One issue we have these days is we all have gotten used to Amazon delivery times. I'm not saying that excuses overly slow shipping or poor communication, but it is a thing. For example, a friend of mine runs a small manufacturing company. He packages and ships just one day a week, otherwise it just becomes too inefficient to try and do it piecemeal. Like so many things, there is time economy in batch processing, and it makes planning production a lot easier.
However, occasionally he gets a customer that refuses to understand why he can't/won't ship the items hours after it was ordered. Even after refunding money he's had folks still continue to complain and carry on about his shipping policy.
I've ordered a number of parachutes from Rocketman over the years, and sometimes the shipping has been slower than I'd like, or I've had to email to check on things. Back in the 'olden days', I wouldn't have even thought about it, but now with Amazon's shipping we're trained to expect boxes on our doorstep two days later. But in every instance I've gotten what I ordered and the quality of the chutes is top-notch, or I would not keep going back.
I agree that in such a small hobby communication is king and letting folks know order status, etc., can head off a lot of issues. It's one of those things that some folks do better than others. Hopefully Buddy will come up with a good rhythm that works for him and his customers. It's great to have a vendor that makes such a high quality product for a reasonable price, and also participates in our hobby. I think we need to be careful to not over react to occasion misfires in execution.
Tony
PS: Another popular vendor charged my card on Dec. 15th, and I just got the items yesterday (Jan 3). It was a long delay, but I reasoned it was due to the season. I will admit it was hard sitting on my hands and not bothering the vendor about where my order was, but even though I was anxious to get it, there was no actual immediacy on my end. I had to remind myself, not everyone is Amazon.
