Thought I had a Trident

[Demonic]

That's why I befriend my lfs.. I text the owner the night Terrance revealed it was released. I don't buy everything from them just things I cant buy cheaper online..I bought the 4th one they released. So like week 2 of release.

I do wish I had a LFS, the not so good perks of living in the middle of BFE

 

[joeyamador]

I promise man it is worth the hype.. call your lfs see if they have a buy list like most.. but ask if they are a platinum buyer.. if not they don't get as many and you could be waiting as long as the internet game.

 

[Demonic]

I promise man it is worth the hype.. call your lfs see if they have a buy list like most.. but ask if they are a platinum buyer.. if not they don't get as many and you could be waiting as long as the internet game.

I wish I had one, but BRS is setting me up with one with the next shipment.

 

[joeyamador]

Bro I live deep in the sticks... my lfs is 1hr and 35 mins away.. but with 4 kids it is my excuse to talk shop with the guys ang get what I need lol. (I love my kids but just like moms alone time I need it too. Just to clarify lol)

 

[Demonic]

In North Dakota, you learn to get everything you need online since the nearest place is an overnight stay.

 

[joeyamador]

I went through the same thing when I bought my last kh monitor for the 600 gallon and had to wait awhile.

 

[joeyamador]

In North Dakota, you learn to get everything you need online since the nearest place is an overnight stay.

yeah my dad lived in S.D for awhile so I feel you.. when we were in Montana same thing.. it essentially boils down to how bad you want it at that point lol.. I always weigh it as hmm... will it cost more to go get it than actually buy it?? If so that couch looks better Haha. That sucks.. when the next one comes up have me get 2 lol. Good luck man!! Hope they take care of you as Thomas and Joe always do for me.

 

[Conor_K]

Whoops, wrong thread...

 

[Sleepydoc]

I agree with the people who have pointed out that it’s just a machine to test Alk/Ca/Mg. We’ve all been living without these for the last xx years. You see this repeatedly. A brand new turnip twaddler comes out and everyone becomes convinced that they need it and it will solve all their life’s problems.

I think the real source of the OP’s ire wasn’t not getting a trident. Had he logged on to BRS and they had been sold out, he would have said ‘oh well’ and gone on with things. It was the fact that the web site told him he had one and he thought he had one and then felt like it got pulled out from under him. He even admitted he came here to vent. Getting ticked off and hanging up isn’t always the best or most mature way to handle things, but few of us can say we’ve never done something similar. I know I can’t. It sounds like BRS got in contact with him, so I assume things are resolved.

Situations like this are difficult for retailers to handle. I was at my LFS on Friday. They use Neptune equipment on many of their maintenance accounts and are a ‘Neptune preferred’ retailer and the owner told me they are getting one unit a week in. I’m guessing BRS is getting a few more, but it’s obviously not meeting demand. Situations like these where there is high demand for a scarce product need systems like Ticketmaster uses - when you select a ticket, it is allocated to you and no one else can buy it, but if you don’t complete the sale within a few minutes, you loose it and it goes back on sale. Most stores’ systems are not set up this way, rather the unit is removed from inventory when the sale is completed. Normally that works fine, but for the rare cases like this if falls apart. It’s frustrating, and I’m sure it’s a headache for BRS, but I don’t really expect them to change their entire software system for a circumstance surrounding one product that will resolve over time.

 

[UCF Alum]

At the end of the day, I blame Neptune for this. They hyped this product for years, only to release 20, or less, of them a week. They knew this would be a hot product, and did a great job hyping it up to sell more controllers with the anticipation you’d have a Trident to go along with it.
Great marketing Neptune. You sure sold a lot of controllers.

 

[Brett S]

At the end of the day, I blame Neptune for this. They hyped this product for years, only to release 20, or less, of them a week. They knew this would be a hot product, but did a great job hyping it up to sell more controllers with the anticipation you’d have a Trident to go along with it.
Great marketing Neptune. You sure sold a lot of controllers.

I think that Neptune had kind of backed themselves into a bit of a corner with this and they didn’t really have a lot of good options. Obviously they hyped the product as much as possible... that’s part of running a business and I don’t think they had any intention of it taking this long for the product to actually be released. They got a lot of bad press and a lot of ill will from people because it took so much longer than they had originally quoted.

But now that they have created this monster and they are ready to release it they only had two options... they could release it as soon as possible with very limited supply and deal with this very backlash from people who can’t get the units they want or they could delay the release by several months and build up stock, but that would invite more backlash because this much hyped product would be delayed by several more months. No matter what they chose people were going to be unhappy.

At least by releasing it sooner there are some people who are able to start using the trident and there aren’t thousands of them sitting unused on a shelf in a warehouse somewhere.

They hyped this product for years, only to release 20, or less, of them a week.

They are releasing way more than 20 a week. I was able to purchase a unit at BRS on Tuesday this week and at the time I made my purchase they were showing 60 available. I assume the other major national resellers are getting similar numbers. The local fish stores are only getting 1 or 2 units a week, but that’s 1 or 2 units times several hundred stores across the country.

Obviously there are still far too few being released, but I suspect the actual number is more like 300 or 400 going out each week.

 

[siggy]

Obviously there are still far too few being released, but I suspect the actual number is more like 300 or 400 going out each week.

I wonder if they are hand tuning each unit, last minute modifications?

 

[Brett S]

I wonder if they are hand tuning each unit, last minute modifications?

I believe so. In some of the videos Terence mentioned that there is some assembly and calibration for each unit done in house in California. I’m sure that’s where the bottleneck is.

 

[stacksoner]

I believe so. In some of the videos Terence mentioned that there is some assembly and calibration for each unit done in house in California. I’m sure that’s where the bottleneck is.

They probably do this to avoid import tariffs.

Who knows what issues the first round of Tridents had and what small component adjustments they're making with future orders bc of cheapo part failure? They won't tell us this info bc everyone will ask for an exchange. The bottleneck is that there is manufacturing lead time for parts/assembly/quality control. These Chinese factories make a ton of other products and commit resources to whatever they're making. I imagine that Neptune is ordering small batches while they refine the product based on initial issues and arrive at a final product manufacturing spec list, which can be mass produced.

 

[User1]

I wonder if they are hand tuning each unit, last minute modifications?

I'm not sure about hand tuning but they are going through a setup and calibration before they ship them out. At least that is what was said by Neptune. So basically they are ordering, getting them delivered, then staff have to go through the final assembly and/or verification test they are working correctly before being repackaged and shipped to sellers. Different route than calling up their manufacture and say add an extra shift or make 1,000 more pumps.

Btw @siggy - happy weekend :)

 

[User1]

They probably do this to avoid import tariffs.

Who knows what issues the first round of Tridents had and what small component adjustments they're making with future orders bc of cheapo part failure? They won't tell us this info bc everyone will ask for an exchange. The bottleneck is that there is manufacturing lead time for parts/assembly/quality control. These Chinese factories make a ton of other products and commit resources to whatever they're making. I imagine that Neptune is ordering small batches while they refine the product based on initial issues and arrive at a final product manufacturing spec list, which can be mass produced.

Not that it matters but I can try to find the video whereas they say they are actually doing final checks to make sure they work before sending the units out. Like I said it probably doesn't matter but like you and others said there was a lot of interest in the product. No doubt. Now it is a matter of them trying to work through the supply chain, shipments, regents, and other things as they get sent out to hobbyists.

A lot of angst for sure. On the positive side those that have them have been reporting some pretty good results with how easy they are to set up and how consistent they are. Still have more users to onboard so interesting to follow never the less. Hope all is well Slew.

 

[Sleepydoc]

I think that Neptune had kind of backed themselves into a bit of a corner with this and they didn’t really have a lot of good options. Obviously they hyped the product as much as possible... that’s part of running a business and I don’t think they had any intention of it taking this long for the product to actually be released. They got a lot of bad press and a lot of ill will from people because it took so much longer than they had originally quoted.

But now that they have created this monster and they are ready to release it they only had two options... they could release it as soon as possible with very limited supply and deal with this very backlash from people who can’t get the units they want or they could delay the release by several months and build up stock, but that would invite more backlash because this much hyped product would be delayed by several more months. No matter what they chose people were going to be unhappy.

At least by releasing it sooner there are some people who are able to start using the trident and there aren’t thousands of them sitting unused on a shelf in a warehouse somewhere.



They are releasing way more than 20 a week. I was able to purchase a unit at BRS on Tuesday this week and at the time I made my purchase they were showing 60 available. I assume the other major national resellers are getting similar numbers. The local fish stores are only getting 1 or 2 units a week, but that’s 1 or 2 units times several hundred stores across the country.

Obviously there are still far too few being released, but I suspect the actual number is more like 300 or 400 going out each week.

I know with the COR pumps they individually tested the first few batches. They may well be taking a similar approach with the Trident - individually checking and calibrating them until they know they have the manufacturing quality control figured out.

There were 3 or 4 testing devices on the way to market including the Trident. Neptune was certainly under pressure to get them to market, but when you consider product announcements as a whole, releasing a product later than it was initially promised is far and away the norm. Yeah, it’s a bit annoying that it took a while, but like I said before - we’ve been testing by hand for years or even decades. Even more than a controller, this is a completely optional piece of equipment and there’s no justification for not getting it right. Would people rather it be another Vertex Cerebra?

As for managing the release, I think you’re right on - there was huge pent up demand and they were in a position with no great options. They could either release a big batch, then go silent for weeks/months and release another big batch, or they could release them as soon as they got them ready. They chose the latter. You can debate whether that was the right or wrong decision, but there were drawbacks to either option.

 

[siggy]

Man this tread has got some traction!

 

[Janci]

I understand the OP's frustration, but do not understand the complete hype.
Each of the other ALK monitoring systems had several issues that were not solved during the beta testing. It will not be different with this release.
So why struggling and getting stressed to get this first version if we know the second or even third release will be better.

 

[Ryanbrs Verified Sponsor]

So I placed the order, got a confirmation and was good to go. Logged back in and saw 12 more still in stock.

I then called and upgraded shipping to two day and was charged for that over the phone.

Logged in this morning, stills says picking status. Called and they say backorder. Are you kidding me. Is this how it operates?

Thanks @Bulk Reef Supply
Beyond furious.

Hi,

I took the family to Shedd this week and not in the office so I don't know the exact issue here but I can shed some light on elements. First, I apologize for the hassle. I had the same experience with Best Buy and an iPhone x when they came out. It is frustrating.

As to getting one in a timely fashion, I think Adam may have already solved that for you but for anyone else who might be in a similar situation we get a batch every week so we can get you one the following week and if speed is critical just let CS know and I am sure they will overnight it.

For everyone else, I believe the CS team has shifted to a white glove approach and calling people on the list to get them to reefers each week rather than this mad rush to jam their way through the cart. I know everyone every last person won't appreciate this approach but we have to pick the option that has the least frustration until Neptune ramps up production.

Sometimes it is helpful or interesting to know what causes this type of thing. First, the thousand people trying to buy a limited quantity at the exact same microsecond caused a race in the inventory software which sold a few more than we had. This is not something that has comes up often as the industry doesn't see many launches like the Trident. There is a ticket in to fix that. Second, it is worthwhile to note that any type of change to an order means the order gets moved from general processing to special order status where someone needs to read the comments when it is shipped. When you called to change to 2 day the order likely got pulled from the general orders and processed in a later batch. By then the other orders were filled and we ran out. Obviously not your fault but it might be worth noting because this is likely true at all kinds of different e-commerce sites.

Again sorry for the hassle. I think we all wish Neptune had adequate stock for the launch but that would have meant a later launch anyways and everyone would have had to wait even longer.