Building the Eaglemoss Enterprise-D partwork

I just got notification of my first BSG shipment coming in probably almost 6 months. Hopefully some of these languishing subscriptions will finally start breaking loose.

 

Well Eaglemoss is pumping out this subscription much quicker lately. I received issues 62-65 a few weeks ago then last week the third shuttle set and now issues 66-70 arrives tomorrow.

 

@Timofnine any build updates coming...?

 

Apparently the parts were stuck in Shanghai, though their lockdown is over now and things are starting to ship out as normal at last. I’ll give customer service an email and ask for an update…

 

Which issues will you be on?

 

I’m up to issue 20 and customer service have said that they have no idea when further issues will be available.

Make of that what you will. I am as far in to the model build as possible so far, so I am unsure what they mean when they say ‘I am not able to provide an ETA on when the parts will be available again’ because as far as I know these future issues have never been available to anyone as of yet. This sounds like they are out of stock due to demand for the parts, but everyone at my stage is having the same problem… no one has progressed beyond this issue as far as I know. They have still taken money for later issues which I have not received either, I’d paid most of the model kit off.

I wonder why they can not email or telephone call their suppliers? Why is there no clarity on all of this or strategic planning for deliveries etc? I know that lockdowns and other issues have affected all world wide deliveries but this all seems like a deeper problem now for something that should be so simple.

Is it possible that this build project is a failure and I have wasted all of my money on something that will never be finished? Maybe there were not enough subscribers and they have secretly called the part work to a halt? I hope not! I guess that refunds would not be available if this was the case and I would have a useless half built Enterprise D….

People here know how much I have enjoyed this project so far, but I am starting to get worried about it now after this email... This was supposed to be a pleasurable experience so that I have my own Enterprise model of high quality, just like I have always wanted since being a child. I couldn’t even technically afford this, I paid for it all out of love for Star Trek as mentioned above after cutting back other ‘guilty pleasures’ in order to save money… if I had a finished product I could accept the price of building this, but if it is never to be finished then it is a massive financial waste of upsetting proportions to me.

I guess that I will have to cancel my monthly online subscriptions such as Amazon and Netflix etc to try and recoup some of the costs, especially now that the price of petrol is going through the roof and I will need to start skimping and saving for that too!

 

Yeah, this has happened with other subscription lines as well. There was a bit of a surge there, not too long ago, when they announced they would start sending out the ships without their magazines, and they were able to unload a bunch of their stock, but it would seem that the ships have dried up again. At least, that's been the case for me. I haven't gotten anything from them in the past couple of months.

 

How could this type of subscription business model be legal? I didn’t read terms and conditions but surely they would be obliged to fulfil obligations to customers? Shouldn’t they have *everything* ready for the customers in a warehouse before starting something like this? I assumed that I was signing up to a done deal, not a potentialy expensive flop….

Fingers crossed though that I am over reacting, though the potential financial loss fills me with dread! Fingers crossed!

 

Well, it's probably legal in England, which is where Eaglemoss is headquartered. They have distribution centers all over the world, including here in the States, but international commerce laws might get a little sticky.

For years I've personally lamented how subscribers get their shipments months after they're available on the main Online Store, which apparently keeps its own inventory. There have been several models I've waited years to get that were always available on the store. I called them up once to ask them why that is and if they could just take the models out of the store and send them to the subscribers who paid for them and they basically said they're not allowed to touch that stock, making us wait indefinitely, basically treating subscribers as second-class citizens and giving top priority to the store.

Just they way they do things across the pond, I guess, and I am absolutely sure that any end-user license contract we would automatically agree to upon signing up for the subscription would be legally iron clad and full of "We reserve the right to..." and "In accordance with supply and availability..." predicates, asserting they'll send them to us on their schedule, not ours.

More's the pity. If the product wasn't so damn good, I'd have cancelled years ago.

 

Hmm, I wondered why the couple of builders I've been following have gone quiet lately.

Best case scenario is that there are just supply chain issues due to the lockdowns in China.

Worst case scenario... Well I won't go there.

Hope things get moving again soon. It's an expensive commitment especially if it ends up uncompleted.

 

I’ve never had any of the issues shipped from the UK, only Germany….

 

@Timofnine

Plan B: construct Spacedock scaffolding around completed and joined parts.

It truly is awful to have this investment in time and money go to waste. Supply chain failure does seem the most likely cause, and rocketing fuel prices will likely cripple the ability of any inventory to move. I am sorry for your losses. The work you put into it looked fantastic.

 

The irony there is that when all shipping operations were exclusively out of England, everything was fine. It took a LOT longer to get stuff, but at least you were pretty much guaranteed to get it. When that business model became untenable due to higher demand from overseas orders, they spread out. That's when the problems started. The people running the show in other countries didn't seem to have as much of a vested interest in seeing the product line succeed like the founders in the UK did. From what I've heard in the main Eaglemoss Ships thread, Australia is particularly horrible. When everything was established and stable, things were fine out there. However, when the littlest hiccup came along (data center outages, standing up a new shipping warehouse, etc.), everything went to shit for months and slowly recovered. Once COVID hit us all, things went into a permanent state of unreliability.

I echo IMC HQ's sentiments here - I genuinely hope that you can see this project through to fruition.

 

I will check the packaging and see if it gives me any clue as to where the parts are produced in Shanghai before they are shipped to Germany and then onwards to the UK and beyond. I will then give them a phone call directly to see if they have any news, or perhaps an email or letter if I can’t find a telephone contact. I know that all shipping from Shanghai would have been delayed recently because of local lockdowns (which are now lifted), there could potentially be a backlog of *all* exports at the moment which could also explain this situation. My Mandarin is quite proficient so I am sure that I would be able to open up discussion despite the language barrier. Perhaps I can arrange to have the parts delivered to me directly, cutting out the ‘middleman’ so to speak? If I find anything out I will let you all (and Eaglemoss Customer care) know what’s going on. If I can’t find any clues as to where the parts are produced, I have enough contacts over there who are able to help me investigate!

It’s better than being sat in the dark about it all, and I do like to investigate things myself!

 

Wow - that's really cool! If you know Mandarin, I'd say, "hell yeah" try to make an alternate arrangement, or at the very least to shake the tree and see what falls out. Would love to hear what you find out from the actual source.

 

Yeah, if you can find any leads, go for it. It can’t do any harm!

 

@Timofnine Well I was just charged for my next 4 batches (#71-74) so that takes me to issue #19. I thought I remembered an email from Eagemoss over a month ago saying they found a distributor(?) or manufacturer(?) here in the US that stated this would keep delays from happening. I just can't remember now if I'm remembering correctly.

What also worries me a bit is that Eaglemoss has been having some deep sales on a lot of their product lines lately. 30% on Orville ships, 50% off shuttle sets, etc. almost as if there is a fire sale before the end... I certainly hope this is not the case but who knows as they don't communicate very well with their subscribers.

 

Hadn't thought of that. Possibly true. That would bigly suck.

 

I think they might just be restructuring how they sell things, at least on the Star Trek line. Clearing out old inventory as the new stuff filters in. For the most egregious example, at this very moment on the U.S. Eaglemoss store, you can get the Delta Flyer in the old-style packaging marked down to $10 (from $25), or you can get the exact same model in the new "Collector's Edition" box (bigger box, smaller magazine that fits inside of it) for $30.

 

I worried similarly last fall, when all of a sudden no shipments came through anymore. And at some point I had almost given up and thought I'd never finish, but then they picked up the slack and now I'm getting new shipments every other week. By the regular schedule I should be at shipment 11 - I just received 15. So some things are certainly working. I imagine it's the production of the parts that has slowed down in Asia.

But I agree: they should have all these parts ready to go before a partwork line such as this even launches. That said, I still believe we're gonna get there.