I thought I would chime in here since i work in the food industry and work with suppliers in china. we have an office here that has been in operation for over 75 years, family owned (yes I am part of the family and yes I know how it looks, but I earn my money honestly; without any nepotism present, as a sales rep/ shipping adviser 9-5).
every time we place a new parts order with a Chinese company it's almost always a total crap shoot as far as quality and shipping times go. I went to China a few years back to check out the quality of work they were doing and factory setup they have. I can certainly say (I know this is no surprise) that they make many promises that they just cant keep. They'll clean the factory day and night before you come to visit, they may even take you to a different factory and tell you that this is where your products will be produced (happened to us)! They (and I'm not trying to single out the Chinese here, its just who I have had the most experience with) will just plane tell you what you want to hear. You could ask them to make a batch of mixing bowls to exact specs with tolerances of .0002 and they will tell you that they will have a batch of 10k sitting in your warehouse the next month. Come that time, you would be elated to find that they were able to fulfill the order, you might even start releasing them early because they look so good. This sets in motion a whole series of events that eventually leaves you (the distributor or in DV's case distributor and management team) with hundreds of unhappy customers after they find that the finish comes off and people are getting metal shavings in there food. Plus you have an extra 5k of junk product stuck in your warehouse (and no, china does not accept refunds).
My point is, is that we have no idea how this went down when management at DV found out about these defects. Considering the reaction and attention they have spent on updating us, I would suspect that they lost a considerable amount of product, supply contacts and unfortunately customers. From what i see, and i know no one is asking me; I think DV is doing everything in there power to fix this. Getting a new manufacturer as fast as they did impresses me tremendously as does the speed in which they were/are able to come up with a solution. If you have to ask me, I'm sticking with my ascent on order and if its still not up to par, I have full confidence DV will do everything in there power to fix any obstacles down the road. Alot of people are angry, and I understand, if I was waiting for a product for months only to find out its not up to par, I would be too. The thing to take into consideration is not so much your own reaction, the real test is how the company reacts. As they say every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Just look at PAX. I love the thing but its mouthpiece is not acceptable to me. I have herd so many complaints and all we've been given is lube. I don't even clean my glass as much as i have to with the PAX. I've had one for half a year and they still haven't fixed the mouthpiece issue yet , (unless you like lube).
I feel like that is the difference, PLOOM will give you a refund or replacement which is great but to see a company like DV tackle the internal and external bugs before the unit has been on the market for less than 2 months just says a lot to me.
