Shipping Going

As we announced in the previous update, we began shipping Flippers in January. In this post, we will report the current status of manufacturing and shipping and will cover all the difficulties we faced.

First United States Batch

A batch of 4541 orders including 4700 white Flippers, lots of cases, and protoboards, was transferred to the Hong Kong warehouse and handed over to our logistics partner on February 17th. This batch covers all Kickstarter orders and most pre-orders that head to the United States and do not contain black Flippers or Wi-Fi devboards. Other United States orders will be shipped within the coming batches.

Our logistics partner needed more time than we expected to pack all orders in individual parcels and prepare them for shipping. COVID restrictions also impacted flight schedules a lot, so the plane with the batch has landed in Chicago on March 4th. We expect people to start getting USPS tracking updates on March 7th, after parcels go through customs.

GPIO Header Failure

We have multiple levels of quality assurance set up in our factories to prevent faulty devices from getting to customers. Recently one of our testing lines revealed an issue with GPIO header plastic that suddenly started exploding in an SMT oven.

The only appropriate solution was to pause the processes, recall affected PCBs, replace faulty GPIO headers, and fix the origin of the issue, which took more than a week.

Hong Kong COVID Spike

Due to the large COVID spike in Hong Kong, authorities required all its residents to get tested and imposed new restrictions for businesses, which also affected our logistics partner and warehouse.

The number of warehouse workers is now limited and random testings of the facility take place. As warehouse reports, this might slow down their work and affect shipping performance.

Russo-Ukrainian Conflict

Ongoing conflict doesn't impact our business as Flipper Devices Inc. is a U.S.-based company. Our devices are manufactured in China and shipped from Hong Kong, so logistics is not directly affected too.

However, it is now obviously impossible to ship to Ukraine, and we can't predict if it will be possible to ship to Russia. If we face any logistics restrictions, we will hold these parcels until the world stabilizes and shipping options appear. If you are leaving Ukraine, Russia, or Belarus, we can update your shipping address. Just write [email protected] from the email you used to place an order and include your new full address.

More than 8,000 of our customers live in the involved countries. We stand with you during these difficult times and hope for peace. Please stay strong and take care of yourself and your family.

Adjusted Shipping Plan

Considering the difficulties we mentioned above, we now plan to deliver all orders by Mid May 2022. We also reordered the detailed schedule a little:

• USA / 5k (already shipped)
• Australia and Canada / 5k + USA / 5k (Late March)
• USA / rest (Mid April)
• EU and UK / 20k (Late April)
• Russia / 7k (Mid May, if all goes well)
• Rest of the world (70+ countries) / 3k (Mid May)

Please note that per-batch volume numbers and timeframes are approximate and may be adjusted. This schedule includes both Kickstarter orders and pre-orders.

Where is My Flipper?

You will get an email with a tracking number as soon as we ship your order. However, you can also check your order manually.

I backed on Kickstarter

Check your BackerKit survey using the email you used on Kickstarter to look up the status.

We notify twice before locking addresses: a ~week and 48 hours prior to lock.

If your Flipper was shipped, you will see a clickable tracking number on your BackerKit order confirmation page.

I pre-ordered in the store

Check your order confirmation email and click the blue "View your order" button.

If your Flipper was shipped, you will see a clickable tracking number.

Stay Tuned

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