I ordered my 2nd Monday AFTER Timichango and the 10~15 day shipping was still up when I placed my order in September. I STILL don't have the knife. But what really chapped my ass was that WHILE I was waiting for my order, it looks like SK! updated their website to say "a few weeks" instead on Wednesday/Monday orders Not a few months, as it is STILL taking me and what they are currently doing. So that just proves knowingly putting out false lead time information. When I talked to Survive! they said it wasn't just me that ALL September sales where being delayed! Ok, so why did the website not change (when they changed it recently) to reflect this change in leadtime??? WHY does the website and point of sale advertising still say "a few weeks"?
Yeah, there seems to be a weird intersection between simply not having the cojones as a business to fess up and admit that they can't hit deadlines (and to consequently stop committing to them), and constantly falling into their own optimism trap. It seems like they periodically think they're going to do better, but then something else comes up, and they don't, and they don't even try to own or address that.
If you fail to hit a stated deadline, it should be on you the business to contact the customer and work out an alternate arrangement, or offer a refund.
If you simply
can't project a correct timeline, ever, then you shouldn't offer timelines.
All of it speaks to there being a rock and a hard place that they're trying to squeeze between: it looks like they
need cash, so they run the 2nds sales (rather than waiting until after the 1sts are delivered). But they're still bottlenecking somehow (assuming that special projects, like the limited editions, aren't causing delays AHEM), and then
those items get delayed.
So now, their initial commitments are getting delayed for the 2nds (because they need that revenue to bail out production for the preorders), but then the 2nds get delayed, so now they're in double jeopardy. But they can't afford to
not give some indication of timeframe, because at that point, if you're not stating a timeline, then why not just add another presale or preorder instead,
given that you've already lost your best selling feature (for that category of sales): instant(ish) gratification.
The stated timelines are/were an
enticement to customers that wouldn't otherwise order a knife! I know this, because that's exactly what led me to buy my 4.7, and for a while, the Monday sales were being widely touted as the only way to get a knife in a timely and predictable manner.
Anyways: that's a very long-winded contemplation about why they're getting cagier around the wording on the Monday sales.
TL/DR: I think they're still trying to maintain the outward semblance of control over their production timelines, and ability to deliver the Monday sales in a timely fashion: a perceived quick turnaround is the
only current way they can get a growing subset of new potential customers to pony up for a knife, and inject immediate cash-flow, given the now-common-reputation they have as taking forever to deliver anything.
