Your question of returning the R3 stuck in customs for us in Dongguan to resend with redone papers is a very difficult problem for us to answer. I was dealing with a similar case today and was quoted 200USD for retrieving the package from customs and returning it to us from another country.
Of course any notion of turning in a profit from these Kickstarter R3's had gone down the drain the moment we decided to ship the leather cases separately, but this is another level of ridiculous.
Never mind getting crowd"funded"--this Kickstarter campaign may be the undoing of a healthy strong company...
@Joe Bloggs I know the reputation of Hiby software in the DAP world so I truly hope you guys survive this drama. People can be very forgiving if their expectations are set properly and given proper communication. If I can provide my own humble opinions on how to handle this next time, I would do the following,
1. Communicate early about the delay but give yourself some buffer. I can't speak for everyone, but a lot of us backers are past backers of crowd funding. We kinda expect delays. You didn't need to say, "we're waiting on the cases". That rubs people the wrong way. Better to say "due to some manufacturing delays, we're sorry but expect a delay of another month or two. We will stay on top of this and provide future updates." That give you some buffer and leeway. You guys were too specific about the case holding up the shipping and then too specific about when we should expect notification.
2. Stagger the shipping and let backers know. "This week, we are shipping block #1 for backers # - #". Setting expectations and trying to meet shipment to everyone all at once was really what turned the internet's furor off.
3. I would have offered those who ordered cases the opportunity to cancel their case orders and receive their units earlier without the case. I would have followed up with a separate campaign for the case.
4. Ramp up the marketing campaign instead of going big from the start. I would have done a much smaller campaign to test the waters out and figure out the kinks in my manufacturing and shipping process.
The daily communication on kickstarter and continued communication after the debacle will go a long way to smoothing out people's disappointment. If the quality of this product is good, a lot will be forgiven. For all the drama, this has been one of the better crowd funding campaign I've ever been a part of. Nearly every campaign I have backed have months if not years delay.
You saw a lot of clamoring mainly because on the surface, this device looks very desirable. It has streaming, speed, and the right size. There's nothing close to the R3 on the market at the moment. It's a very good problem to have. Just learn from the lessons of expectation setting and communication and you guys can grow from this. Other than A&K and Sony, the DAP market has been pretty anemic since Apple left. Companies left and right are giving us 10 year old slow technology without the modern features we expect, like streaming and MQA. A lot of us do appreciate Hiby attempting to disrupt this collusion of mediocrity in the current market. Make the products good and ALL of these early problems will be forgotten in a year or two. There exist a path for a modern day iPod maker to take over the market again.