TL;DR: if you’re in Australia, your addresses are locking down today. UK orders are all out the door, EU is about to start Packing. USA, small delay, but underway.

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It’s a ‘good news for some, frustrating news for others’ update, but all told progress is being made. 

Here’s the timeline, broken down by region:

This area moved slower than expected, but is still very much underway. Thank you for your patience.

Addresses have been locked, and data has been crunched & uploaded to our Fulfilment partners at the Dutch warehouse. 

They were waiting for the final delivery of Delve Decks - which are being delivered to them today (Dutch customs spent a couple extra days checking them).

Smaller packages will still ship first, before moving on to larger, more complex orders .

Then they will process orders for European countries that require export paperwork - Norway, Switzerland etc, as well as our Near East and ‘how is this Europe?’ areas. I think of this as the Eurovision Song Contest fulfilment.

It will take a few weeks to fill all these orders. You’ll receive a tracking code and we will also update your order in Backerkit so you know when it’s shipped. We’ll also update you again when fulfilment is done, so you know if there’s been some unexpected error. 

Last orders to EU territories should ship before the end of May, with the rest shipping out in early June.

Good morning! We’re gonna start sending you your books from Monday next week.

Turns out that not only did our packages to Australia not contain any sand contaminated with soil or driftwood, but that they managed to check them in record time and all of the items are now sitting in the Australian warehouse ready to be shipped out.

So, shortly after this email goes out (at what? 3am Australian time?), we’ll send the ‘lock addresses’ email from BackerKit. You’ll have 48 hours to update your addresses, then we’ll hand over the data to fulfilment.

Aetherworks (who handle all our orders for the Pacific Ocean) will also do their own address check with you, and then parcels will be sent out. It’s a belt and braces approach, or perhaps t-shirt and sunscreen for our warmer neighbours.

Our Freight Forwarding partner was unable to secure passage for the goods on the boat they had informed us we would be using. Unfortunately, some extra paperwork requirements and using a slightly less frequent shipping route than normal has meant we’ve been delayed in sending the books onwards. 

Very frustrating, but sadly out of our hands. We rely on trusted 3rd Parties to help us navigate the ever changing processes of International Freight, and until Maz turns to me and says “Alex, what cargo container vessel should RRD buy?” we have to keep being the client in this relationship. [nb. The chances of this are low, but probably still higher than they should be.]

So USA freight is booked on a boat in Rotterdam early next week, and should be on the mainland about 2 weeks later. We are now expecting final delivery to the US warehouse in late June. Once we know we’ve cleared USA border controls, we’ll lock addresses and get your fulfilment started as quickly as possible.

Our UK warehouse has informed us that all orders for the UK and Ireland have now shipped out. They did this lightning fast, and lots of people have already told us that their books have arrived. If you haven’t heard anything, or haven’t received a tracking link for your order, please get in touch with Jim or myself in the Customer Service mines by emailing [email protected]. 

Thanks enormously for your patience and support, folks - we couldn’t do any of this without you. 

We’d love to see pictures of your parcels as they start to arrive - you can tag us on Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook, or pop links in the comments here. 

Or join our Discord server and chat to others about all things Heart? 

As always, there’s a risk things will get dinged, damaged or lost in transit. If that happens to you, we want to put it right. We recommend taking photos of your parcel and the products inside if you’re worried there may be damage to your items - this helps speed up the claims process and get replacements sent out quicker.

If anything goes wrong with your parcel, get in touch with Jim or myself in the Customer Service mines by emailing [email protected]. 

We’ll write again in early June, with an update on how EU and Australian fulfilment is going, and some live ship tracking for the USA.

xoxo

– Alex, and everyone at RR&D