Bigmoss,
I'm sure everyone appreciates the effort you put into getting the jackets arranged. I know I certainly do. I don't want to speak for BP but I think he was was just trying to back me up as I was taking a few shots. I think he was just trying to reinforce the point I was trying to make about trying to determine the exact price so that people knew exactly what to expect.
Unfortunately, it seems like there was a bit of miscommunication and I don't think it was your fault. I think a lot of us wrongly assumed the jackets were a 50-60 dollar purchase and not a 150 dollar purchase. And I think the number of people who wanted to purchase one dropped significantly when the price was higher than anticipated. So when the final price was determined they didn't go ahead and purchase. Again, that's not your fault, it's just life.
For some reason at that point, a few comments were made that really shouldn't have been. (They weren't said by you) And the comments upset some people including myself. To be frank, the comments grew to finally be pretty demeaning and insensitive and I'll leave it at that.
And, a few members commented privately to me about them so that was part of the reason why I tried to offer some suggestions as to why perhaps people that had initially expressed an interest might have lost interest. I was also trying to alert everyone to be careful with the shipping as I had been burned a couple of times before. And when I say burned I don't really mean by Brilliant, I mean by UPS. Try googleing "UPS Brokerage fees on Canadian orders", or similar keywords you'll no doubt find all kinds of horror stories about UPS charging excessive fees on items they broker into Canada. But I digress....
Anyhoo, my explanations for some reason just seemed to make things worse, which was unfortunate. And the number of people that were upset was growing, but people were reluctant to express their feelings publically on the board. My frustration grew as well, so I finally decided to just speak my mind on a number of fronts and I'm sure we can all see how well that cleared things up.
At the end of the day, the bottom line is that most people involved in this deal had good intentions. I know you certainly had the best of intentions. I am confident our membership had the best of intentions. And I can tell you, that I had the best of intentions.
I also just wanted to let everyone know that EVERYTHING I have ever ordered from Brilliant has been top notch stuff. And I've got almost all of the items on the Mate site. Towels, shirts, hats, sweatshirts keytags you name it. As I mentioned I've also given Mate stuff as gifts to my girlfriend and some close relatives that love the Pulse. Some of the items I've literally had for years and years, and it has all held up great. The only issue I had with Brilliant was with the shipping. And I don't think they were totally at fault. I doubt they would even really know much about what happens to their orders after stuff leaves their warehouse unless they get a call from their customer. They made a booboo on my last by sending it via UPS and it was a little late but it wasn't the end of the world. I can tell you that I would have no problem letting Brilliant create product for the site if a time came that we decided that was something we'd like to do. So I'm confident the jackets that you guys get, will be excellent and you'll enjoy them for years and years to come. I was just a little concerned about the orders being shipped by UPS and Canadian members being hit by rediculous fees by "The Truck" and hence my several comments about brokerage fees.
Bigmoss, on behalf of myself and a bunch of the members, I want to thank you for stepping up and putting in the time and effort on this. It's very much appreciated and I hope you guys post some pics of the jackets when you get 'em.
