FP1 Spare parts availability (batteries, displays, motherboards, etc. [out of stock!?])

##We’re moving to a new warehouse: Fairphone 1 orders are delayed
As some of you noticed already, since last Tuesday our webshop is partially closed for Fairphone 1 spare parts and accessories. Currently only displays and batteries can be ordered, and they are delivered with a 7 to 10 day delay on the normal delivery time.

The reason for this is because we are moving all our operations to our new warehouse near Eindhoven (the old one was in Tilburg). This means that soon we will ship all our orders from our new distribution partner Rhenus. This also inevitably means that normal operations are halted for some time, we expect to have things completely back on track on the 26th of October. If you have urgent questions requesting orders, please contact our support team.

Quoting from the support article we’ve written on this, until then…

“we’re upgrading our webshop system, connecting our webshop with the new warehouse, testing the new operational setup and relabelling all the products with a an improved product numbering system. This move will enable us to ship out the Fairphone 2 more efficiently and also ship out the Fairphone 1 spare parts in smaller and more environmentally friendly boxes.”

Especially this last point makes us really happy - we will now be able to ship stuff in boxes which are fitting for the size of the stuff shipped. This obviously saves a lot of senseless cardboard usage and your precious Fairphone 2 in it is better protected too.

Next to that, Rhenus is a company that innovates a lot. They have a paperless supply chain, they use energy saving led-lighting in their facilities and are always looking for further ways to improve. And maybe more importantly, they have a thorough screening process when it comes to the logistics partner they work with, excluding partners not living up to their standards.

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great news!! thanks! :slight_smile:

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The phrasing of the article is misleading, at best.
Posted today (October 16) at 14:29, it says :

Fairphone will [= future implied] move all of its products to a new warehouse during the first half of October [= which has come to an end yesterday].

So is the move to be expected in the near future, or has it already taken place in the recent past? :smiley: Or, hmmm, you mean October 2017?

BTW, since this additional (and unannounced till now) delay implies that I won’t be able to receive the package in due time (starting in ~13 days, I’ll be away for a month; obviously can’t forward the parcel to the wild, remote area I’ll be conducting fieldwork in), is it still legally feasible to cancel orders?

you might want to contact support about this as this is not the official channel to talk to Fairphone staff :wink:

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I think they might still be able to mail very urgent orders.

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Hey @SQFP,

you are right - contradicting info in that support article. Changed it, thanks for the heads up. We are currently in the middle of the move and slowly starting up and testing our brand new connector - the lifeline between the webshop and the warehouse. Exciting stuff! So the 26th we should be up to normal delivery speed again.

If you want to cancel your order, send a message to support as soon as possible! Thanks.

It would be helpful to let us know if the move has been completed. I see more and more people asking about spare parts being out of stock, and knowing whether the warehouse move is still ongoing or not would provide hints as to whether the “out of stock” state is still just transitional or a real shortage.

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Not everything is listed as out of stock (but the popular components - display, motherboard, battery - are), so I’d imagine that this is not due to the move. Hopefully @anon48893843 can provide clarification.

Meanwhile, should all posts informing about part availability be moved to a single topic ('When will [spare part] be available again?)? It is usually the same response to all these enquiries anyway, and we now have had at least three people ask about the display assembly in different threads…

For the record, the answer is generally:

  • This is a community forum, and we don’t know about stock levels at Fairphone. You can contact support directly here. There’s a phone number at the end of the page if it’s urgent. Please report back here if you get a response, so others don’t have to ask.
  • If your phone is still in warranty, and you’re looking for a replacement for something that is covered by the warranty (e.g. the battery), Fairphone may have some spares that are not listed in the shop. So even if it appears to be out of stock, warranty replacements are handled differently and may still be possible. Contact support via the link above.

We’ve moved to the new warehouse and our now preparing to send out the Fairphone 2.

As for the batteries: there is an actual shortage. We expect to resume shipments from our distribution partner within two weeks. The reason for the shortage is because we have consolidated all battery assembly for both the Fairphone 1 and Fairphone 2 with a new battery supplier. Setting up the new process and ordering battery cells was completed on time, however demand for replacement batteries increased more than forecasted during this period.

Once batteries are back in stock, I will put a notification here and on our webshop.

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I pinned the topic globally until 30.11.2015. Hopefully people will read it… :wink:

@Douwe what about displays and motherboards?

PS: @Johannes yeah we should probably really move all posts into one place. It’s just confusing for new users to find out, what’s the most recent development in the availability of spare parts.

Edit: @Johannes I unlisted the posts in question, instead of moving them to one topic (they will not appear in the search anymore). They are outdated anyways.

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I am waiting for more details on screens back from support. As soon as I know more, the community here will be the first to know. :slight_smile:

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Hi All

Thanks for the support. Acutally, I wrote to the support directly some days ago (26th of October), but never got an answer until yesterday evening. That’s why I started this thread to see whether maybe someone else has any information. Sorry for not stating my intention from the beginning.
Anyway, here is the answer from the Support for those who encounter the same problem:

"Sorry to hear this.

We sadly enough do not have a date yet when the screen will become available again.
You can subscribe in our webshop to be notified about this. We will send a message out automatically when they are here.
The expectation is they will arrive before somewhere the coming 2 a 3 weeks.

Our apologies for the inconvenience. "

I see whether I can bear this time or whether I have to get a replacement phone… would be a pitty though.

Regards
Sev

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Hey all,

Since we are now sure that next week a new shipment of displays will arrive from China, we’ve just placed the displays we have left online in the shop. The amount available for sale should be enough to bridge the gap until next week!

So @HllH, get 'm while they’re hot :wink:

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Does that mean new batteries will likely not suffer from the bloating problem anymore?

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A bloating battery obviously means that a fault has occurred in the battery. Although it would be nice to produce hardware that does not have faults, everything dies at some point. Every lithium-battery will bloat at some point in its life just like everybody dies at some point is his life. We can only hope, the new batteries have a better lifespan (which would only happen if they made changes to the manufacturing process). I don’t think that happened.

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However it is not unlikely. A new supplier has likely a (at least slightly) different manufacturing process. That was the initial spark for hope and the reason I posed this question.

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@Douwe
Can you be me more specific? What does this mean exactly?
Until now I could also not find any official answer to the battery problem, which seems a very serious problem and seems to affect more and more people.
Are there any information about your explanations, investigations and reasons about this problem?

Furthermore we are still waiting for the transparency-supporting information about failure rates and issues of the FP1 until now…

Cheers, Robert

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Hey all,

Batteries and displays are currently being produced. In order to be able to produce a new batch of displays, we had to find a new production partner. Since we require relatively small production quantities compared to industry standards, this has been quite a difficult task.

We now found a reliable partner, started production and we are happy about the fact that we have a first batch of 300 displays arriving later this month. In December we expect the balance of our forecasted demand.

This unfortunately means that for the coming weeks, we won’t have displays for sales in our webshop.

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We received loads of batteries and are putting the support team on it to package them and ship them off!

This should mean that everyone who has requested a new battery should have it (safe local issues with the mailman) before the end of the week or next Monday.

New orders for batteries should take no longer then 3 or 4 workdays as soon as we shipped all current requested batteries. This is probably next week the case.

We apologize to all people who had to wait so long for their battery and are thankful for your trust and patience.

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