Thanks for joining this thread, Tom. I agree that it does a disservice to have so much complaining about ordering in the other thread. It makes it difficult to weed through the great information.
When will PD be on sale? Probably the day that VapeNow gets them. What time? Seems to have been established, but that's not guaranteed, and I have no info other than is posted here.
A more definitive time would be wonderful. I hadn't seen an approximation posted.
Hub says,"I was appreciative that they narrowed it down to Wednesday of every week..." Not sure how you get that
I got that impression from the VapeNow order page:
"We expect to have Purple Days units ready to ship on weekly basis every Wednesday."
Hub further says, "Try something new already." yet offers no constructive advice.
I posted my suggestion after some thought in a later post. So you've explained how the shipping works, and we know the Post Office is not entirely predictable. Rather than shipping on the day they are received at some random moment, why not offer these units for sale at an announced day and time every week? Every Friday or Saturday at noon for instance, or make the date and time up after each weekly shipment is received.
Do not suggest a waiting list... What? You want to put your name down and have me e-mail you when we have one available? Sure... So how long would the list be? And by the time I get around to e-mailing you, will you still want one? And do I wait around for you to e-mail me back? About a product that you had a passing interest in 6 months ago? That is, after I have e-mailed and waited on all those before you? Sure... THINK! It would never work.
Less a waiting list and more a pre-order. I'd seriously rather pay you in full now and know that some indefinite time down the road I'd be basking in all the Purple Days glory. I'm patient. I don't require hand holding and updates, just the eventual promise of a product I'd truly like to own.
Although you think that idea is crazy, I think it's no more crazy than the length so many of us have gone through thus far since the Vapenow order system has been in place.
Right now, this situation is tantamount to the last few seconds of an auction when bidders are whipped into a frenzy and pay far too much on pure emotion, hence all the emotional bitching I know we're all tired of hearing.
A while back I came across a great company that makes some really awesome pants and clothing by hand in New York city.
http://www.outlier.cc
At the time I discovered the company, they had sold out of that run of pants and said they wouldn't have any more available until the next batch in the spring. In February they allowed pre-orders from their page. I placed an order and waited until the end of April to receive the pants. I liked them so much, I placed another order and am waiting for this batch too.
I understand that quality hand-made items take time and carry a premium, so I'm waiting patiently with no need for frequent updates other than what's on their site. I like those clothes for the same reason I choose to support Purple Days over another company. The difference is the effort I've had to go through for each order.
In one case, I placed an order and waited. In the other case, week after week, I have to turn into a mad-refresh king, only to be let down over and over again. The Outlier pants, even with the long wait, have provided me an all-around positive experience from order to receipt. The Purple Days *ordering* alone has done nothing but stress me out.
As it stands, you have a dedicated following of people so anxious to try out your product that we devote entire days and weeks to refreshing a site non-stop just for that glimmer of hope that I, too, might be lucky enough to be in front of my computer and can type my credit card number fast enough to get a PD in that 180 second window once a week.
And a PS. to those using that extension, read that post about it, he implies that it is probably slowing VapeNow's ability to do business. How do you other folks feel about that? Someone refreshed over 2000 times in one day last week.
I brought up this point myself. All of us refreshing non-stop, manually or with scripted assistance, could potentially act like a Distributed Denial of Service attack on vapenow. At the very least, refreshing that page to get an update uses some of their finite bandwidth and will cause them to occur additional costs.
However, I have to wonder what Vapenow expected by posting, "Check back often, because they will go fast, there has been overwhelming interest." Often, indeed. But then if we aren't refreshing every few seconds, we'll miss that oh so miniscule window of opportunity.
Just as you have so few options available when it comes to the distribution of the PD, I feel that we too have limited options when it comes to purchasing one.
I tried subscribing to the Purple Days thread in the other forum, knowing that someone would be generous to post each time the units were available. The subscription system on these boards simply does not work reliably. Missed the units that week.
I tried manual refreshing, but if you don't refresh every minute, you're gonna miss the chance. I was refreshing the page on my iPhone while driving down the interstate last week. Of course, I met my mom for a quick lunch, and damn if I didn't miss the sale in that 20 minutes.
I tried the browser extension to refresh for me, but that didn't alert me to changes either. I sat in front of my computer all day Wednesday this week and then all day Thursday. I glanced at the screen every few seconds and the page never changed for me until the product page disappeared as the went out of stock. I guess I need to clear my cache before each refresh.
If I had the know how, I could make a Purple Days faster than I could order one. It takes four hours to make one, but it has taken me countless hours in an attempt to obtain one. I'm sure you never intended ordering to become this difficult.
So my suggestion again is a set day and time each week and communicate that to customers. Even if vapenow has to wait to receive the units and then post the date and time for ordering...There will still be a mad rush to order, but at least I wouldn't go crazy up to that point, and we might ease the continuous load on the vapenow server.
Since these units sell out as fast as you can make them, I'd imagine that the ordering window could be stretched from a few minutes to maybe several minutes if rather than selling through weekly inventory, you allowed the inventory to grow to a larger quantity before releasing them to order.
Phew...
I was lucky enough to catch a post on the PD thread about it and was able to place an order with my heart pounding in my throat! This was just after being a naughty boy and complaining about Vapenow in the PD thread. Just be persistent, that's all I can say.
) Had to go to a meeting for a half an hour, and that just happens to be the when they put 'em up for sale!! Missed again....
