Alien Visions Rant

[bcalvanese]

I have been trying to be a good customer of Alien Visions because they have good e-liquids, but it should not be so much of a figgin hassle just to order some juice.

we're open... no we're closed... we're moving... we're open again... no wait... now we're closed... sorry we're out of boba's bounty... sorry, now we're out of gorilla juice... we're closed... oh... i hurt my pinky toe... we're closed again. oh... now we have a new website that don't work... you can click add to cart, but nothing happens... oh wait we're open, but the screen says we're closed... now we're closed, but the screen says we're open... you can leave a ticket, but nobody will respond to it, because we don't even know if we're open or closed any more.

COME ON ALL READY!!!

You do have good e-liquids, but it's really becomming not worth the hassle ya have to go through to get it.

Every other site I order from, and I mean every single one, I place my order any time of the day or night, and never EVER had a problem, and they are allways open.

Would somebody care to explain to me WHAT THE DEAL IS???!!!

You do want to sell e-liquid don't you?

 

[zapped]

Ever hear of growing pains? All companies have them at some point or another.AVE's is just sooner because they sell the number one juice out of any vendor on this and many other forums.

Also Id hardly call being hospitalized for a heart condition stubbing someones toe.I understand your frustration, truly I do, but you might want to try exercising some empathy and compassion in place of pure selfishness before posting something like that in a forum visited by loyal AVE customers.

Ben and Christy are truly nice people and have contributed a lot to this community over the years, sometimes Im amazed with the tact and restraint theyve shown especially in dealing with what amounts to grown men and women throwing a fit because circumstances wont let them have their way.

You are throwing a fit arent you??? Cause it sure sounds like it to me.

Also wanted to add that the reason they close down shop after a certain time every day (it varies) is because they dont want customers to have to wait 3-4 weeks to get an order shipped out.Theyve been selling juice for 3+ years now and know when they reach capacity.

Does it piss some people off? Yeah Im sure it does, but this is one of those situations where it keeps 50 other people happy because their order wasnt delayed.

Quite frankly if I had the demand that AVE has I wouldnt worry too much about pleasing people that get angry at the drop of a hat to begin with.

The customer is not always right...that implies that you know more about someones business than they do.Quite often the customer is immature, angry, selfish and just plain ignorant and I think the above post only serves to prove that point.

 

[Herennow]

I'd move on if I were you.
Life is to short as it is to have to deal with more hassles.
There are to many other great choices.
I gave up on that place after going there a couple times
They Phail.

 

[coffee snob]

Thank you zapped

 

[bcalvanese]

Ever hear of growing pains? All companies have them at some point or another.AVE's is just sooner because they sell the number one juice out of any vendor on this and many other forums.

Also Id hardly call being hospitalized for a heart condition stubbing someones toe.I understand your frustration, truly I do, but you might want to try exercising some empathy and compassion in place of pure selfishness before posting something like that in a forum visited by loyal AVE customers.

Ben and Christy are truly nice people and have contributed a lot to this community over the years, sometimes Im amazed with the tact and restraint theyve shown especially in dealing with what amounts to grown men and women throwing a fit because circumstances wont let them have their way.

You are throwing a fit arent you??? Cause it sure sounds like it to me.

Also wanted to add that the reason they close down shop after a certain time every day (it varies) is because they dont want customers to have to wait 3-4 weeks to get an order shipped out.Theyve been selling juice for 3+ years now and know when they reach capacity.

Does it piss some people off? Yeah Im sure it does, but this is one of those situations where it keeps 50 other people happy because their order wasnt delayed.

Quite frankly if I had the demand that AVE has I wouldnt worry too much about pleasing people that get angry at the drop of a hat to begin with.

The customer is not always right...that implies that you know more about someones business than they do.Quite often the customer is immature, angry, selfish and just plain ignorant and I think the above post only serves to prove that point.

Hey man, I'm just ranting, and I just threw in the toe stubbing thing in to make it a little funny is all. I did not know anything about the hospitolization or anything.

I'm just frustrated that they sell such good juice, and it seems like every time I try to order something, either the web site is'nt working or they are closed.

I just now went to their site, and it says it's open, but I can't add anything to by shopping cart.

Why?

I opened a ticket thursday, and still have not gotten a response.

And, I don't believe in that "customer is allways right" BS either, but come on man!!! It shouldn't be like a part time job to get some friggen juice.

 

[ckone180]

My order just went through.

Hey man, I'm just ranting, and I just threw in the toe stubbing thing in to make it a little funny is all. I did not know anything about the hospitolization or anything.

I'm just frustrated that they sell such good juice, and it seems like every time I try to order something, either the web site is'nt working or they are closed.

I just now went to their site, and it says it's open, but I can't add anything to by shopping cart.

Why?

I opened a ticket thursday, and still have not gotten a response.

And, I don't believe in that "customer is allways right" BS either, but come on man!!! It shouldn't be like a part time job to get some friggen juice.

 

[bcalvanese]

My order just went through.

I go to add to my cart, and it never gets added.

 

[Killjoy1]

Are you choosing the quantity before you click that button? I don't remember this feature from the old site, but with the current site design the quantity field is set at 0 by default, so make sure you are setting that at 1 (or however many you want) before clicking "add to cart"

If that didn't help, maybe it's a browser issue, so the next step would be to clear cache and cookies and make sure that any script blockers or whatnot are not blocking the site functionality

Hope that helps you

 

[Big Screen D]

While I tend to agree with the OP that ordering can be a PIA, especially with the recent issues, I learned long ago to order plenty when I do order. When I get down to 200ml or so, I start keeping an eye out for a sale then stock up for months.

Never understood why Porphy doesn't make Boba's in particular in large enough quantities in advance to always have it available. Suppose it's just a deliberate decision to limit availability to what is comfortable for his obviously successful business model. Unlike some juice vendors that mix custom blends, AVE juice varies only by pre-set nic levels so it would seem to be rather easy to get ahead of incoming orders if they were so inclined.

Come to think of it, my Bees Knees supply is getting rather low. Time to start stalking the site again.

 

[Porphy]

Would you believe I have a slightly different perspective on this? Before I go on my counter rant I'd like to say that I do empathize with the difficulty getting liquid lately.

Now. I take umbrage with, "i hurt my pinky toe...".

Having a heart attack, does not occur in any of the phalanges of the foot. In-fact when they put the catheter in my chest to see my heart pumping they went by way of my wrist, by-passing even the phalanges on my hand. So while my chest hurt, my arm hurt, my wrist (definitively) hurt, my pinky toes were about as good as they have ever been.

Funny thing is, when they crammed that crap up my arm to take a gander, they found no calcification, nor signs of arterial blockage. My heart attack at the age of 34 was nearly completely due to my stress. Ever seen your cardiologist a bit confused? You don't want to, at least not in the middle of an angio.

Since then, I've been taking my Buspar, Xanax, and Lipitor like a good little bunny. It's funny, PTSD didn't qualify me for Xanax when I was in the military (was a long time ago/might be different now) but my perfectly de-calcified ticker did. I'm listening to my body now and taking it easy as needed. I've hired some new wookies, with more coming soon, and we are averaging close to 300 orders a day.

Boba's and Gorilla have been up for a week now and supply is good enough that we feel it will remain that way through reshipments. We are opening our bulk section up Tuesday and have been increasing our "open" time by a little over an hour each day (meaning we are closing in on demand).

I will admit that I haven't been taking care of help desk tickets like I was. Christy has been jumping in and helping but we are the only two qualified enough to answer tickets and with me having to work at half speed they aren't getting smaller. I will continue to work on that. Each ticket deserves my personal time and attention, and I believe if polled a great majority would agree that we take damn good care of our customers.

Now, I really DO need clarification on the "cannot add item to cart" bug. Only a few (3 that I have heard from) of you are experiencing this bug and I cannot recreate it on FireFox or IExplorer, nor on any mobile device I own. Please share with me your browser type, step-by-step of the issue, anything.

As for our open/closed status: We open each day at 8am PST, this is done manually so if it is open a bit early or late this is my fault. We remain open until reaching order capacity. That number changes as we get more people but for now that number is 300 (sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more), and 150 on Saturday and Sunday (we do both days on Monday as they are our slowest days) the key factor is that the time line between opening and closing is widening each day.

I'm tackling the business now, not by stressing out and working myself overly much, but by getting ready at the pace life sets and only moving forward when I feel ready to do so.

Send along your number in a help desk ticket or PM and I'll get in touch with you and we can ensure you get taken care of.

Ben

I have been trying to be a good customer of Alien Visions because they have good e-liquids, but it should not be so much of a figgin hassle just to order some juice.

we're open... no we're closed... we're moving... we're open again... no wait... now we're closed... sorry we're out of boba's bounty... sorry, now we're out of gorilla juice... we're closed... oh... i hurt my pinky toe... we're closed again. oh... now we have a new website that don't work... you can click add to cart, but nothing happens... oh wait we're open, but the screen says we're closed... now we're closed, but the screen says we're open... you can leave a ticket, but nobody will respond to it, because we don't even know if we're open or closed any more.

COME ON ALL READY!!!

You do have good e-liquids, but it's really becomming not worth the hassle ya have to go through to get it.

Every other site I order from, and I mean every single one, I place my order any time of the day or night, and never EVER had a problem, and they are allways open.

Would somebody care to explain to me WHAT THE DEAL IS???!!!

You do want to sell e-liquid don't you?

 

[Porphy]

I wish this were the case. No, the lack of availability stems from asking a particular medium sized company to produce the same output as one of their larger counterparts. In this instance I set myself up in a poor position from the start and have been patronizing and bolstering their business in order to grow them enough to support demand. It is working, slowly and is on track now to keep Boba's, Gorilla Juice, and a few others in stock and available. I'm planning for outages during the holiday season but looking at the stock and feeling that we will be able to keep it online, if not 100% then near that mark.

Never understood why Porphy doesn't make Boba's in particular in large enough quantities in advance to always have it available. Suppose it's just a deliberate decision to limit availability to what is comfortable for his obviously successful business model.

 

[Adam the Aussie]

Does this mean Smoketek will have some Boba's and Gorilla Juice soon so we can vape the good gear down under?

 

[Big Screen D]

I wish this were the case. No, the lack of availability stems from asking a particular medium sized company to produce the same output as one of their larger counterparts. In this instance I set myself up in a poor position from the start and have been patronizing and bolstering their business in order to grow them enough to support demand. It is working, slowly and is on track now to keep Boba's, Gorilla Juice, and a few others in stock and available. I'm planning for outages during the holiday season but looking at the stock and feeling that we will be able to keep it online, if not 100% then near that mark.

Ah so your limited by an ingredient availability limitation. And to think I was thinking you just needed a larger mixing pot

Take care of the ticker dude, and get well.

 

[bcalvanese]

Would you believe I have a slightly different perspective on this? Before I go on my counter rant I'd like to say that I do empathize with the difficulty getting liquid lately.

Now. I take umbrage with, "i hurt my pinky toe...".

Having a heart attack, does not occur in any of the phalanges of the foot. In-fact when they put the catheter in my chest to see my heart pumping they went by way of my wrist, by-passing even the phalanges on my hand. So while my chest hurt, my arm hurt, my wrist (definitively) hurt, my pinky toes were about as good as they have ever been.

Funny thing is, when they crammed that crap up my arm to take a gander, they found no calcification, nor signs of arterial blockage. My heart attack at the age of 34 was nearly completely due to my stress. Ever seen your cardiologist a bit confused? You don't want to, at least not in the middle of an angio.

Since then, I've been taking my Buspar, Xanax, and Lipitor like a good little bunny. It's funny, PTSD didn't qualify me for Xanax when I was in the military (was a long time ago/might be different now) but my perfectly de-calcified ticker did. I'm listening to my body now and taking it easy as needed. I've hired some new wookies, with more coming soon, and we are averaging close to 300 orders a day.

Boba's and Gorilla have been up for a week now and supply is good enough that we feel it will remain that way through reshipments. We are opening our bulk section up Tuesday and have been increasing our "open" time by a little over an hour each day (meaning we are closing in on demand).

I will admit that I haven't been taking care of help desk tickets like I was. Christy has been jumping in and helping but we are the only two qualified enough to answer tickets and with me having to work at half speed they aren't getting smaller. I will continue to work on that. Each ticket deserves my personal time and attention, and I believe if polled a great majority would agree that we take damn good care of our customers.

Now, I really DO need clarification on the "cannot add item to cart" bug. Only a few (3 that I have heard from) of you are experiencing this bug and I cannot recreate it on FireFox or IExplorer, nor on any mobile device I own. Please share with me your browser type, step-by-step of the issue, anything.

As for our open/closed status: We open each day at 8am PST, this is done manually so if it is open a bit early or late this is my fault. We remain open until reaching order capacity. That number changes as we get more people but for now that number is 300 (sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more), and 150 on Saturday and Sunday (we do both days on Monday as they are our slowest days) the key factor is that the time line between opening and closing is widening each day.

I'm tackling the business now, not by stressing out and working myself overly much, but by getting ready at the pace life sets and only moving forward when I feel ready to do so.

Send along your number in a help desk ticket or PM and I'll get in touch with you and we can ensure you get taken care of.

Ben

I assume you are the owner, and I want you to know that I was just ranting. The stubbing of the toe thing was just thrown in there to be funny. Kind of like "the dog ate my homework' type thing. I had no idea about your heart attack, and would never had thrown that in there if I had known, becasue I had a similar issue when I was in my 30's.

I started having heart attack symptoms to the point that I had to go to the emergency several times. I was affraid to go to sleep at night, because I thought I would not wake up the next day. I had every test under the sun , and they could not find anything wrong with my heart, and told me it was stress related, or possibly pst traumatic syndrom of some sort. With in a six month period, I was in a seriouse car accident that cause massive internal injuries and I could not remember the impact of, my brother died of a drug overdose, and my daughter almost died at birth. They think that all that could have caused the post traumatic stress dissorder.

Anyway, I think I know what you are going through, and would recommend that you work toward getting off the meds. I was on Atavan (and some other drugs) for over a decade from my ordeal, and slowly wheened myself off over a period of a year or so, and learned how to manage my stress better in place of the drugs. Trust me... those drugs are just going to keep you in limbo land, and if you don't manage the things that are causing your stress, you will be on them (and in limbo land) for the rest of your life.

Again, I was just ranting, and I do hope you grow your business, because you do have great e-liquids, and I was able to add to my cart yesturday and placed an order.

regards,

bob

 

[Porphy]

Does this mean Smoketek will have some Boba's and Gorilla Juice soon so we can vape the good gear down under?

I would be surprised if that wasn't the case.

 

[doots]

I just placed another order Ben for Blend4 and Havana.. ,,, thanks.. Wayman.

I think all here, including myself, wish BEN a Speedy recovery and good health. We love the juice but Most importantly we wish you wellness and not getting stressed about orders..

I remember BEN when you were just a member and not a vendor on ecf.
You've been here a long time like me.. lol

If you like avejuice, buy in the largest quantity you can, would be my suggestion..

I know many of us can't get all we want because of finances, but if you can, it will save you money and frustrations down the road.. .

 

[Tralfaz]

I had no idea about your heart attack

Not to be a ... or anything, but when I first decided to buy some BB and GJ a couple of months ago and had some trouble ordering it, it took me all of about two minutes to find the topic in this section just a few lines below your rant that explained the health issues Porphy was experiencing. Reading is fundamental.

 

[SirTimmyTimbit]

I would be surprised if that wasn't the case.

Will you please checkout the support tickets? It's been 5 days

 

[tokenfemale]

Hi Ben -

I managed to place an order this morning for more boba's (because I'm now hooked & am already far too close to the halfway point on the bottle I just got last week!). I was experiencing the add to cart bug yesterday though (and it is happening again right now on the site). I suspected that this was what happens when you stop taking orders for the day, but because of the way it is acting, I would guess it's what people are reporting as a "bug."

My info:

Computer was a Macbook Pro running 10.7.5
Browser was Chrome, latest version.
It was 100% replicable at the time by:

1. Select item, item options
2. Click to add item to cart
3. Site main page loads
4. Click to view "Your Basket" and..
5. Basket is empty

Thanks for everything you do, be healthy, and have an awesome thanksgiving!!

 

[asha23]

Ben. Get the juice ready in your own time mate. I love your stuff, but it's not worth you getting ill over. Ignore these whiny .....es. There is so much other juice out there. They can try something else for a bit until you get back on your feet again...

Come on people. These are people. Not your juice producing slaves. Lay off.