geekhack Marketplace > Group Buys and Preorders
Update 2023-06-30: PSA Regarding Mechs & Co and Vendor Group Buys
//gainsborough:
I also have quite a bit of money tied up in GBs with them. Please report back with whatever information you find out!
codecoffeecode:
Is there any consistent method of gathering order stats without having to wait for the vendors or folks like dvorcol to post numbers? These patterns emerge in hindsight but how can potential customers see these data points prior to the conclusion of the group buy? Even then, some vendors never end up providing those order numbers or don't allow group buy refunds.
Personally, I had managed to remain unscathed by the seemingly increasing number overwhelmed vendors and straight-up scams up until this point. I suppose I could have tried to predict M&C's over-extension, but how would I have done this? If I join Fancy Vendor's group buy today, and then Fancy Vendor starts fifty more over the next few weeks, what can I do except hope that they deliver my group buy before they are inundated with the others?
Our hobby's standard practice is to provide these companies with six-figure interest-free loans and hope they keep their **** together for the year or two or three or four it takes for them to pay the manufacturers and eventually mail us our pieces of plastic and slabs of aluminum.
Perhaps we as a hobby need to start ensuring that manufacturers are paid before any customer pays the vendor. That's why interest checks are so important and why they are typically held to such a high standard on GeekHack: that's your market research. Vendors can get an idea of the number of potential buyers, account for people that will inevitably flake, and place the order with the manufacturer before taking a dime from customers. The manufacturers can then have representatives confirm payment has been made in the GB threads.
There would definitely be situations where not enough people buy the products and the vendors struggle to pay back their business loans (or pay themselves back if they're rolling in it), but that's the nature of a business: sometimes products don't sell and the vendor loses money and even goes under. But the companies running these group buys need to be the ones financially responsible when **** goes sideways. There's no reason all of the risk is on the customer.
vhaarr:
--- Quote from: codecoffeecode on Thu, 29 June 2023, 18:49:42 ---There's no reason all of the risk is on the customer.
--- End quote ---
But we're not customers. We're a group of people who essentially created their own Kickstarter-ecosystem without diversification to help keep connection hubs (between manu-enduser) afloat.
--- Quote from: codecoffeecode on Thu, 29 June 2023, 18:49:42 ---these companies
--- End quote ---
Is there any reason to believe that "these companies" are anything else than small endeavours started by enthusiasts like yourself? You might have the best intentions, but (1) you could be just bad at running a company like this and not know it (ever heard of Dunning-Kruger?), or (2) you could be overwhelmed and stressed out from all the work, i.e. unable to handle the workload and unable to pay enough to hire someone to help you, or (3) perhaps one or more close family relatives die so you stop caring, or (4) perhaps you chop your leg off with a chainsaw (literally happened to a friend of mine 2 months ago) and so your priorities change and you neglect the company - perhaps you hire someone to run it, who doesn't care about the hobby, who ****s up big time, or, or, or.
Most people have good intentions.
I'm not defending M&C, I have no idea who they are, how long they've operated, or why they failed. I imagine they're in the US, I am on the other side of the world. But companies are started - most times - by single individuals like yourself with good intentions and a dream.
I'd be really curious to know more about what happened here, so that hopefully our ecosystem can learn from it and grow, and help prevent this thing from happening in the future. But until proven otherwise I'm not willing to think of any group buy vendor as anything but a clone of myself with a different life path.
They're not faceless corporations, they're people like me.
codecoffeecode:
--- Quote ---But we're not customers. We're a group of people who essentially created their own Kickstarter-ecosystem without diversification to help keep connection hubs (between manu-enduser) afloat.
--- End quote ---
But I am a customer: I paid a business expecting a product in return.
--- Quote ---Is there any reason to believe that "these companies" are anything else than small endeavours started by enthusiasts like yourself?
--- End quote ---
These companies being small endeavors run by enthusiasts doesn't absolve them of the financial obligations they've undertaken by running a business. A financial transaction took place; this wasn't a $50 loan to a friend.
--- Quote ---They're not faceless corporations, they're people like me.
--- End quote ---
If you were to go on r/mechmarket and pay a "person like you" some amount of money for keycaps and never receive them, are you going to let it go because they're just a person, or are you going to attempt to get your money back just like you would with any other faceless corporation? We can't keep treating these businesses like chums who bear no obligations to the people from whom they have taken money.
--- Quote ---(1) you could be just bad at running a company like this and not know it (ever heard of Dunning-Kruger?), or (2) you could be overwhelmed and stressed out from all the work, i.e. unable to handle the workload and unable to pay enough to hire someone to help you, or (3) perhaps one or more close family relatives die so you stop caring, or (4) perhaps you chop your leg off with a chainsaw
--- End quote ---
**** happens. That's an inherent risk you take not just in starting a business, but just living life. I'm not particularly interested in the how and why of Mechs & Co.'s current situation; I just want them to fulfill their obligations to me as a customer who supported them in this hobby.
HoffmanMyster:
Updated the OP with current information
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