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Plastic Army Women Project: Kickstarter Rewards SHIPPED OUT!
almost 4 years ago – Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 03:36:50 AM

I'm pleased to report that as of Friday, December 18th, 99.5% of Kickstarter Backer Rewards have been shipped. This is the major milestone the Plastic Army Women project has been working towards all year. 

This great news is tempered by the fact that although the packages shipped by the 'official' holiday shipping deadlines, the reality is all the shipping carriers are experiencing unprecedented volumes of holiday packages, and delays are widespread. USPS seems to be the most badly affected with delays of 2 to 3 weeks being common, even for very short distances. I'm confidant a lot of backers will receive their packages of plastic goodness this week, but I'm also certain some won't (and not just international and military mail). I've been shipping toys during the holiday season for the past 2 decades or so. The difference between being Santa's best helper or the Grinch's dog is just one day. This year is unlike any other for holiday shipping, and for the first time I have no idea which, are how many packages will arrive before or after Christmas.

I know many backers have already received their packages as we've been shipping rewards since the first packs of Army Women were completed by the factory. The order the rewards shipped was largely determined by which products were completed at the time. The bucket sets were the last Kickstarter items ready at the factory, so orders with buckets were shipped later than orders with only Copper or Pink bagged sets since those were completed first. 

If your reward included a Resin Prototype figure, please note that your rewards may be arriving in multiple packages. I packed and shipped the Resin figures from my office, and had some inventory on hand, but didn't have everything available here, so the rest was shipped from the fulfillment warehouse in Ohio.

There are still a few backers that didn't complete their survey, so I don't know their color choices or current address info. I didn't include these folks in the 99.5% calculation, but I still want to get everyone who supported the Kickstarter Campaign their rewards. If you didn't complete your survey you can get the link here: https://bmctoys.backerkit.com/

Alternately, you can send a message to [email protected] and I'll help you. I'll need your current address, and color choices for any packs of Army Women included in your reward package.

You might be thinking that now I can sit back and relax, but you'd be wrong as the next task on my list is to get all the Pre-orders from March through November shipped. So far only about 55% of these pre-orders have shipped, but that % is going way up tomorrow:

I stopped by the Printer today to sort through nearly 1000 bubble mailers filled with one or two packs of OD Green Plastic Army Women packs for pre-orders. I pulled out the more local addresses to give them a better chance of not going on a round trip to a distant sorting facility. While I was there I pitched in and packed some 3 pack boxes. I don't know if any of these will be delivered this week, but figured we should at least try. Some of these sets were finished by the factory as recently as Friday!

That's it for now, I still need to post a wrap-up update including thank you'd to the many people that helped with the project, but for now I've got to keep getting these troops deployed.

Thanks for all your support, and patience, and well wishes.

Happy Holidays,

Jeff at BMC Toys

Plastic Army Women Project: Pre-Order Holiday Shipping Update
almost 4 years ago – Mon, Dec 14, 2020 at 02:53:11 AM

Hello all, this is the promised shipping update for Pre-Orders of the BMC Toys Plastic Army Women. I posted a separate update earlier today for Kickstarter Backers. If you're not sure which you are, Kickstarter Backers pledged through Kickstarter.com around this time last year. Pre-orders were opened up in March of 2020 until present and were placed through other sites like BMCtoys.com or our Backerkit Pre-order shop.

I know everyone wants to know if their stuff will arrive in time for Christmas. The best short answer I have is if you placed your pre-order by November 27th, 2020 you have an OK chance your package will arrive before Christmas, unfortunately I just can't be certain. If you placed your pre-order after the 27th, your order probably won't arrive by the big day. Here's the long answer:

As of today over 35% of pre-order placed before November 27th have already shipped. We're trying to get the rest of those orders shipped by December 18th but I'm not certain it can be done even with the extra help I've brought into the project. The deadline for Christmas delivery within the Contiguous US for USPS 1st Class Mail is the 16th, and Priority Mail the 18th. If we make the cutoff dates, the reality is, this year is not like any we've experienced since the beginning of eCommerce. All the carriers are experiencing enormous holiday package volume along with lots of tracking and scanning errors. USPS is experiencing the most problems and is the carrier I have the most concerns about. It's also our only reasonably priced choice for smaller packages. Folks I know who work for USPS are telling me long delays and tracking errors have been a problem for the past few weeks and don't know if they'll be able to catch up in time. My expectation is that there will be packages that arrive late. If you'd like to cancel your pre-order due to the potential delay, please let me know as soon as possible. If it's not too far into the process I'll cancel and refund your order. 

I deeply apologize for the project delays that have caused shipping to happen so close to the holidays. I can look back with hindsight at decisions I made that caused delays, but at the time didn't seem to be an issue. I accounted for unintended delays in the project timeline, but the combination of delays during development, along with setbacks that happened in the tooling phase, plus COVID-19 made it extremely challenging to get the project completed this year.

Everyone involved has worked incredibly hard to get the Plastic Army Women project completed, and now shipped, as fast as possible. The factory got them into production within record time of receiving the plastic inject molds and has been incredibly accommodating staging final production so we would at least have a chance of shipping in time. The factory's shipping department volunteered to help with some of the fulfillment, and even the local printer that makes the package inserts is helping out with the shipping. I shut down several of my sales channels over the past few days to keep order volume down so the main fulfillment warehouse could work on Army Women shipments.

One problem we ran into was the first batch of single packs of OD Green Plastic Army Women shipped with USPS Smartpost tracking number that won't show activity until it arrives. It was a technical error that wasn't discovered until after the shipment was delivered to the post office. It will not affect when your package arrives. The printer helping me with shipping does a lot of bulk mailing, but not a lot of parcels and there was a learning curve with the software they use. 

Please note that it might take an extra day or so after your package actually ships before you receive an email with link to tracking as I have to manually upload the files from the various shipping locations. Tracking info is also very glitchy right now with all the carriers, especially USPS. I completely understand everyone is anxious this time of year, and I really appreciate everyone's patience and understanding.

I can at least end this update on an upbeat note, I'm pleased to report that the Plastic Army Women are out the 'wild' now and feedback of the finished product has been overwhelmingly positive.

Happy Holidays,

Jeff at BMC Toys

Plastic Army Women Project: Kickstarter Reward Holiday Shipping Update
almost 4 years ago – Sun, Dec 13, 2020 at 06:51:59 PM

Hello all, this is the promised shipping update for Kickstarter Plastic Army Women Project. I'll post a separate update for Pre-Order customers shortly.

I know everyone wants to know if their stuff will arrive in time for Christmas. The best short answer I have is that you will probably receive your packages before Christmas, unfortunately I just can't be certain. Here's the long answer:

As of today over 75% of Kickstarter reward packages have already shipped. The rest are on track to ship by Wednesday, December 16th. Technically, that's within the deadline set by the carriers for Christmas delivery within the Contiguous US. The reality is, this year is not like any we've experienced since the beginning of eCommerce. All the carriers are experiencing enormous holiday package volume along with lots of tracking and scanning errors. USPS is experiencing the most problems and the carrier I have the most concerns about. It's also our only reasonably priced choice for smaller packages. Folks I know who work for USPS are telling me long delays and tracking errors have been a problem for the past few weeks and don't know if they'll be able to catch up in time. My current expectation is that there will be some packages that will arrive late. 

I deeply apologize for the project delays that have caused shipping to happen so close to the holidays. I can look back with hindsight at decisions I made that caused delays, but at the time didn't seem to be an issue. I had a good buffer built into the timeline to account for unintended delays, but the combination of delays during development, along with setbacks that happened in the tooling phase, plus COVID-19 made it extremely challenging to get the project completed this year.  

Everyone involved has worked incredibly hard to get the Plastic Army Women project completed, and now shipped, as fast as possible. The factory got them into production within record time of receiving the plastic inject molds and has been incredibly accommodating staging final production so we would at least have a chance of shipping all the Kickstarter Backer rewards in time. The factory's shipping department volunteered to help with some of the fulfillment, and even the local printer that makes the package inserts is helping out with the shipping.  I shut down several of my sales channels over the past few days to keep order volume down so the main fulfillment warehouse could work on the Kickstarter shipments.

If your reward package included any of the Resin prototype figures, please note your rewards may ship in multiple packages from different locations. I personally packed and shipped all the Resin figures, but some orders had items I didn't have on-hand at my office. I don't have Backerkit set up for multiple shipping locations, so I've added the additional tracking info into the "Special Notes" section of your Backerkit Order Confirmation page. You can get a new link to your Order Confirmation here: https://bmctoys.backerkit.com/ 

I've had a few folks receive their package and think they didn't get their Kickstarter bonus Copper color Rosie and Army Woman figures. The extra figures are included inside every pack of Plastic Army Women shipped to Kickstarter backers.  When I set up Backerkit I listed the bonus figures as separate items, but later decided to include them in a special Kickstarter edition of the Plastic Army Women bags and bucket sets. 

Please note that it might take an extra day or so after your package actually ships before you receive an email with link to tracking as I have to manually upload the files from the various shipping locations. Tracking info is also very glitchy right now with all the carriers, especially USPS. I completely understand everyone is anxious this time of year, and I really appreciate everyone's patience and understanding.

I can at least end this update on an upbeat note, I'm pleased to report that the Plastic Army Women are now out the 'wild' now and feedback of the finished product has been overwhelmingly positive. 

Happy Holidays,

Jeff at BMC Toys

Plastic Army Women Project: Shipping Update Update
almost 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 09, 2020 at 08:59:46 PM

Hello All,

Just a super quick note to let you know I have been receiving so many shipping inquiries over the past couple of days that if I stop to answer everyone it will delay things I need to do to get remaining rewards and pre-orders shipped.

I will try to post a more comprehensive update and start to answer individual questions over the weekend.

Please know that everyone is doing their best to get packages shipped as quickly as possible.  

Thanks for your understanding,

Jeff at BMC Toys

Plastic Army Women Project: SHIPPING SHAPE!
about 4 years ago – Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 10:17:45 PM

There's lots of news but I know the number one thing everyone wants to know is "When will I get my stuff?".  We're working incredibly hard to get Kickstarter Rewards and Pre-Orders shipped so they arrive before Christmas. So far, about 10% of Kickstarter Rewards have shipped, but that will go way up this coming week and I'll have a better idea then when the remainder will ship.

The factory has completed production on all the Kickstarter edition packs of Plastic Army Women, and the Bucket sets are scheduled for final production this week. They also completed the first production of the regular tan and pink packs and are well into production of the regular OD green packs. I stopped by the factory the other day to pick up samples and it was Little Green Army Women as far as the eye could see:

All the recently completed product arrived at the fulfillment locations just before Thanksgiving. In addition to our regular fulfillment warehouse, I'm shipping the Rewards with Resin Prototypes myself, and I also drafted my local printer to ship a bunch of the single pack shipments.

Another milestone for the project is I completed all the product photos, so everyone can get a good look at the finished product (you can see the photos enlarged at bmctoys.com):

...and if all that wasn't enough for your post Turkey-Day update, CBS ran an "On the Road with Steve Hartman" story update at the end of the CBS Evening News last night (R.I.P. my inbox):

It's really gratifying  to see that part of the story's conclusion with Vivian finally getting her "girl" soldiers. I'm hoping that small moment of 'joy in a bag' happens many more times over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, rest assured that manufacturing, logistics and shipping are full steam ahead and I'll post another progress update in a few days.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Jeff at BMC Toys