I have been reluctant to describe where I am on all of this because I did not want to just post a knee jerk reaction to the S!K situation. I think that S! has earned a thoughtful and fair response from me. I have several preorder knives on order, and I placed those orders with no preconceived notion of when I was going to receive these knives. Each one has gone longer than I would have expected, but here again it has not bothered me that much because I entered this with my eyes wide open.
The CFV 4.7 order is a horse of a completely different color though. In April I was notified that these were available, and that I could expect delivery by the end of May. I placed my order with an expectation that I would receive the knife at least by the end of June. I never received any notification on the order, and in July I sent an email inquiring about the order. This email went unanswered for a month or more. Eventually I received an email in August from Jordyn describing that the coating had delayed assembly. And the knife arrived in September. They missed their promised delivery by 400%. I have posted elsewhere how this situation really had angered me.
I have decided that I will let my preorders ride and take a wait and see attitude with Monday sales and other sales notification emails. No longer am I willing to place an order with a delivery expectation when I know that there is no way that the company will be able to meet that expectation. Obviously I am not important enough to even receive an email or a phone call with an explanation of the missed date, and a revised delivery date being provided with an offer for a refund because of them missing the date. This is very basic customer care, and will become my standard of care required before I am willing to place another order. If S! is able to provide this level of care, I am in. If they are not able to, I have likely placed my last order with S!K. I walked away from S!K once when they were operating out of Gettysburg because of this very issue, and I started following them again last year. I was hoping that they had matured enough as a business after the move, and that they were making changes to their business to not allow the mistakes of the past happen again. Apparently that is not yet the case. The points that ncrockclimb point out are accurate and do give me pause regarding the pre sale situation, cash flow and digging a deeper hole every day. But I am committed to see these commitments on my part through, and am willing to let these orders ride. But I am not willing to place another order on a knife until these business practices are addressed and fixed regarding shipping dates and customer communication.