Halvar wrote:clear MX switches "GB" by pexon.
Nothing against pexon, but I found the need to tell everybody that I have a cheper source. I order part of the switches from the even cheaper (but incomplete) GH60 source, BTW.
Halvar wrote:
Some people seem to think that with groupbuy organizers making a profit, they can/should be treated like professional sellers.
When looking at those many bags for Round 3 replacements I have to ship, I doubt I make any profit from Round 4.
On the other hand, I've got the key caps I ever need. Any additional group buy would just for pleasure, not for need.
So I think it was worth it.
Halvar wrote:
... Only thing you get to know are preorder prices that the GB organizer seems to be able to prolong or deny more or less at will. This does look like a shop, not like gb any more to newer people. IMO there's a lack of transparency that can lead to the notion that these are professional undertakings.
I run the CherryMX group buy until the Hyper project finished. Then, you can have all the details and do it yourself.
The costs for the switches are little lower than what I take, but there are re-shipments and not always I pay 4 EUR for postage and packing.
Halvar wrote:
With round 4 it was different in that there was a clear goal and a clear order to SP at some point in time, and people more or less knew what was going on. It was like you'd expect a group buy to be.
But even there, I for one never understood some aspects. in this case especially the whole handling of leftovers. I came to deskthority when the ordering phase of round 4 was already over, and there was a huge list of so-called leftovers in 7bit's system at that time. Where did the "stock" numbers come from, how were they even determined?
I ordered more kits than had been ordered at the deadline. I had not much money. If I had I would have ordered the most popular stuff (TKL kits mainly) in even higher quantities. I've ordered a lot of extra kits during Round 3 and could have at last sold 30 extra STANDARD kits during the shipping time.
Halvar wrote:
Next, that "leftover" list diminished over time to almost nothing. Yet after the sorting phase, there suddenly were these 10.000 random keycaps that went into dummy sets. I mean, that's 1/4 of the volume of the whole GB! Why were these even made, and why weren't they in the leftover lists? And even after the dummy kits, 7bit seems to have enough leftover stuff to handle sorting errors and the like.
Some keys where made twice by SP. I don't know why, maybe they lost track of what they did. I saw it on their production labels. I had quite a hard time to find out that the 122 extra LEFT RIGHT UP DOWN SPH-style key caps are overrun. Also, there are some overruns of language kit keys. Some languages have keys in common, which are not left over, but a lot of special keys are. I also made sure that the number of keys to be produced is even and 8 keys of a kind was the minimum.
Please notice that the whole thing is insane enough. I somehow can understand that GMK does not want to do such insanity. We can complain about SP quality what we want, but they produce 8 keys of one kind. They would even do 1 key, but I'm not
such a sadist.
The DUMMY kit itself was a very bad idea. It had been born when I believed I could order a larger overrun. On the other hand it was quite some nice thing for some people to get some nice extras.
Halvar wrote:
This is just an example, I'm sure 7bit has put a lot of thought into group buys and how to handle them that I just don't understand, and it might have been explained at some time in the 4000-posts thread of that GB during the last 2 years, but still -- to me these group buys need more transparency.
I'm sad you missed the transparent keys we had ...
Wanna buy transparent switches instead?
Halvar wrote:
I don't want to excuse Kayliss's action, but I'm almost sure he didn't know what he was doing at all (and did't think a lot or ask a lot either of course). From the perspective of someone new to this, it's kind of hard to understand how this works and how a Paypal dispute can delay a whole GB.
I order stuff from large company. They tell me on their website: stuff will be delivered in September.
I order.
I pay.
After 1.5 months, long before September 2013 I decide that there is a lack of communication (whatever that is) and instead of asking the them, just file a PayPal dispute to wake them up.
Halvar wrote:
All I want to say: there needs to be more explaining going on in the GBs, so people can build trust and discern them from all the commecial stuff that's going on GH. I mean look at pexon ... he clearly isn't interested in switches himself at all, he's a pro and he does this for profit, not even minding another GB on MX clears already going on. And from his reaction I'd even say he sees 7bit as just some other pro who competes against him.
There is far less explaining in pexons thread! He did not say he can have them in a week as he stated later.
BTW, he says he will order when there are enough people placeed an order for the switches.
When I compare his and my prices, he can't gain much from the switches. 17.5 vs. 19% VAT isn't much to compensate shipping to and from him. If someone wants to beat me out, he must be located next to the Cherry factory and pick up the switches in person to cheap out on the already marginal shipping costs.
Let's see who is quicker here.
In the end, I would have been way better off if I had ordered a bunch of dummy kits. 
On the other hand, I only waited a few weeks for my order ... 