frustrations return unadressed, I feel 3A wins, our complaints don't matter, passion for the brand dies... now I should remember to make my next 5 comments "positive" to balance this one out...

This is going to be very negative. I'm sorry, I think it's worth talking about though. If negative is not for you then you might want to skip it.

I have completely written off ThreeA as a company. Only reason I'm here is due to friends I made while part of this community. My discontent began just as frustration with how sales were handled. I missed many product sales due to how short the notice was before sales. When I voiced my concerns I was just told I should manage my money better. I do manage my money well which is why I can't just spend $100-500 unplanned out of nowhere.

Then there was the slow decline of any products I was even into. It seemed ThreeA had moved away from robots and really original design and moved towards licensing and parts re-use across as many products as possible. Mostly TKs and various female characters with the same head over and over. There were very occasional interesting things but over the last couple years they became fewer and fewer.

In 2015 I didn't renew my 3AA membership. This was kind of a big deal to me since I have been a 3AA member since the very first year. That was so long ago I don't even remember when that was. I was part of the ThreeA "Legion" before there even was a ThreeA and I hung on for a long time.

Then the forums got closed down with no plans to re-open it. It felt like ThreeA has just abandoned it's core fanbase. If there was ever a chance for me to come back to ThreeA that was lost with this final straw.

July has come and gone and I've not heard or seen anything about the two figures I was expecting to ship from the update. Sure other things from the list are appearing in dribs and drabs but it seems the company as a whole is completely overextending itself and even the shipping update needs another month tacked on. We seem to rarely even get shipping/tracking notices from CS any more without prompting.

It really feels like the focus this year has been entirely on getting to the next convention or show and the products for that rather than getting through the backlog generated during Q4 aka DropFest 2014. And then we have stuff dropped this year with flat-out crazy shipping dates - Zombacle set in June? Ninja in August? That'd be great but I'm still waiting for things I paid for last September so its hard not to be sceptical. I do my best not to let it get to me, and when stuff does finally ship, QC Gods permitting, I enjoy the product but it's plain to see the attitude around 3A and the Legion has changed drastically in recent times.

I think the membership pack really screws up the production schedule, at least the past two years anyway. The new tech with Lasstranaut really didn't help matters and they no sooner finished that set and had to start producing the 2015 pack. Someone posted a membership number that was in the 5000+ range. That is a crazy amount, especially when a hard ship-by date is stated. I have to imagine a lot of production was stopped in order to get this years stuff out in a decent time.

I'm all for a back to basics approach. One or two sales a month like the old days. Get through the back-log and spend more time on QC before shipping things out.

I don't think the membership pack is anything like as much a disrupt as the myriad of convention exclusives... Not just one or two things but nearly every size and line having a premade (and then a bamba back order for the rest of us).

And the knock on effect is that bamba has become a pre-order for the multitude of framchises, which are retail anyway, a rush on convention-bamba day and then the odd thing put up in between.

Bamba used to be THE place to come for 3A but it's not really anymore, is it... It's the dregs and the odd echo of times past. I'll still 3aa for 2016 as three 1/6th I want have been promised but the whole thrill of the rest of the IP has taken a kicking by the fact we get led up the path and disappointed (Orange frickin storm troopers) or delayed to hell (nabler v2 - pumped when I ordered, bored when it arrived.. It was just too long. The thrill had gone).

So please. Kill the convention exclusives overloads and realise the world isn't in a convention hall.

Trying so hard to get new customers at the convention with the premades, but losing all the loyal costumers cos of the delays and bad quality control.......well done.

Kedao wrote:Trying so hard to get new customers at the convention with the premades, but losing all the loyal costumers cos of the delays and bad quality control.......well done.

Precisely.  

3A wouldn't have to spend so much time attracting new customers if they would just service their existing ones.

For me, no more purchase until all pre-orders that I must receive. I'll probably miss some nice sales, but I'll take less and only on the secondary market.

Look at the Japan Venture exclusive list and you'll have your answer to all the delays

Our stuff gets pushed back months so they can get the Venture stuff ready, now we know where the priorities are, another finger to the legion.

Well that list explains a thing or two...

IronChap wrote:
Well that list explains a thing or twenty...

I see what you did there!

ThreeA just likes to continue kicking it's fans in the crotch doesn't? Not cool to announce a large assortment of products for sale at a convention when you still have 19 pre-orders outstanding, many of which have been delayed three times or more.

There's a saying for this kind of thing.

WOIP Herbst Grave/Goth Paschas and 3AA Replacements are shipping out now

Will update the blog with a more complete shipping update later this upcoming week