Actually, that's not quite what the new acknowledgements said. Here's what they actually are--three checkboxes before you complete your order:
( ) I understand the item with the longest backorder sets the ship date for my entire order. Example: if four items are 1-3 days and one is 6-8 weeks, your order ships in 6-8 weeks.
( ) I understand if the shipping date changes on the site after I place my order, that doesn’t apply to me. Example: if the site changes from 5-7 days to 2-4 weeks after you placed your order, you’ll still be shipping in 5-7 days.
( ) I understand that Schiit Audio can no longer change or combine orders, due to the need for warranty traceability. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.
The first one is simply informational--we only ship orders complete, so if you get 4 things with 1-3 day shipping and one with 10-12 weeks, it ships in 10-12 weeks. We just want to make this super clear so people can alter the order so they can get stuff earlier.
The second one is because we get avalanches of emails every time the ship date changes on the site. This doesn't apply to orders already placed. In fact, many of our products are starting to ship sooner than estimates, and speaker amps are getting near 1-3 days, rather than weeks, in many cases. This is just to let everyone know, don't hound us when something goes from 2-4 weeks to 10-12 weeks after you ordered--you get yours in 2-4 weeks, but people ordering now should expect to wait much longer.
The third one is because we get lots of requests to combine or change orders--so if you order a Mani and then you decide you'd rather have a Bifrost, and then change it to a Freya, we used to have to try to manage this through painful manual notes, which made warranty tracing particularly painful. So yes, we'll help you cancel an order so you can place a correct one, but there's no more ad-hoc changes allowed.
Yes, I know, we are terrible people. Yes, awful. And at the same time, I went to buy an awning for our CA house today, and what was the first thing I saw: ALL AWNINGS NOW 4-6 WEEKS DUE TO HIGH DEMAND. We're still waiting for a couch for our Corpus house, ordered in January. We went to get a high-powered computer for Ivana and found that pretty much all options were 3-6 weeks--past the date she was leaving to go home for a while. So we order a refurb, because those are in stock, right? Yes, except they delayed it 2 days, then a week, then another week--this is for a refurb that was, by definition, supposed to be in stock. Want a Camaro now? That's a nope. Plant's shut down. Want a Corvette right now? That's also a nope, plant's shut down. Want plywood right now? Hope you are OK with a second mortgage to pay for it.
I could go on and on about what we're doing to address this, including some of the most fundamental reorganizations ever seen here and at our partners. But these things take time, and even if they are accelerating, we're still having unexpected gotchas at many turns.
The cynical company would simply raise prices on everything 50%, and take a bath in the money shower that ensues, while enjoying the relaxation that less unit sales would provide. But we won't do that. That's not us. Instead, we will throttle demand by giving you realistic--or, these days, even pessimistic--estimates on when things will ship, because when stuff is backordered, it sells much slower.
Hopefully soon we will have much less backorder, or at least much shorter timeframes. We're doing our best, and we're making progress. But guys, seriously, this ain't easy. FUBAR is still the new normal. At least for now.
