I got my email in the afternoon. It showed up in FedEx Delivery Manager first, and then I got an email about 10 minutes later. It seems that when they print the shipping label, it automatically pushes to FedEx and sends an email.
It might look like the orders are fulfilled randomly, but based on what I've seen the past two weeks, it appears it might actually be following a logical order. Approvals happened after the receipt was verified. Some people it was almost instant, others took a few days. I imagine they had some sort of scan on the upload first, and those are who get it almost instant. Those of us that took a few days, it might of had a manual review. So there was a lot of changing "positions" with who did what first.
It also looks like after the approval, where you selected your gift, it possibly reserved it for a period of time so you could then buy it. So all those people trying on the 20th, and getting sold out messages, while the users approved could still buy it on the 22nd/23rd.
There had been some odd behavior in the order status in the app, versus the gift check online. However, it looks like they all are pretty consistent. My online check showed the gift shipped 4 days before it shipped. My app, under promotions is basically blank, and no tracking in the app under orders. I now also see under review in the app, where it used to say approved.
I've spent way too much time reading all of these threads, and the one thing I've come away with is that everyone so far receives it eventually, if they received an order confirmation after paying. Any other combinations of experiences not above hasn't proved too many successful orders going to shipping.
Almost all orders are moving in waves, in order of date. Yesterday had a lot of shipping on people's orders from the 21st, and today the 22nd. I'd expect those who paid on the 23rd, would be up next.
There are always exceptions, but it seems to be moving along in a particular order for most.
I don't have a problem with the ordering or shipping process. The failure was communication on their behalf to set expectations. I cannot imagine them being a restaurant, expecting and having staff for 120 guests for the day and then 15,000 show up. You can't train anyone instantly to cover the deluge of people. The only way to handle it is you communicate and let people know where they stand upfront. You will still have a lot of angry people, and most likely the ones you do serve, get very little service, since you have 9,880 mad people. It is just like the Slickdeals effect, where people or systems just get overwhelmed, and it is impossible to correct immediately. There are limits to people, servers and phone systems. If they simply stated the process upfront, and released some sort of official notice on social media, everyone world be ok and they wouldn't have just had two crazy weeks.
I was ok with whatever, as long as I didn't have $99 tied up or missing. Just not in my nature to stress over what I can't control. I just wanted to save money on a decent package deal if possible.
Everyone that had an order confirmation should be getting shipping info soon. I imagine the bulk of the stock is already shipped, since we are nearing the 23rd orders being shipped out. It will happen soon for almost everyone, bar some exceptions, as happens with large numbers of anything.
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