Open letter from the EU Shipping Group to NIANTIC
Hello Team from Niantic,
Hello Team of Ingress,
Hello staff reading this letter,
I am writing to you on behalf of a huge community. It's about the sale of the Dronekits, which was released on 20.12.2021. But what happened?
Ulrich and I (Tobi) started a wonderful player initiative at the beginning of 2021, when the NL-1331 Birthday Kits were released. The kits v1 were initially sold exclusively in the USA. So we created the telegram group @nl1331shipping to share them with agents from Europe. Honestly, at first we only wanted to offer this locally, but overnight we became pretty well known. There was no going back - we went for it. With the Birthdaykits v1 we drew quite a bit of ire from the agents as we bought 325/600 of them. But our agents in the group were very happy about it.
Shortly afterwards, the NL-1331 BirthdayKit v2 was released. There we were also in the running again and were able to secure 300 pieces - that was just enough to deliver to our agents.
But the question is: Why did we do this? For one simple reason: we have a huge fanbase in Europe who also want the swag. Since at that time Brandfuel only shipped within the US, there was no legal way to get the kits without being suspicious of an agent. Ulrich and I took a big financial risk because with v2 we didn't ask for the money until after the purchase. With v1 we would have had to make a lot of refunds, which fortunately did not happen.
Everyone who is and was in the NL shipping group saw what a job we had with the kits. The v1 kits were crappily packaged, just thrown in the box. We sorted out missing cards with codes and thanks to Ethan we got a list so we already had codes to tell the agents the missing code on the card. We had to check all the kits and repack them. In addition, we kept the kits for ourselves that were defective. Envelope defective, sticker sheet torn. It was simply horrible what brandfuel did. With v2, brandfuel thought along and packed it in appropriate boxes. But even there we had to check everything again.
More than 500 agents from all over the world trusted us with the birthday kits. Not only Europe, but also Asia, North and South America and even Australia we supplied. The Birthdaykit v2 went to 27 countries worldwide, while the v1 only went to 17 countries. Mostly to countries that even Nianticsupply doesn't supply today.
We put a lot of spare time into it, worked on a lot of things and checked every kit ourselves to get a list from Ethan for the codes. We took a lot of work off Brandfuel and Niantic's hands. All in all, we spent a good 200 hours on this. A big thank you to @TeresTaa, who also supported us with her creative skills and her help in packing the kits for shipping. Thank you very much for that!
When the IQTech Dronekit was announced, we were flooded with requests to import and forward them again. The answer was straight away: "Of course!"
Ulrich and I started brainstorming how we could make this the easiest this time. In the meantime, we no longer live 20km apart, but 800km. We created a Googleform for those agents that Nianticsupply doesn't deliver to. In the first 24h we already had 160 preorders, which increased hourly in the coming days. When IUENG (one of the biggest communities in Europe) allowed us to share our order form as well as our group, it became even more. In the end, we had 490 preorders. Amazing! We were not only trusted by agents who were not supplied by the official store, but also by agents who we had already successfully supplied.
Some reasons why agents trust us:
- They can sit back and relax. They know we will tackle any problem. Issues like customs and import VAT they don't really know. We take care of that.
- Shipping is moderate and with a tracking number. If a kit doesn't arrive, there's money back. We investigate, of course. Since we traded as private persons, this is not a matter of course.
- We communicate honestly, openly and have the connection to the community.
- We respond to every request, if possible. An agent only wants the codes? No problem! One wants no codes and only swag? We have also complied with these wishes.
The kits were released, I ordered 500. Technically, only 10 should be possible. But if I can order my quantity directly, why not? It is not my problem if Nianticsupply did not test and adjust the shopify store properly in the last weeks/months. So with order #NLABS3303 I have ordered 500 kits at a cost of $12,500.
Order confirmed. This was the starting signal to collect the agents' money. Late in the afternoon, German time, I frantically called Ulrich. Order cancelled. Nianticsupply cut the order to 10 kits. We were and still are really pissed off. Ulrich had to transfer back about 7000 EUR, Paypal fees went on our pocket. Just because Nianticsupply didn't test the shop?
The most ridiculous email was the joke of the day.
"Thank you for your order. The kits were limited to 10 per person. The system should not have allowed you to order more than 10. We have reduced your order to 10 kits and refunded the remaining." - Britt, Nianticsupply.
Well, then I wrote to the support that I would have made 50 orders with 10 kits each in the 2.5 hours. Of course, this was only possible if the limit was 10 kits / order.
"Hi Tobias - We are adding additional inventory today to the site. We will limit to 10 per person in order to be fair to the rest of the community." - Britt, Nianticsupply
I was getting so annoyed with this answer. Does the company Nianticsupply know what fair means? I already wrote to them a day before that I would order 500 kits. Why wasn't this answered, and I was told directly that this is not desired? Customer support is miserable. If I treated my customers like this, I would already be more than broke.
So I asked why I should be responsible for the technical error. The following ridiculous answer came:
"We have refunded your orders in excess of 10 kits. You should receive that refund within 3-7 business days." - Ben, Nianticsupply
Nianticsupply was alerted to my order of over 500 kits via email the day before. In addition, the questions of whether shipping, import VAT and customs are covered by Nianticsupply remain unanswered. This is a very important answer that has a great impact on the price we have to charge for the kits.
Besides, the cancellation went through many channels. Even after I said that the kits would be put back in the shop sometime during the day, it was not taken positively. There was real anger. We were still able to secure a total of 60 kits. But how do we distribute them fairly and equitably to the agents?
Our request to you:
Come up with something good that Ulrich and I can do to make every agent happy. We have almost 300 agents that we would have supplied. There were some community ones who ordered larger quantities. To countries that Nianticsupply does not supply. We had requests from 49 countries this time, all of which we would have supplied.
Finally, let's mention a few arguments why agents trust us:
1. We already have experience with customs and shipping, and we are there to help and advise.
2. We do not leave the agent in the lurch. Furthermore, we provide support via Telegram or email within a few hours. Moreover, we always look for a solution.
3. Nianticsupply would not have had any complaints. We would have organized the shipping of the kits.
4. Agents would only have 2 contacts. Problem? We took care of it without exception.
5. We have the connection to the community. The community pays a higher price, but Nianticsupply did not give us a discount, nor could they guarantee any takeover costs of customs or import sales tax (it would have been nice if the questions about cost takeover had been answered at all).
6. We stand for open and honest communication.
7. We can be asked questions a hundred times. We also remain calm and are happy to disclose everything.
Please contact us so that we can clarify this calmly. We want to find an appropriate solution for everyone in the community. It would be very sad if we don't find a solution. Ulrich and I answer questions every day - we are quite happy to do this, and at the same time we want to help the community through our commitment.
Nevertheless, we wish you a Merry Christmas.
Ulrich and Tobias from Germany
Agents @derfreiburger & @niulen
Comments
Hello,
I was part of this group and I too was disappointed by Nianticsupply. Cancelling an order because of your mistake is just not fair to us.
Ulrich and Tobias do an amazing job for the community and seeing them literally pay for this is sad.
I hope you can make it up for this mistake.
Merry christmas !
I can only speak for the v1 kit, and everything was great from your side (great attention, always available to solve doubts, repacking a few times to merge orders from different agents in the same city, keeping track of the money from different people, and many more things).
I had to use you as intermediate when they didn't sell to my country, and now that they do ship things to Spain, I'll totally buy from you again because you offer things that the official store doesn't sell anymore (like toasts, 3 of them in my house thanks to you).
Good luck with this, I hope that at least you can secure kits for the agents in those countries that aren't on the list.
I am from Indonesia which is not covered by niasupply, and my only options is ordering from this group. Now my only chance blew up by some technical misinformation/mismanagement by niasupply
I had no way to buy eatlier kits except through this group. (Australia)
It was painless, professionally packaged the way swag collectors expect swag to be packed and fast.
They have performed better than any other shipping company globally and I have dealt with most.
Ulrich and Niulen performed a fantastic service, operating at cost and are not scalpers.
They are respected by the swag fanbase.
Please help them out.
Hello,
i from France, and i am agree with all.
Maybe @NianticBrian @NianticThia can help ?
So nianticsupply support is the same people running Ingress support it seems. Not helpful….
I’ll be honest, anyone buying 500 kits doesn’t feel right to me. Regardless of the intention. It’s obvious you have the best intentions. But someone being able to pre-order a kit is different than me staying up late and ordering it like everyone else. But this could all easily be resolved if the ingress team worked with their community instead of pitting us against each other. But as we’ve learned and you’ve shown in your post, it’s not about agents or the community, it’s about moving a bunch of merch. It’s unfortunate they couldn’t work something out, but also not surprising at all.
I’m not sure what the answer is. I guess, in my brain that hasn’t ever been involved with shipping hundreds of items, would maybe do something clever like, check this box if you’re part of the group order overseas. Which then would produce a disclaimer than there is risk and Niantic is free of liability, etc. Or work to find a company overseas that can ship to all countries. I buy a ton of records from a label in San Francisco, shipping rates got insane for people outside the US, so they opened up online shops in Europe and AUS. People asked, they delivered. I think Ingress could try harder, but I do think limits are a good thing and anyone attempting to purchase one of these kits should have to go through the same process as everyone else.
I'm confused. I thought the limit put in place was to prevent bulk orders like this. A bulk order of 300 kits for the NL 1331 kits back in March was made that was more than 1/2 of the available kits - it made the initial bunch of kits sell out within 10 minutes.
The limit of 10 kits per agent has been used since then. Why wasn't a unified effort done based on the known restrictions? I hate the situation put in place but it's also not a new one.
The limits a new thing. And typically, they screwed up and initally had unlimited order option, THEN introduced it after European order placed and cancelled their order.
In Australia this is actually illegal as the seller has made an offer and the buyer has accepted which stands as a contract.
Nia won't ship to my country, what other options do I have? By the way, the support reply sounds evil. "Please sign up to see what else you can't have, loser!"
I don't even try to buy these kits. When someone takes half the available inventory to resell it leaves everyone else with nothing. These kits should be players not resellers anyway.
Niantic will NEVER learn that the solution is just to STOP making things "exclusive" and print as many kits as agents need. Everyone who wants one should be able to get one!
Previously there were arguments about logistics and stocks and such. But this is was a pre-order. So, just print as many as were pre-ordered. Why do you have to limit the quantities on a pre-order? It just doesn't make sense.
Alternatively, release the digital kit at the same time as the physical kit. That way agents who only want the digital badge don't compete with those who wish to have physical swag.
Huh? The website stated the 10 kits per order limit from the start - it never changed.
My sympathies to your business and your 440 clients.
I took a day to think about your letter. I experienced disbelief, disappointment, but mostly disgust.
I question your decision to publicly humiliate Niantic Supply's technical blunder, when you admit and describe how you exploited the system. You speak of many who will not receive their kits. Have you thought about how many people wasted their time trying to get kits because you snatched them up? You sound absurdly entitled for someone who deliberately broke the rules set to avoid this very incident.
I want to wish you luck in your future endeavors. People seem to genuinely appreciate the service you provide. However, seeing as how you cause damage to a far wider player base as well as the staff at Niantic, I shall not.
So, current system is ok to you? Your comment is as disrespectul and disgusting as you described the letter. They took advantage of their situation to provide supply to the whole Europe. Shipping costs are just not assumable for regular customers outside USA, they solved that problem and turned the stuff actually affordable for those who really want it.
A far wider playerbase? That is to be determined, Europe is at the very least a 3rd part of the whole playerbase. Your comment gets even worse as I keep reading.
The way I see it, this is a common effort FROM Europe to get the product, and Niantic just has little to no idea how to provide a proper supply, and actually their extremely poor selling policies enforce bad practices actual bad resellers use in their favour, such as ebay auctions we all know for about 15 times original value.
I myself could get both v1 and v2 kits thanks to these guys. The services works and is FAR better that Niantic's, so this open letter is 100% justified. And about the public humilliation bit: would you perhaps prefer to get this discussion OUTSIDE the Ingress forum? Think twice and be quiet in the meantime.
Would it feel better to you if they added each requester name to their bulk order? Who is guilty of the situaton? Resellers buy all stuff and sell it overpirced afterwards when stock is over. These guys actually have a preorder, they do not keep a stock for reselling, not to mention the great amount of costs they cut by doing this or the service they actually provide to those who never stood a chance to order because Niantic's europhobia preventing them from shipping to some countries.
Niantic needs to do pre-orders otherwise its just a mess for everyone.. really sad they canceled the order for everyone....
Digital release kits would fix literally everything. Give medals up front, swag to be delivered later.
Really glad they didn't allow the same abuses as the last time. Imo they should have made it max of one or two per agent.
All I'm reading here is "I'm upset because Niantic didn't let me play gatekeeper and gain popularity for hoarding product"
Maybe you’re not understanding where my frustration lies. When people are preordering from these folks in Europe, they say, hey, get me one and then they go about their merry way. When I ordered one, I knew it was going up for sale at a certain hour and made sure I was on the website when it was listed, I made sure I had my credit card on my desk, etc. I’m just saying, I did my work and I think everyone should play by the same rules. I’m empathetic of the way Niantic makes it impossible for some people, but I’m playing by the rules given to us. One person playing by the rules so 500 people didn’t have to, feels weird to me.
I absolutely think it’s unfortunate how quiet Niantic continues to be. In this matter, in all matters. I wasn’t able to get the V2 Birthday kit last time, possibly because someone bought a ton of kits before I could get to a computer ( I was in a meeting) and I didn’t have the luxury of saying, hey, I’m busy adulting today, but order that thing for me and I’ll cover the cost. Do you see how one has a better chance of getting it? They’ve actually created a system that isn’t fair to all agents.
I was just trying to say, I don’t think it’s fair, I understand why they’re doing it, this is Niantics fault and even offered up a workaround. Unfortunately, Niantic has never cared about being faiR, sometimes you’re on the better side, sometimes you aren’t.
I’m frustrated Niantic is basically just getting us to squabble with each other instead of jumping here in the forums and owning up this and working to find a solution…
In this day and age ... How on earth is international shipping bit an automated thing? Or maybe the question should be why do Americans think they are the only ones on the planet?
The one game which they didn't have to pay god knows how much for in license fees and they keep pissing off the players.
The swag packs they are making are easily printed anywhere in the world. We are supposed to have community reps but that seems to be just a complaint buffer rather than anything useful for the community.
All of this is stupidly solveable. Many of us work in tech. Some of us work in digital asset distribution on a global scale. Just bloody well ask for help. Show you can actually listen.
But based on previous failures I doubt anyone with the power to actually make a decision will care. More interested to attempting to make another PoGo rather than actually supporting the suppliers of the in-game data that you've used for your products.
You intentionally made a large order, knowing you weren't supposed to then act surprised when it's canceled SMH
he did contact them beforehand so they were aware.
Was there acknowledgement??
The post doesn't really make this clear.
"Nianticsupply was alerted to my order of over 500 kits via email the day before."
Was this by contacting them or assuming your 500 kit order went through that they were alerted?
I have contacted Nianticsupply for the release of the kits that I will order 500 kits. Other questions I had have not been answered to date.
Since some here are again spreading negative sentiment:
We in Europe have found a system to help agents from countries that are not officially supplied. We are very honored that we already supply agents worldwide. Nevertheless, our principle is the same as before: we help where agents need other agents.
What would you prefer if you wanted something exclusive? Join a trusted community and know they are honest, or buy a kit overpriced (100 EUR+) on ebay where the codes might be redeemed?
Without proof of two way communication, your post is just sour grapes that t&c u knew would be in place but tested way were inforced,
Shipping escrow services exist, they don't require a 3rd party paying for the order....
off-topic
This is just incorrect. EU guys took orders, they didn't just arbitrarily grab X packs. Heaps of players in the past had ZERO chance of getting a pack without this group helping because packs just did not ship and escrow companies are a rip off.
Niantic supply has always been terrible with either no shipping to many countries or extremely high shipping costs, in some cases shipping was 3-4x the order value of the item.
Not to mention issues with no codes etc.
Even now Russia for some crazy reason cannot buy. Our company in Australia ships to Russia all the time, and Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and many many other places. You just need shipping people that know what they are doing.
I just do not get Niantic.
I have worked on swag production and its cheaper the more you order. If these were preorders as stated, just print more.
The EU group provide a valuable service for agents outside the USA who otherwise cannot access items which should be available to all.
Yes I know Niantic now ship to more places but its still limited.
Outsourcing production 100% to the player base would work better than the current broken system.
One player one kit. That would solve the problem of these resellers. Because that's exactly what they are. They buy in bulk to resell. If they don't like how Niantic created the services they are providing they are welcome to create their own game and sell their own goods related to their own game they created. But in the meantime Niantic makes their own rules for their products.
I feel like I have to provide my first post again.
The 10 kits per agent was done to deter exactly this. You guys thought it was ok to do the same thing that was done back in March when you took more than half of the NL 1331 kits. You guys assumed it was ok for some reason.
I would rather have the actual details stated than this open-ended letter thinking it's Niantic once again when they have made it clear they were imposing a purchase limit on their stores.
If you think legit criticism is being negative, you are really trying to push accountability away from yourself.
💯 well said :)