Friday, 5 April 2013

Hello P.J. !

I too got caught in the Wait for EZ-B from China for my first one.

When we ordered our Second & Third EZ-B's we used the Local USA Texas Distributor.

Yesterday was a GREAT DAY for Phoenix Washington High School Robotics Car Wash !

We raised enough money to purchase One EZ-Robot Personal Robotics Complete Kit with EZ-B V3 Robot Controller from : http://www.aprohobbies.com/ezrobot-controller-personal-robotic-complete-p-540.html

Price: $169.00

Local Texas Distributor A Pro Hobbies

Best Wishes From Phoenix,

DougPope@cox.net, 602-246-1246(H)

Awesome! Looks like you'll fit right in with the EZ-SDK

The ship time is usually 3-4 days... however, i'm not certain if there is a delay due to stock of some components. We have been getting lots of orders lately and we keep running out of parts It's a good problem to have, but not great for shipping times!

When you click on ORDERS what does your status say?

Step 2, processing

it won't be much loner. I wish I had an answer for you. If you use the Contact Us, someone will return your question. Although, Alan who handles the Contact Us will be on vacation from Wednesday 10th till the 16th.

Sorry to use the forum this way DJ but.... I am waiting for a reply from Alan already 2 weeks! And now you say he is going on vacation.... I am worried.

Compilots, check your junk mail folder. Also, what day did you send a message. Alan has never missed a message - it's his full time job to reply. What you have experienced is an email issue.

If you can tell me what day you send a message, I can look and see if it's been handled yet.

Sorry DJ, it is not an email issue. I use gmail, I check my spam folder daily and I have also sent reminders to Alan.... NO REPLY. I sent an email (reply) on the 21st March and on 1st April I sent a reminder. I expected a reply on an email I sent on the 16th of March but to make sure I do get a reply I sent the 2 email above.

Sorry, it is an email issue. We were not having any emails even get into peoples spam folders over the past few weeks. We recently had to redo our DNS and add TXT SPF and _domainkey entries for our email. It was missing before and weren't even getting to gmail. I can assure you he will get back to you

however, he's way behind due to no one receiving our emails because we have been blocked for a few weeks

I looked up your user information and searched for your email. You have only emailed one time to Contact Us. You did not send a follow up message. You only sent one message from your registered email address.

Your question was:

Quote:

Hi, I would very much like to order the EZ-B v3 Bluetooth Robot Controller and the 2.5 Amp Motor Controller. (Total $84)

Unfortunately I see that the shipping would be an additional $41 which is a whopping 50% extra to pay. I am assuming these charges are not accurate. Would it be possible for you to check how much it would actually cost to send the above items to Israel?

Alan had sent a response. That is the price to ship to your country. The information is queried for shipping in real-time from our shipping agency. There is no modification to that shipping price. You may try one of our resellers to see if they will ship at a lower price to your country.

OK... since you posted here are the emails:

Quote:

From: ? ? <Email removed> Date: 2013/4/1 Subject: Re: Michael - EZ-Robot shipping cost to Israel? To: Alan Campbell ?Email removed?, ?Email removed? Alan, I would appreciate an answer ASAP!

2013/3/21 ? ? <Email removed> Hi Alan, I see you have shipped the order. How much was the actual shipping cost via EMS? When will you refund the difference? Regards, Michael.J

2013/3/16 ? ? <Email removed> Hi Alan, I have submitted my order #3-2903 Many thanks, Michael Judah

2013/3/11 Alan Campbell <Email removed> Hello Michael, Thanks for your interest in purchasing from EZ-Robot! It is often very expensive to ship these items around the world using FedEx or DHL 3-5 day with tracking. This is why the price is higher. If you purchase from us I will look into using EMS service to ship which should be closer to $20. Once I get the exact price I will refund you the difference in what you paid for shipping and what it actually cost using the cheaper method.

Let me know if this sounds ok J If so and you order please just send me an email with your order number so that I can discuss with our shipping team the true cost of shipping with EMS. Thanks and happy building, Alan Campbell EZ-Robot e: Email removed w: www.ez-robot.com Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn

Email: Email removed Date: 3/7/2013 11:36:44 AM

Message: Hi, I would very much like to order the EZ-B v3 Bluetooth Robot Controller and the 2.5 Amp Motor Controller. (Total $84) Unfortunately I see that the shipping would be an additional $41 which is a whopping 50% extra to pay. I am assuming these charges are not accurate. Would it be possible for you to check how much it would actually cost to send the above items to Israel?

Kind regards, Michael Judah

Okay, so you did not use the Contact Us. I was under the impression you submitted a form.

It appears Alan said he will be responding to you when the information is available. Your conversation was on Wednesday, and the information must not have been available yet. Now it is the weekend, and Alan will be back on Monday. I do not see an issue. We receive hundreds of emails in a day - and your request is quite custom and would take additional effort outside of our daily task.

I am comfortable with Alan's response. Because you are asking for a custom request, there is nothing I can do. Thank you for sharing the email though

No offence but I get the feeling you are on "automatic fire" currently... shooting replies without really going into details.

The issue is: Order was shipped on 18th March. (This indicates that the shipping cost is known). I queried Alan 21th March (3 days after shipping) - got NO REPLY. I sent a reminder 1st April (14 day after shipping) - still NO REPLY. (This is not a reasonable time period - I should have received some sort of reply) I have already received the small package and today is 6th April - and still NO REPLY. (19 day after shipping - which means Alan definitely knows by now the shipping cost).

One would at least expect a courtesy reply that the email has been received and that things are still being examined (though after 19 days one would assume shipping details are known)

While you are comfortable.... I am not! P.S I wish we could have had this conversation somewhere a little more private.

:(

No offence taken. Please understand that you are one of hundreds of people that Alan deals with in a day. He prioritizes emails and communication based on available information. Alan is in Canada, and we have 3 employees in China who build and ship our product. The communication between China and Calgary is done through reporting. We receive shipping costs and updates once a month - which is entered into our POS system for accounting purposes.

This is because how of how our office in China works. Unlike how you would imagine a few people sitting around taping up boxes and shipping them - we have a manufacturing plan that we operate out of. The shipping resources are shared for the entire warehouse. Each item is shipped through a separate service than EZ-Robot.

The cost of shipping, inventory and other resources are assembled by the warehouse company and provided to us in a detailed invoice once a month. The invoice is very large and parsed through a custom POS importer that we have.

When the information is available for your shipping cost, Alan will contact you.

As for firing off responses - I'm communicating with you the best I can with the information you are providing me.

This information was not communicated to me. You put my mind at ease now. Thanks for responding.

I am sure I will hear from Alan soon

Excellent! Glad we were able to reach a mutual understanding.

Also, I should add that we have a process management system. Everyone's responsibilities and tasks are maintained in a database that we share across the company. This is because we're seldom in the same city, let alone same room ... This also includes email transactions. Alan's list is the longest - because of the number of people he speaks with in a day.

We're hiring additional help - it's just hard to find

As you can tell by the community interaction - with the thousands of customers we have - no one is ever angry or upset. If everyone is happy working for EZ-Robot, they'll maintain a healthy and happy relationship with our customers. That's my approach.

In fact, no one calls their job a job. It's just a fun thing we do every day. And usually all day!

I got mine in 9 days. I was able to track in all the way in . Plugged it in and its worked great since.

Two weeks before I placed my order for the complete ez-b kits with some minor adds-on. I did send a courtesy e-mail using the contact me form on the website asking where the kits still available. Got no reply, after monitoring the Forums and seeing DJ hands on approach with the Forums. I finally convince myself that this is something legit ( No Offense). I stumble across EZ-B on youtube, which is why I was so skeptical. I know you guys are a start up and I know the communication personnel have a lot to dealt it, But we the public just want to be updated. Log in in a daily basis since the 31st of March and seeing my order still being process, well...............but now knowing its from China I feel a little bit better, gain a little more patience.

Saturday Morning, 6 April 2013

Good Morning P.J. !

Your RoboSapien is AWESOME !

With a Project That Big, you can certainly justify more than One EZ-B @ $69 from any of the Local EZ-Robot Distributors.

http://www.aprohobbies.com/ezrobot-c-59.html has delivered my Re-Orders in Three(3) Days or Less.

Begin using it NOW, and by the time your Complete Kit Arrives From China, you will know how to use it ?

Would YOU be willing to help solve some of Washington H.S. JAVA Compile Errors ?

Local Texas Distributor A Pro Hobbies

Best Wishes From Phoenix,

DougPope@cox.net, 602-246-1246(H)

Patience is definitely not my strongest virtue, Purchase an Arduino board from Amazon with overnight shipping, which I already receive. it should keep me busy until my EZ-Robot complete kits arrive. My Email is pjdatechy@live.com, I will be more than happy to help debug the coding errors.

send it as a word doc, notepad, or wordpad....if it is simply copy and paste into the email it will be flag as as virus or spam and automatically be deleted.

Hey Michael,

Just wanting to let you know that I did respond to your email you sent out on the first. As DJ mentioned we were having some big time issues with our mail servers so it must not have made it through. I will re-send the email for you It basically states exactly what DJ just mentioned - that we don't have the shipping costs from EMS service yet. As soon as I get them and update our back end with all the pricing I will let you know what it came to!

Sorry for the delays! BTW - if you don't receive the email from me today can you please post here again so that I know it didin't go through. We are hoping that our email challenges were fixed but this will be another good test

Hey Alan, can you please give me an estimate on how long it will take for the item to be shipped? order it on the 31ft of March?

PJ - I just sent you an email

Thank you DougPope for the kind words, we certainly appreciate local orders and ship out as quickly as possible. Thank you for supporting us and EZ-Robot products.

Hello, I have experiencing a similar problem with no responses. I sent three messages using the contact form, but have received no answer (first message on Monday. April 8th; next on the 9th and then again today, the 10th) Checked my spam filter, etc. On vacation again?

I was hoping to get the order in by this weekend to evaluate for use in a kid-friendly MIT autonomous robotics seminar; are lead times usually more than one business week? I have had some personal experience with unexpected Chinese holidays and delays, so I can relate, but I'd still like an update if possible.

thanks, Ben

here is a copy of my shipping summary, since they operate out of china, communicaton can be a little blurr, but I did receive my items

Tuesday, April 09, 2013 Location Time 16 Delivered - Signed for by : P JOACHIM ORLANDO 14:58

15 With delivery courier ORLANDO - HERNDON, FL - USA 09:11

Monday, April 08, 2013 Location Time 14 Delivery attempted; recipient not home ORLANDO - HERNDON, FL - USA 14:19

13 With delivery courier ORLANDO - HERNDON, FL - USA 07:32

12 Arrived at Delivery Facility in ORLANDO - HERNDON - USA ORLANDO - HERNDON, FL - USA 07:10

Sunday, April 07, 2013 Location Time 11 Departed Facility in CINCINNATI HUB - USA CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA 18:22

10 Processed at CINCINNATI HUB - USA CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA 12:19

Saturday, April 06, 2013 Location Time 9 Clearance processing complete at CINCINNATI HUB - USA CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA 01:10

8 Processed at CINCINNATI HUB - USA CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA 01:10

7 Arrived at Sort Facility CINCINNATI HUB - USA CINCINNATI HUB, OH - USA 01:03

Friday, April 05, 2013 Location Time 6 Departed Facility in HONG KONG - HONG KONG HONG KONG - HONG KONG 17:35

5 Processed at HONG KONG - HONG KONG HONG KONG - HONG KONG 16:30

4 Arrived at Sort Facility HONG KONG - HONG KONG HONG KONG - HONG KONG 00:26

Thursday, April 04, 2013 Location Time 3 Departed Facility in HONG KONG - HONG KONG HONG KONG - HONG KONG 23:40

2 Processed at HONG KONG - HONG KONG HONG KONG - HONG KONG 23:40

1 Shipment picked up HONG KONG - HONG KONG 21:28

I received a reply back today, it looks like my assumption of a vacation was correct. I look forward to receiving my order soon!

cheers, Ben

Hi Alan, any news?

Some of the orders should start shipping out early this week You will be notified by email with a tracking number once yours does! Still waiting on a couple components but everything is coming together nicely. If there are any more unexpected delays that come up I'll let you guys know!

Sent you an email a few days ago... It's about discounted shipping.

We still have not recieved the invoice for the shipping costs from your order or any of the others in that time period. I haven't forgotten about you... don't worry

Reminder.... 53 days since the order was placed....

Please check your email - the refund should be there shortly.

Thank you.