Thanks. I think their shipping is probably fine. I think they probably do need to hire people to return/answer all customer calls and emails. However, i don't think that aspect of the company would be overtaxed if not for the shortage of product. I think their real issues are production related. Something is holding up that end. Whether it is a specific part in their build,clearing customs,etc. It is understandable to be back ordered on a successful product. It is the line employees and management saying they have no clue when they will have more of the product with customers in a protracted limbo that is unusual.
eVolve is the likely culprit regarding product supply. eVolve has had problems keeping up with demand for a while now. If VS didn't order enough boards to fulfill their orders, then they would have a hard time getting more right away from eVolve. For those of us that are lucky enough to have ours, if you open up the electronics cover you'll see how tight everything goes together. My point is that once they are assembled it wouldn't be all that easy to remove the boards and put them into a black case, even if they had them. For this new product release and SharkWeek they ordered X number of DNA30 boards and then had Y number of black and gunmetal shells made and then assembled them. If black sold out then they may not have enough shells or boards to build more. But could still have gunmetal left to be sold. Obviously this could have happened differently and still caused the problem. I have also heard that customers agree that they won't blame eVolve to their customers for lack of supply. Even if they don't have enough boards.
Now to your problem Newport. If all of the orders for black ones have the shipping slips printed along with their order forms, waiting for finished product. Now they are not kept in the time ordered because they thought they will just fill them all, but didn't have enough product. Some would get theirs while others that had ordered sooner didn't. Now they have gunmetal but no black. How do they explain this to the customers. It gets complicated, and hard to explain to customers waiting.
Didn't mean for this post to be this long... LOL