Karve Shaving Co. A new DE Brass razor to market.

I just received shipping notice for my order that I placed a little over 4 weeks ago. It was longer than I expected, but I knew there was a delay when I placed the order. I emailed him once before I placed the order and once after. He responded to me both times. I’m not sure if he’s overwhelmed or maybe some of the emails he’s not responding to may have been sent to his spam folder. I do see why some people are not happy with the communication, but it’s also a new business, so I would expect things to get better as he figures things out and learns from mistakes/experience.

I would also like to add, why I have faith in Chris and that he's purely overwhelmed by orders which has added to so much delays.

I ordered my first razor on 1-April with the 3.5" handle and B/C/D blades. I do not know about his sales volume then but he was pretty responsive to emails. There was a shipping delay and when I asked him - he promptly replied that one of the batches of a particular plate had an error and he was going to redo those plates and then ship.

This means he's having a good QC process in place before shipping his razors.

Fortunately when the E and F plates were released I was perhaps the early ones to grab the E and F plates - one as a complete razor with the 4" handle and an extra 3" handle. The shipping was prompt.

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Received a shipping notice this morning for an order placed on 5/27

He lets people wait that is for his products. As and when listed rush in to buy or wait !!

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I know how Wolfman works, from your post it seemed like he opened another waitlist.

This reminds me....

Fantastic post. I agree with the majority of that. The thing is, I've got my razor so my sympathies lie with anyone who doesn't. More to the point, it's the lack of personal communication that troubles me. Even just a quick one/two sentence email saying "Apologies about the delay, I hope to fulfill this around X-date" would do wonders for his reputation. Cris at Another Cut Above says that apparently the guy is relatively new to online communication and was blindsided by the whole enterprise taking off so quickly. That said, he's responding to Cris and not to others. That troubles me. He's had a few issues and obviously had that accident, so I think he deserves some understanding for that. To my knowledge though he didn't send out an email stating that he'd had the accident, to relay that information to his customers. Communication is key.

I really do think some suggestions in this thread make sense to me. He should have stopped orders for a few weeks and worked on the ones he got in, and then started them up again with one or two more people involved in the production aspect of it so that this wouldn't happen again. As you say there's the financial aspect of it to look at in that he probably is reluctant to stop orders, but is losing the possibility of repeat business from this worth it?

Thanks! I can actually see both sides of this one. Stepping back a bit, I'd take a very educated guess that virtually every person ordering a Karve razor has other razors in their den already. It's hardly a catastrophe to have to wait an extra several weeks to get the razor. Now - I realize that isn't the point and certainly does not excuse collecting money from customers and missing committed delivery timing (to the extent that there was a specific commitment). But I do think it's important to keep this in perspective. Companies of all sizes occasionally have difficulty meeting consumer demand. Think about iPhone releases, for instance, and imagine the incredible capacity that Apple has to try to forecast and meet their demand. A little patience and understanding is sometimes in order. Karve is essentially a one man show as best I can tell. He's in a can't win situation where he can spend his time personally replying to every customer or he can try to clear the backlog of orders. There's only so much time in the day. I imagine he is completely overwhelmed.

Now, having said that, there are ways to manage these things and it's not necessarily that complicated. Things like bulk email communications, accurate time estimates on your order page that don't over promise. This can be hard to forecast and unexpected things happen. That's life. So building in extra time so that you ensure you can meet it is better than over promising and missing it. And finally, as others have said, maybe you offer something to the customer as a thank you for their patience. I'm not sure what that should be, not my call and I have no skin in the game either way.

To some extent, it also comes down to a value question. By most accounts, the product is very well made and an excellent value. Do you want to support a new business in this tiny industry. Or, are you unwilling to cut the guy some slack and be patient while he works through the back log and figures out how to run the business. There's not necessarily a "right" or "wrong" answer. It's really up to the customer to decide if they are willing to be patient. And for the business owner, either he figures it out, learns from the mistakes and rights the ship... or he doesn't and the business will suffer for it. Anyway, off my soap box.

Thanks!  I can actually see both sides of this one.  Stepping back a bit, I'd take a very educated guess that virtually every person ordering a Karve razor has other razors in their den already.  It's hardly a catastrophe to have to wait an extra several weeks to get the razor.  Now - I realize that isn't the point and certainly does not excuse collecting money from customers and missing committed delivery timing (to the extent that there was a specific commitment).  But I do think it's important to keep this in perspective.  Companies of all sizes occasionally have difficulty meeting consumer demand.  Think about iPhone releases, for instance, and imagine the incredible capacity that Apple has to try to forecast and meet their demand.  A little patience and understanding is sometimes in order.  Karve is essentially a one man show as best I can tell.  He's in a can't win situation where he can spend his time personally replying to every customer or he can try to clear the backlog of orders.  There's only so much time in the day.  I imagine he is completely overwhelmed.

Now, having said that, there are ways to manage these things and it's not necessarily that complicated.  Things like bulk email communications, accurate time estimates on your order page that don't over promise.  This can be hard to forecast and unexpected things happen.  That's life.  So building in extra time so that you ensure you can meet it is better than over promising and missing it.  And finally, as others have said, maybe you offer something to the customer as a thank you for their patience.  I'm not sure what that should be, not my call and I have no skin in the game either way.

To some extent, it also comes down to a value question.  By most accounts, the product is very well made and an excellent value.  Do you want to support a new business in this tiny industry.  Or, are you unwilling to cut the guy some slack and be patient while he works through the back log and figures out how to run the business.  There's not necessarily a "right" or "wrong" answer.  It's really up to the customer to decide if they are willing to be patient.  And for the business owner, either he figures it out, learns from the mistakes and rights the ship... or he doesn't and the business will suffer for it.  Anyway, off my soap box.  

Yeah, I think those are entirely reasonable views! Especially the point that most of us have razors to be getting on with. I think a lot of this is just lack of communication. If Chris or another employee was responsive to emails it would take a lot of the sting out of the situation.

The razor is superb. It's well worth holding on for.

That's the thing though, was there a promised timeline for delivery on the order page? I certainly don't remember seeing one. I went into it knowing that it would take up to a month to get my razor as should anyone else who has read through this thread or threads on other forums. JMO...

That being said, I was still anxiously awaiting any communication or shipping notices.

That's the thing though, was there a promised timeline for delivery on the order page? I certainly don't remember seeing one. I went into knowing that it would take up to a month to get my razor as should anyone else who has read through this thread or threads on other forums. JMO...

That being said, I was still anxiously awaiting any communication or shipping notices.

Up until a couple days ago it said in red font, to allow 2 weeks for shipping.

First shave today with A plate 3" handle. Feels like a Rockwell 1 plate but shaves like a 3. Fantastic!! Super smooth!

Impressions Karve CB Plate B on 3" handle. WOOOOWWWW! Feels like a Rockwell 6S on Plate 2 but shaves like its on plate 4-5. Zeros weepers or irritation. This has far exceeded my expectations. On to plate C tomorrow