As always, if you have a problem with your order or just need more information, please reach out to us: support@michaelthemaven.com
I’m happy to say, we are in the home stretch of completing most of our Maven Filters Kickstarter & Indiegogo funding orders on both platforms! We are getting a lot of questions about a lot of things, so I will put each topic into bold.
Much of what will happen moving forward will be based on the arrival of our first stock of ship sent inventory around the 21st or 22nd (We originally thought it would be the 15th.). It’s not a huge shipment, but should keep us going until the second shipment arrives in early April. We are already seeing some sell outs on certain items, so if you know you need something, please get it while you can, otherwise it might be April.
Transitioning to USA based shipping-
I’ve not been happy with how orders have been fulfilled from Hong Kong. It has been slow, much more expensive than anticipated, not just for my backers, but huge additional costs for my business (it will make a great chapter in a future book). There were some other problems that I hated for many of you, including lost packages, unexpected or ridiculous import fees and the like. I know we can do better with how MAVEN filters are shipped. I want to start shipping primarily from the USA as soon as our inventory arrives this week. It will be cheaper, faster and I think we will have fewer “lost” packages. I realize some will wonder why I didn’t from the start? Because it takes 4-6 weeks to ship large quantities by boat and we cannot ship pallets of inventory by plane.
Had I shipped to the USA first before fulfilling orders, we would not have sent out a single order yet and we would not finish until April 2023. I didn’t want that, I wanted speed, so I went with the Hong Kong Route. I knew I was taking a big risk going this way, and it accomplished what we needed it to speed wise, but dang…so many problems for many of us. We will eventually close out our inventory from our forwarding agent there, but we cannot do that until our inventory finally arrives here in the USA.There are not many of you in the USA still waiting on orders, but Ill stand by my original offer, if you paid more than $2 of your original shipping fee, we are happy to refund the difference or credit you towards any products you like. If you paid less than what it cost, I will cover that on your behalf (this has already happened countless times).
Remaining Maven Filters KS Kit Orders:
If you are one of the few (less than 30 or so) Kickstarter supporters who have not received a shipping date or waiting on a tracking number, I will call an audible and ship from the USA once we have the inventory in stock next week (around the 21 or 22nd). There have been a number of delays in the Quick Draw Cases for about 12 orders and others for missing show glow filter orders. Instead of making you wait until they are ready in HK, we will revise your order, cancel those shipping labels and ship from the USA once we get our inventory here. If you are in the USA, this will speed up your order significantly. We want all future orders (the stragglers who have not yet filled out a survey) sent from the USA.
105 & 112mm Kit Orders:
Some good news! The XXL and XXXL (105 & 112mm) filters were finished on the 15th. They are currently being laser etched and packed and we anticipate they will ship by Fed Ex tomorrow. Some of you have already received your tracking numbers. The XXL and XXXL size step up rings, and Back Caps are also finished as well, so the dozen or so of these orders will be completed very soon. Ifyou do not hear from us by Wednesday of next week with your tracking number (Feb 22nd) please reach out to us! support@michaelthemaven.com
95mm Show Glows & 77 ¼ Show Glow Diffusers
These remaining diffusion filters are almost finished. Once they are, we will airship a small box of them to our USA warehouse, after which they will go immediately out. We anticipate you will have them in your hands in about 2 weeks give or take a few days.
Missing Soft Bags
Our replacement missing bags have mostly shipped. We anticipate we may have a few more, and will tie up these loose ends as the come.
Double Orders of Magnetic Filters
There were about 20 or so of you whom have received a second order. (Yes, two complete orders at my expense). We have reached out to each of you, but I wanted to give a special thank you to the five customers who reached out to us first. We made an honest mistake, and I sincerely appreciate you for letting us know. These mistakes have been very costly to me, and we are doing everything we can to be profitable moving forward, so I extra appreciate your honesty!
MAVENFILTERS.COM Upgrades:
We are slowly upgrading our new website at www.mavenfilters.com. Each day we improve something there. It should be faster now, and we have a lot of great information coming, including filter school. We appreciate your patience as we continue to improve it.
MAVENFILTERS.COM Orders:
Many of you have placed orders on our new website for accessories. We anticipate we will begin shipping these on or around Feb 22nd . I’m worried that the 77-82mm step up ring is about to sell out. I’ve placed a new order for another 1000, but these won’t arrive until Early April. Stock outs have me worried. 58mm Kits are sold out, 95mm will be next.
New Products Coming Soon!
We have 15 new products on the drawing board. Some will be announced very shortly. I cannot wait for you to see them
A big shout out to Duncan for his Unboxing review!
Thank you all for your continued support!
Best wishes
Michael
