Whatever Happened to DCUC6? This did. (Updated)

Thomas from Corner Store Comics has posted a message on the Fwoosh, providing details on just what happened with the online orders of DC Universe Classics Wave 6.

Okay folks. Strap in. Here’s the REAL scoop.

I’ve read a good portion of the posts leading up to this broadcast, but admittedly start[ed] to trail off after several pages and ultimately skipped ahead in order to get this message out ASAP. I’ll go back and read the rest later tonight or tomorrow, so if I miss anything in this post I’ll try to cover it on the follow-up.

Let’s clarify this first. Mattel didn’t screw up CSC’s order specifically or exclusively. Mattel screwed up EVERYONE AND ANYONE that ordered the solid cases. This happened in several parts. First, they received all the figures EXCEPT Shazam. Then they figured out that the factory did not split the Superman cases in the 50/50 mix they were supposed to AND there was no [way] to tell the difference between the red and black cases, NO IDEA which are which. That’s the basic rundown of the logistics issues on Mattel’s end.

Now let’s cover the service issues. Mattel didn’t bother to check the Superman cases in their warehouses even after they knew of the case packing error. They just starting shipping ’em all willy-nilly. Now this is the good part you’ll all want to savor… THEY ACTUALLY TOLD US THAT WE WOULD NEED TO WORK WITH OTHER RETAILERS THAT ALSO RECEIVE SUPERMAN CASES IN ORDER TO COORDINATE ‘SWAPS’ TO GET THE RIGHT MIX OF RED/BLACK SUPERMAN FIGURES WE NEED TO FILL OUR ORDERS. This is not a joke. This was not ‘a disgruntled employee’s view of the matter.’ This is their ONLY actual suggested solution to the problem. Even though our Superman cases are allocated and being released for shipping, they still won’t check them for us and let us know what we’re getting.

Now, let’s cover where we are at with this shipment… We REFUSED to take delivery of the first six figures until the Shazam figure was available to ship at the same time. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of figures clogging up my warehouse does NOTHING for me if I can’t ship ANY of them out until the seventh figure arrives. I’m told that arrangements have now been made to get us the seventh figure out of the Texas warehouse (which apparently just arrived there this week), so all of our figures are now being prepped for shipment to our warehouse. We STILL need to sort out the Superman situation, as we still do not know WHICH Supermans we are getting. We may get all of one type or a random mixed quantity of each (though we expect they’ll all be the same.) They should be here a few days before the Shazam arrives from Texas, so hopefully we can establish the necessary ‘trades’ with a couple other retailers in the meantime.

As you can likely understand, I’ve been at odds with whether to lay this all out for you or not. Do you take a chance on pissing off your supplier who has yet to make things even quasi-right? Or do you continue to allow your business to look like the incompetent entity in a total cluster***k created solely by the manufacturer (yet again)? I actually REQUESTED that Mattel’s marketing department be proactive for a change and address this via their shaky message board web-dude who is likely not allowed to admit fault of any kind when it comes to this kind of stuff, but I wasn’t really holding my breath on that one happening anyway. Regardless, now you can see the reason for delay in any response from us in the past couple of weeks.

So in a nutshell: Product headed our way now. Superman swaps still pending. Charging commences. Packing commences. Shipping commences. Customer product arrival happy dances commence. Hopefully all within the next week or two. Hopefully without further issue. Hopefully.

Thanks!
-T

What a mess. I’m not sure what I can add here, except express some sympathy for Mattel rep Scott Neitlich, who will probably take an unfair amount of crap for this.

Mattel is a billion-dollar American company operating in the 21st century. I just don’t know why they can’t get these issues straightened out.

I would like to thank Thomas for speaking out. If Mattel isn’t going to work on these problems of their own volition, then perhaps a little embarrassing PR might help.

UPDATE: Thomas posted this a few minutes ago.

Just a couple of quick shots to follow up:

1. I’m not touching the Wave 7 questions with a ten-foot pole at this time.

2. We’ll know within a day or two of product arrival how the Supes mix/trade situation looks. There will be minimal delay with regard to sorting that segment out. If it cannot be resolved, we will convert the Sets to 6 pieces and adjust the price accordingly, as other retailers have already started doing.

3. There has not been any offer of reimbursement to cover “swap” shipping thus far. Not holding my breath either.

Dealing with Mattel is not all bad. We like our rep. We generally like the products. It’s a much easier relationship than the one we have with another unnamed major mass-market manufacturer. I’ll choose friendly incompetence over evil indifference every time.

T-