Regarding my order of 3080 Gaming X Trio waterblock.

[ronserruya]

Hello, I already sent a support ticket earlier today but didn't get any confirmation about it being received so I'm writing here as well.

A week ago I pre-ordered this item https://www.alphacool.com/shop/gpu-...-n-rtx-3090/3080-gaming-x-trio-with-backplate

Which was supposed to be in stock today, but when I check earlier today it said (in german) "Execceded delivery date", now it says expected to be in stock in 12 days.

What exactly does this mean? did you finish your stock (that included my order), or do I need to wait for additional 12 days for my order to be in stock?

My order number is 30125696, is there any ETA on when it will be shipped?
Thank you

Ps. The "contact us" link you are sending in your emails is broken "https://www.alphacool.com/alphacool/en-support-request"

 

[sickhead racing]

Same for me...by now I'm really disappointed and simply sick and tired of all of this RTX 30xx mess. Why are established companies acting this way? And don't give me the Covid crap...every company has the choice to how they do their marketing, when and how they offer pre orders and what ETAs they promise.

When I first bought Alphacool products the main reasons were:

- the good quality as confirmed by a lot of people
- ability to upgrade / combine products (in my case AIOs)
- Alphacool being a German company and therefore a local company for me
- Alphacool using be quiet! fans

I started with a RTX 2080 Eiswolf and then went on to add a Eisbär to my cooling loop...everything was fine and as expected.
Still I had to learn, my purchased products were basically already "old" at that point and about to be EOL only to be replaced by some "fancy" RGB products with different TPV tubes, fittings and so on.
So I swallow the bitter "all RGB" pill and order the RTX 3080 GPU cooler and additional hardware, trying to salvage some of the parts of my old GPU AIO like the pump, the radiator, the tubes and the fan...which basically makes no sense financially and it would be easier to wait for the new Eiswolf 2 AIO...but that would mean I have to wait even longer.
But that doesn't even matter now...after all of this, I still have nothing, not even an explanation, email or something. You guys are simply throwing your reputation away, just to be part of that stupid hype train in the industry...very disappointing.

 

[Eddy]

It is about the covid crap.... sorry...
Due to Covid, the situation is such that transport companies are currently not able to meet agreed deadlines. As the situations and regulations are constantly changing and adapting throughout the countries. We have no influence on this and we cannot estimate how the respective requirements and situations will change. If we want to import goods and receive delivery dates from the transport companies, which are then subsequently adjusted or changed by the transport companies, we are also just stupid and have to accept these things. As a customer, who does not know and cannot see the whole process, everything always looks so simple. But we operate worldwide with various supply chains. And due to Covid, these supply chains are partly interrupted, slowed down and disturbed by new regulations.

To old products the EOL go.... the first Eiswolf has already some years on the hump, just like the first Eisbaer version. One adapts to the market and offers what the mass of customers wants and that is RGB. Fact is, when comparing the normal Eisbaer and the Eisbaer Aurora with aRGB LEDs, the normal Eisbaer is on a lost cause. This clearly shows that customers prefer aRGB LEDs. Of course not all customers, but the masses. But it is simply not worthwhile for us to serve the smaller clientele. If we would only concentrate on that, we could close the company down. It is all a matter of demand that is served. And you can believe me that most of the people in our company don't think much of all the RGB lighting. But that's not what counts, it's what the customers prefer. That's how you align your company.

Fact is also.... we are as frustrated about the situation as the customers, because the customer naturally and understandably complains to us. This is absolutely no fun for us either.

 

[sickhead racing]

Like I already said: you as a company can choose whether to take pre orders or not, during this times and the specific situation. Right now I'm forced to have the impression, you already knew you could not make the "deadline" but you still took the money and pre orders from your customers.
Just an example: I got my RTX 3080 from Alternate. Before that I had already had been fooled by Amazon and other retailers, all taking pre orders (the more the better) and basically giving false availability numbers. After cancelling all the failed orders I went on to order a card at Alternate where the cards where always listed as "not available" (alt least for the times I looked it up). I even ordered without paying and chose "personal pick up at the store" since I wasn't willing to give my money away again. Three days later I received a message saying my card was ready for pick up and indeed it was. Why am I telling you this? Because it's all about how you advertise and communicate. You as a company chose to put up products for pre order with a somewhat specific ETA and still do so. You just stated all of the above...the supply chain, Covid...all of it and still the mentioned products are on your shop. Considering the situation, you could opt for cancelling further orders until you actually have the products in hand. Instead you blame other people...come on, you never even sent an email to maybe apologize for the delay or even explain it. I have to go on the forum to maybe find out about the current situation...as a paying and returning customer.
That's simply bad business conduct on your side period. The thread starter apparently even submitted a ticket and got no answer. You can't blame that on Covid can you?

 

[davido_labido]

We can certainly understand the frustration but a lot of it is just out of our hands.

Sending emails to our customers is technically possible (although would be very hard due to GDPR laws, internal structure and because all your contact details are only available in specific instances), but the majority of our sales come from third parties and resellers. We don't see these details at all so we don't have direct contact with the vast majority of our customers.

Pre-orders are there for customers to get the product at the first available opportunity and they often go very smoothly, for instance, the 3080 Reference block pre-orders were shipped before the 3080 was even released. We can only estimate dates based on the information we receive from transport companies for when our pre-orders will be shipped. As soon as we get them, they are sent out to customers based on when they ordered the components. If we cancel pre-orders because of delays, that would mean those who don't wish to cancel would get their components earlier, you would still be without your block. If you wait for the block to be in stock, then the timeline would still be the same, except you would have to wait a couple of extra days as we send pre-orders before the additional stock is put online.

As mentioned, it isn't ideal, in the perfect world we would like our deliveries to turn up in time, we would have a system that automatically emails you guys when there are problems and much more. Currently, it just isn't possible, however we are constantly improving upon our systems as time goes on, so maybe in the future it will happen.

As for the OP mentioning that tickets have gone unanswered, there is no excuse for that, you are correct. All tickets should have an answer in a timely manner. Some do seem to slip though the cracks however and it is something that does need addressing. There are no excuses for not replying to customers when they are requesting information.

If you do wish to cancel an order that has been made through www.alphacool.com, make a new thread in this forum with the order number and the request. If purchases are done via resellers, please request it with them. It isn't what we like to see, but we completely understand.

 

[obsolete1101]

I literally just created this account to post this on the form. Seeing that other people are experience the same delay is (somewhat) relieving.. in the sense that I'm not the only one in this position. I "pre-ordered" the waterblock for my 3090 on 10.8.2020, so this wait has been pretty long.

@sickheat racing -- you nailed it in the head when you wrote "...come on, you never even sent an email to maybe apologize for the delay or even explain it. I have to go on the forum to maybe find out about the current situation.." As I mentioned, I placed my order 3 weeks ago, with the full payment going through on 10.8.2020 -- and I haven't heard a peep from Alphacool. If it were any other product I would have cancelled my order and gone elsewhere by now. Alphacool should at the very least update the product page to explain that delays may come up because <reason here> and that availability dates are purely estimates that may change. Transparency is key guys.. Sheesh.

 

[davido_labido]

We do say it's an estimated date and we update the date as and when we know that there will be delays. We can fluff that out a little, but but as mentioned it is every product on the container that is delayed, not just this and just changing it on Alphacool.com will not get it changed elsewhere where we have no control so it generally means very little for a lot of our customers unfortunately.

It is also rare that we have to change the dates as in normal circumstances our deliveries are on time or within a few days of our expected dates. At the moment there are far more things out of our control which has a knock on affect not just for customers but also ourselves behind the scenes. We struggle to get hardware to reviewers pre-release for example as they are stuck too. This means you guys can't even see reviews before taking the plunge which isn't something a lot of people like to do (understandably).

As mentioned I shall discuss it further with our web team and see if there is a way anything can be updated for these unusual occasions, but honestly I very much doubt anything will change with our current website as were due a new one soon. It might be that we can get the new one have better options though

 

[ronserruya]

Thank you for the reply, I can understand that there are delivery issues due to covid and the extremely low amount of 3080s out there. Like the others said, just having gotten an email about the delay would have been better.

Looking forward for updates for when it arrives

 

[Eddy]

Our email system will be revised next year. It is true, we would have to send out more information to the customers. But this is no longer possible by hand as it would simply be too much. This is automated in all larger shops. Unfortunately, we are still a bit behind technically. But since we are currently working on various new things concerning our website and the shop, it will take a little while until things run better and the customers are better informed.

 

[ronserruya]

Our email system will be revised next year. It is true, we would have to send out more information to the customers. But this is no longer possible by hand as it would simply be too much. This is automated in all larger shops. Unfortunately, we are still a bit behind technically. But since we are currently working on various new things concerning our website and the shop, it will take a little while until things run better and the customers are better informed.

Just looked and it jumped to 10 days again today, is it again the same issue?

 

[Eddy]

We have hundreds of preorders and the first delivery was sent completely to the first people. We will get a few hundred cooler in around 2 weeks, i hope that will be enough so we will also have something on stock in the shop. Depends on how many preorders we will get in the next days.