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

I am following up on a post (#1585) I made last week and would like to share my experience with Karve.  I place an order on Sunday, April 12th for a brass daily shaver kit.  My thinking was and is, this guy has taken some heat on customer service,  timely deliveries, misleading inventory levels, etc. etc., so now would be a good time to order.  Well, today, the 22nd, DHL dropped of my completed order.  Apparently, I just got lucky, or maybe the company is starting to change.  I really don't know, but I am happy with the company so far.  If I truly like this razor, I will order one in stainless (but not polished - I'm not stupid) and maybe even titanium. 

And just so you know, I have absolutely no affiliation with Karve, the owner or any people associated with Karve.

You were one of the lucky ones. It took 9+ weeks for me to receive mine.

Three weeks ago I saw a stainless #E SB plate on Karve site. Thought "that's the one I want...but is it really in stock"?
Sent an email and next day was told that the #E plate was in stock, so I 'Added to cart', and paid for it.
Should have taken 3 days to get here (DHL Express).
No sign of it after 3 weeks, so I emailed Karve again and asked where it was.
I had received no email saying it had been sent, so what's up?
Karve now tell me it 'should' be ready at the end of this week!!
So...the #E plate was NOT in stock. Karve outright lied to me.
They are currently making my #E plate.
If I'm lucky Karve will indeed have my plate made this week...or maybe not. Who knows?
Next time I'll just keep watch on the BST for anything I need for the Karve.
It's a great razor, shame about the service though.

Karve outright lied to me.

That's the source of the problems.

After the initial release I have never had any significant delay (like 2 weeks despite the over priced delivery service) for a Brass razor or any Brass components but the stainless non-polished took over 4 weeks and I ordered on the release day (late May 2019). After reading this thread I would never even consider a polished stainless and forget about the upcoming titanium release. He will likely have a handful (titaniums) available despite taking orders for dozens - just my "educated" guess.

This is getting a bit out of hand. Or should I say just really freakin bad. I really believed in giving Karve/Christopher Bradley the benefit of the doubt and just in giving them one more chance to get things right and get it in gear. I may have stuck my foot in my mouth in my last post (hasn’t been the first time I’ve done that and surely won’t be the last). They’ve been getting shredded across the forums on the net and yet, it’s business as usual. No attempt to address the brutal shortcomings or the reasoning for new product launches without satisfying previous customer orders & complaints. All you see and hear is “Thanks for the continued support and believing in us” to “And our next big drop will be May 1st”. I’m the biggest optimist there is and I’m saying WTF?! You can’t keep making these inexcusable mistakes without some serious detriment to your business and credibility which, let’s face it it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for the far majority of consumers that have purchased from Karve. I’m stupefied, mystified and just at a loss here for what is transpiring.

Houston, we have a problem......

This is getting a bit out of hand. Or should I say just really freakin bad. I really believed in giving Karve/Christopher Bradley the benefit of the doubt and just in giving them one more chance to get things right and get it in gear. I may have stuck my foot in my mouth in my last post (hasn’t been the first time I’ve done that and surely won’t be the last). They’ve been getting shredded across the forums on the net and yet, it’s business as usual. No attempt to address the brutal shortcomings or the reasoning for new product launches without satisfying previous customer orders & complaints. All you see and hear is “Thanks for the continued support and believing in us” to “And our next big drop will be May 1st”. I’m the biggest optimist there is and I’m saying WTF?! You can’t keep making these inexcusable mistakes without some serious detriment to your business and credibility which, let’s face it it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for the far majority of consumers that have purchased from Karve. I’m stupefied, mystified and just at a loss here for what is transpiring.

Houston, we have a problem......

Somewhat disagree about the "shredding". All the forums have comments but this thread is unique and DFS is not as widely viewed as others. The recent reddit thread is the other example of sustained negative comments and even then it was a 60/40 split.

This is getting a bit out of hand. Or should I say just really freakin bad. I really believed in giving Karve/Christopher Bradley the benefit of the doubt and just in giving them one more chance to get things right and get it in gear. I may have stuck my foot in my mouth in my last post (hasn’t been the first time I’ve done that and surely won’t be the last). They’ve been getting shredded across the forums on the net and yet, it’s business as usual. No attempt to address the brutal shortcomings or the reasoning for new product launches without satisfying previous customer orders & complaints. All you see and hear is “Thanks for the continued support and believing in us” to “And our next big drop will be May 1st”. I’m the biggest optimist there is and I’m saying WTF?! You can’t keep making these inexcusable mistakes without some serious detriment to your business and credibility which, let’s face it it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for the far majority of consumers that have purchased from Karve. I’m stupefied, mystified and just at a loss here for what is transpiring.

Houston, we have a problem......

Somewhat disagree about the "shredding". All the forums have comments but this thread is unique and DFS is not as widely viewed as others. The recent reddit thread is the other example of sustained negative comments and even then it was a 60/40 split.

All righty then. If you say so....

This is getting a bit out of hand. Or should I say just really freakin bad. I really believed in giving Karve/Christopher Bradley the benefit of the doubt and just in giving them one more chance to get things right and get it in gear. I may have stuck my foot in my mouth in my last post (hasn’t been the first time I’ve done that and surely won’t be the last). They’ve been getting shredded across the forums on the net and yet, it’s business as usual. No attempt to address the brutal shortcomings or the reasoning for new product launches without satisfying previous customer orders & complaints. All you see and hear is “Thanks for the continued support and believing in us” to “And our next big drop will be May 1st”. I’m the biggest optimist there is and I’m saying WTF?! You can’t keep making these inexcusable mistakes without some serious detriment to your business and credibility which, let’s face it it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for the far majority of consumers that have purchased from Karve. I’m stupefied, mystified and just at a loss here for what is transpiring.

Houston, we have a problem......

Somewhat disagree about the "shredding". All the forums have comments but this thread is unique and DFS is not as widely viewed as others. The recent reddit thread is the other example of sustained negative comments and even then it was a 60/40 split.

All righty then. If you say so....

  not sure what this is supposed to mean? I'm not defending Karve, just noting that I haven't seen another forum where there is 30+ pages of straight negative commentary.

^
I would agree with GlazedBoker. Sure, most Karve threads aren't this long, but the content is pretty much the exact same: (1) products are great, (2) business practices are shit, and then (3) a divide between those that have given up on Karve as a result and those who are still blindly optimistic. I'm in latter category. Shame on me, yes, I know.

This is getting a bit out of hand. Or should I say just really freakin bad. I really believed in giving Karve/Christopher Bradley the benefit of the doubt and just in giving them one more chance to get things right and get it in gear. I may have stuck my foot in my mouth in my last post (hasn’t been the first time I’ve done that and surely won’t be the last). They’ve been getting shredded across the forums on the net and yet, it’s business as usual. No attempt to address the brutal shortcomings or the reasoning for new product launches without satisfying previous customer orders & complaints. All you see and hear is “Thanks for the continued support and believing in us” to “And our next big drop will be May 1st”. I’m the biggest optimist there is and I’m saying WTF?! You can’t keep making these inexcusable mistakes without some serious detriment to your business and credibility which, let’s face it it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for the far majority of consumers that have purchased from Karve. I’m stupefied, mystified and just at a loss here for what is transpiring.

Houston, we have a problem......

Somewhat disagree about the "shredding". All the forums have comments but this thread is unique and DFS is not as widely viewed as others. The recent reddit thread is the other example of sustained negative comments and even then it was a 60/40 split.

Somewhat disagree about the "shredding". All the forums have comments but this thread is unique and DFS is not as widely viewed as others. The recent reddit thread is the other example of sustained negative comments and even then it was a 60/40 split.

All righty then. If you say so....

  not sure what this is supposed to mean? I'm not defending Karve, just noting that I haven't seen another forum where there is 30+ pages of straight negative commentary.

It's hard to defend the indefensible. IIRC your posts in this thread seem to usually be impatient with people's negative posting ? Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else ? Anyway ... one big difference with DFS, as opposed to many other forums I've frequented in the past, is all Wolfman WR2 posts, Karve posts, Charcoal Goods posts reside in one continuous thread dedicated to each individual brand.

Most, if not all, other forums I've been on have random threads scattered throughout. Finding threads on a particular razor in the search engine will give you dozens. Here at DFS they are all in one place.

So it is not surprising that negative posts continually show up. I don't recall seeing any negative posts in the Wolfman, Charcoal, or Blackbird threads. I suspect Karve's business model is the reason there are 'so many' negative posts in this thread. 

. . . 

It's hard to defend the indefensible. IIRC your [surfboat's] posts in this thread seem to usually be impatient with people's negative posting ? Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else ? Anyway ... one big difference with DFS, as opposed to many other forums I've frequented in the past, is all Wolfman WR2 posts, Karve posts, Charcoal Goods posts reside in one continuous thread dedicated to each individual brand.

Most, if not all, other forums I've been on have random threads scattered throughout. Finding threads on a particular razor in the search engine will give you dozens. Here at DFS they are all in one place.

So it is not surprising that negative posts continually show up. I don't recall seeing any negative posts in the Wolfman, Charcoal, or Blackbird threads. I suspect Karve's business model is the reason there are 'so many' negative posts in this thread.  [emphasis added by HS]

IMO JimmyH gives a reasonable explanation for the concentrated volume of complaints, and a telling argument that the complaints are uncharacteristic of forum members and therefore attributable to poor performance by Karve Razors.