5/05/2022
As you may be aware, we've been experiencing an issue with our pre-orders being delayed. We are very aware this is causing some of you a lot of concern and anxiety, which is the last thing we want you guys to experience when spending your hard earned cash with us. As such, I wanted to give a quick update on the situation and explain what's going on, what we're doing about it, what we're putting place to help you guys, and what we're doing to try and minimize these issues in the future.
So what's going on? We know you come to us for a lot of reasons, but one of them is to get the coolest dice and tabletop gaming products in the industry. In order to facilitate that, we sometimes have to arrange pre-orders for sets we produce. Generally speaking there is hardly any issues and everything goes to plan. When we organize a pre-order, we arrange production and only offer the pre-order to you guys once the dice have been produced and are shipped to us as we'll have a much better estimate for when we can ship them out to you. Occasionally though when importing products we've had issues with Irish customs causing delays (a lot of our stuff is produced overseas).
As such we've built time into our pre-order estimates to account for those delays. However, we recently produced one of the largest batches of dice we've ever done. Unfortunately due to a clerical error at import, customs flagged the entire shipment and held it while they investigated. Eventually they released most off our dice, but we are still waiting for a few packages that, for unknown reasons, they are still holding onto. Also, while this was going on we had other sets coming in that we produced and, of course, they were also held by customs to be investigated.
At the moment we are waiting on Misty Mountains, Long May He Reign, and a few other sharp edge and popular metal sets in those boxes that they aren't releasing.
So what are we doing about it? We are in constant contact with our import partners and Customs to resolve any concerns or issues they have. We get daily updates and we keep pushing for Customs to release or tell us what they need. We have updated all affected pre-orders status with TBD while we try and work with customs and we are sending out this update via newsletter, social media, and email to all affected customers.
So what are we putting in place to help you guys? This issue was obviously not of your guys' making and you shouldn't have to suffer because of it. You may feel you want a refund for the sets you've been waiting for, though we know a lot of you will still want the dice sets even if it takes a few more weeks for this to resolve. As such, we're implementing the below options for anyone who has already ordered a pre-order set of dice;
Regardless of your choice, we are offering all pre-order customers a 10% voucher* to use an a future purchase as a further apology from us 🙁 We will send that code out in an email to all affected customers, so please keep an eye on your JUNK/SPAM folders.
*Discount code will be valid for 3 months from the date it was sent (Expires 09/08/22).
We hope and expect the situation will be resolved sooner rather than later, but we do not have any concrete information on when customs will release the shipments and it could be a few more weeks. When considering your options, please keep that in mind. Once we've decided what you want to do, please e-mail us at support@dakotairish.com with your order number and your choice. We will then implement your choice ASAP for you.
What are we doing to minimize this in the future? Once this situation is over, we will be doing a deep dive to understand what went wrong and implement any learnings. I want us to offer pre-orders again, but if doing so means potentially upsetting and disappointing people, I'm not sure we will continue to do pre-orders. We will wait to see what the deep dive give us. To say we are frustrated by the situation would be an understatement. This behaviour by customs has negatively impacted you guys and thrown a monkey wrench into all future pre-order plans.
Once again, we are so sorry for the inconvenience and hassle this has caused. We pride ourselves on being able to offer the best products, service, quality, and prices in this community and we feel we have let you guys down. We ask your forgiveness and patience while we try and make it right for you.
Thank you always for all your support and kindness,
Luke & all of the Dakota Irish Team