Crowd Supply just sent out a “last call” before the campaign ends. From what I can tell from the campaign page, Crowd Supply is based in Oregon, USA, and keeps the hardware in stock there. My guess is that once all backers have received their hardware, the individual components of the MNT Station will also be available through the MNT Reform Shop and will then be shipped from Berlin. If that’s the case, I’d wait; otherwise, I’d place an order through Crowd Supply at the last minute.
Is that correct, or will the hardware be shipped from the U.S. either way, regardless of where it’s ordered (Crowd Supply or MNT Reform Shop)?
My postal address is in Germany but I ordered from Crowdsupply.
This was discussed in IRC August 20:
23:24 <@josch> minute: you suggest i buy via crowdsupply than via shop.mntre.com?
23:24 <@minute> josch: haha well, if you ask like that...
23:24 <@minute> josch: mnt shop probably makes more sense for you, but it'll take a while until we can launch there.
23:26 <@josch> minute: does it make a difference for MNT where i order?
23:29 <@minute> josch: well, for MNT it would be def. helpful if this little campaign raised some cash yeah
Crowdsupply buys a small percentage on top of what customers order. So if there are X orders on crowdsupply, MNT actually sells X+Y units (I don’t know the percentage).
I want it early and MNT needs the money so I placed my order at crowdsupply even though it means that the case is shipped back and forth once.
I hope you have better luck with Crowd Supply. I bought my pocket and the a311d after the initial surge and that order went fine. Years ago I ordered a risc v board and librem 5 and those went smooth. I went to upgrade my pocket to the RK V2 last Spring and they totally forgot about my order. After writing to check, they took weeks and said their inventory was wrong and had to get more and would work on it and let me know and then ignored me for months. I tried to be nice and get an update and they ignored those messages. Thankfully MNT let me know that crowd supply didn’t respond to the resupply response and so finally I made a new ticket to cancel the order. Next day they said no problem, no explanation and refunded me the money this week.
I hate to complain, but I really didn’t seem like a bad customer and they just blew me off. I send this story as a hope that all the gear will eventually all be in the MNT shop and I’ll just suck it up and pay the potentially random tariffs to get it to USA to not support crowd supply anymore.