Re. Glorious deliveries coming from Hong Kong (Kerry)

Hey ya’ll, I’ve seen quite a few questions regarding packages from recent releases being delivered from Hong Kong/ “Kerry Ecommerce” fulfillment - so wanted to clarify the new process and expectations.

Our goal for new product releases is to get the product shipped to customers as soon as possible after production of initial batches is completed.

In the past, for new releases once the first batches were done at our overseas factories we’d typically send them to our USA fulfillment centers via bulk freight. From there the product is stored, packaged and shipped individually to customers.

The freight would be shipped from the factories either via sea container or air delivery. However during Covid, sea shipping became highly unreliable due to port shutdowns/congestion. Sea transit times could be 1.5-2months or more just to make it to the USA.

Bulk air freight has shorter transit time to the US, but it also become astronomically expensive, unreliable, and hard to secure space over the last 2 years.

Additionally, shipping to the US first means for Non US customers, the product would have to be sent back out of the country for local delivery. Obviously this is pretty inefficient in terms of both transit time and cost.

In response, our logistics team has been working on adding the capability to fulfill products directly from overseas to customers.

For you, this has the benefit on saving significant transit time, cutting down costs (which is reflective in lower product prices/shipping fees), and also increasing reliability of fulfillment estimates on pre-orders.

The Hong Kong facility is called “Kerry Ecommerce” logistics. For Glorious Forge releases and certain other new product launches, the initial batches will be fulfilled from Kerry. Some international customers will have their everyday orders come from Kerry as well.

Shipping time from Kerry varies depending on customer location. We’ve seen it typically takes around 7-10 days to get to US customers after leaving. If shipments get held up in customs it can add about 2-3 days additional.

Even though this sounds like a longer shipping time to you than previous methods…you’re actually getting your product significantly faster than you would have. Since we’re cutting out the whole step of freighting the product to the US we can get it out the door a lot sooner, potentially saving weeks of waiting.

After the first batches, future inventory may come to the US first as usual.

We’re still scaling up this operation and will be ironing out any kinks - but hopefully this helps better set your expectations for how Glorious orders will be handled in the future!

Happy to answer any questions/concerns

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Thank you for clarifying all of this. I had an inkling that this was the case and it’s nice to have it verified.

I definitely think there are a few kinks that could be worked out like how often updates are posted and when they are posted, like I noticed that updates would post in the middle of the night or extremely early in the morning. Also, there were times where the updates were confusing and kind of contradictory of each other every now and then.

I will say though that my package came packed well and without any damage, not much more you can ask for haha. So overall, I am pretty happy with Kerry and even though it seemed like a long wait for shipping it’s nice to know for sure that it saved us at least a week or two shipping time going this route

Thanks @Xel

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If you’re talking about the tracking updates, unfortunately we don’t really have any control over the frequency/type of updates coming from Kerry. Actually in our experience most international carriers coming from that way have pretty inconsistent tracking until it reaches local delivery.

We have had our eye on reports of confusing information or lack of updates being emailed - going forward we are going to try to ensure expectations are better communicated on the whole process.

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That is absolutely understandable. As always all of you at Glorious have been amazing and always helpful so, thank you again for everything

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So if this release got pushed back by a month essentially (originally was august-september) that means that the Series pro will be delayed as well? Going by the updates from the staff the Model O PRO was “on time” but technically its over a month past the original release date. So will we be looking at the same with the Series PRO?

Model O PRO was not pushed back by a month, it began fulfillment at the end of September. The estimated time periods cover the entire months (so August - September means any time through the end of September.) These are also just estimates for any Forge releases.

Series One PRO is still on track - updates are being posted regularly on the forum p ost IN PRODUCTION - Glorious Series One PRO - #61 by Alice

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Thanks for the clarification! Quick question: does Kerry deliver to the destination address or do they give the package to USPS or another local delivery service, which is what DHL sometimes does?

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They hand off to USPS for last mile delivery

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It wasn’t pushed back but it wasn’t fulfilled on the August- September window like it stated. Word it however you want. But I’m sure most people seen the August-September time frame and expected they would have it within those months. Not the end of October and like myself probably November.

I think it’s worth taking a step back and seeing all of this in the bigger picture. Group-buys in the past are generally plagued with delays and can take AGES to complete. Also, let’s take a look at many of the factors here:

  • These are an early endeavor for glorious in the group buy arena
  • Estimated times were surprisingly reasonable considering alternatives
  • Updates provided on the website as well as the forum for currenting timing versus expectations

I’m in the boat of being excited for my mouse to arrive, so I understand those who want more update to the minute details. But I would like to state, all things considered, this has been an impressive show of setting goals and meeting them. Are there areas for improvement? Of course. But considering the alternatives, I think this can be considered a job well done.

My thoughts on matter anyway.

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2nd this. ^

Thank you for the good explanation of the logistics Glorious is faced with, Xel. How it would effect us all, along with most peoples general knowledge for how long GBs can be, and my knowledge of previous GBs I have been a part of (as well as the process for ordering most things when they first come out from Glorious in “batch 1” etc) sheds some more light on everything.

Side note: The lovely state of New Jersey needs to let my mice continue their travels. :rofl:

:pray: Job well done!

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There’s an expectation if your order from an american company, not some 3rd party on Amazon or Newegg your item will ship from the same country. You handle receiving the item first, inspect them, test them. Now you’re bypassing that by shipping directly from another country. So if there are quality control issues you’re not catching them now, and far more packages being delayed by customs with tracking methods that might not be that accurate. If you don’t actually have stock on hand for rmas that’s another issue too.

I 3rd this ^ and totally agree with @LiquidMaverick and @BoomerFingers

Like they both said compared to other GBs Glorious is doing a great job of getting their products made and shipped out to customers as quickly as possible. Also, @Xel did a great job explaining the logistical troubles they are dealing with and working on to improve. @LiquidMaverick made another great point that, Glorious getting into the GB arena is a new endeavor and in the early stages. For being so new in the space they have done a great job with updating the community, answering all of our many questions we have had about our orders, and getting the orders Fulfilled within the estimated time frame

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I believe part of the documentation is that glorious produced extras to address quality issues and warranties as well.

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Despite Glorious saying they will start fulfilling orders at September 30, it was a close date to China’s national holiday which started at October 1st and ends at October 7 according to this site. I think this might have played a factor with the waiting times for the orders to be shipped out since as we know, their GB orders are coming from directly from China.

I knew about the national holiday because I follow a few keyboard companies from China and I also follow a game that is developed in China as well which they mentioned there will be no customer support during the period of like October 1st to the 5th or something.

Also, you have to remember China is still being cautious on the corona virus, there is still random shutdowns occurring over there.

You also need to remember you agreed that delays can occur during Group Buys. This is definitely nothing new from the keyboard community, we all know some GMK keycaps have took 2 years. There’s been a large situation where this dude opened their product up for GB but this dude ended up ghosting everybody and deleted the Discord entirely in the keyboard community. That was a total nightmare for everybody who was looking forward to that GB for it to just shut down completely and given up on.

Honestly, Glorious Forge could be MUCH more worse however yes, they need to improve on how they showcase their future releases, especially on their mices. As someone who decided to make such an irresponsible payment, Model O Pro was one of them and I am in Canada so USD TO CAD with shipping and taxes included, it’s like a 140-150 CAD mice I believe, if not, probably more so this mouse can be a hit and miss for me considering I don’t care much for mouse specs or do any of that drag clicking. I just like the weight though, I think it’s impressive to have a light weight mice.

Anyway, sure, maybe they didn’t follow their window but it is called an estimate for a reason. It’s not always certain.

I think Glorious just also failed to mention that China is about to go into their national holiday during the fulfilment…

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I don’t have an issue waiting, what I have an issue is how when you call out the delays, they say “no there’s no delay we are on track”. On track would be the original delivery window. Anything past that window is considered running behind. At this point anyone who joins the group buys are at the mercy of glorious and when they/ or their vendor decides to ship the items.

Also not to sounds rude but I don’t care what has happened in other group buys or what’s the norm, I don’t buy from them for this reason. It’s going to be close to November or be November when I get my Model Pro’s. that’s nearly 2 months from September… if that’s not a delay than I do not know what is.

Makes sense.

Yeah a staff memeber sent out an update in Discord that the mice will be shipped out in a few days (message was posted on September 12) then this was posted to Twitter in close proximity with staff’s message :

“Model O PRO still on track.
Production should be finished this week, after that it moves to QC inspection. If there are no issues it will start shipping around the last week of Sept.
More updates soon.” - this was posted on September 13.

When their staff said “in the next few days” I was thinking like within that same week or next week. Discord message was posted on Monday so a few days would be like 3 - 6 days so like within that same week and the next week being September 19.

This staff never came back to fix their mistake. I know Glorious has a Twitter Feed channel in their server but I doubt people look at it considering how many people kept asking for whats the recent updates on the Model O Pro.

Theres nothing consistent between their Discord and Twitter. Discord is heavily neglected by staff, like its like a 5% you will see a staff exchanging a few conversations with people. At least 3/6 are mods are still around running the server.

Yeah I would agree with you its a delay. Their “Still on track” is kinda bs.

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Glad I saw this post, just saw that my GMMK Numpad with extra goodies just shipped and was like “Kerry Logistics? :thinking:

Guess I’ll see it in about two weeks! :sweat_smile: I do wish the site was more upfront about the shipping origin and transit times.

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I was going to post this in the “HOW MUCH LONGER I bought both” thread but I figure it would be better served here:

This will be my last post on the topic of shipping as I don’t want it to seem like I am full on hating in this thread, on Glorious or Kerry haha

Group buys have delays and shipping is a mother clucker RN, Forge is new and I am super flexible on Forge buys. This is me though. :slight_smile:

I just want to point out the fact that I find it very odd that the first order that ever came through Kerry for a Glorious product ended up having two tracking numbers.
One for their side and then one for when it got state-side and past customs actually.
At that point I tracked through USPS system and it was fine.
:thinking:
I am not sure why Kerry dropped off that second part of tracking for the consumer. But if it was to reduce some form of cost for Glorious; I’d kindly ask you to accrue that cost or to make sure Kerry holds your products in higher regard as it gets to the consumer from the other side of the planet. Ultimately, I will still be making purchases of Forge products as this is not a reason to discontinue supporting where I assume your vision has Forge going.

Time tracks better than Kerry so we will see :pray: Thank you again for your time and
Remain Glorious,

  • IC

Again, I am not in any real anger/annoyance about this or Kerry or the timeframe estimate versus when we are getting the mice in hand. I just do see something changed from the first Forge order to these for sure. :upside_down_face:

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