FP3: my order just got delayed by one month! from mid Sep. to mid Oct. to early Nov

Confirmed.
My interpretation would be preparation to “ship” the phones from China to the Netherlands.
My guess would be, that Fairphone has chosen Rhenus for the “Landbridge”, i.e. “Block train rail service - China & Europe”.

Edit:
Judging by the posting of @AlbertJP, my interpretation might be wrong.
Though the train would take about 3 weeks to Germany according to this timetable (pdf); which would be in line with delivery by mid October.

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Rhenus is the company operating the distribution centre in Eindhoven from where Fairphones and parts get shipped.

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the support article says otherwise:

A Fairphone 3 is assigned to the order . When the order with the Fairphone 3 has entered the distribution system, the order status changes into Prepare for shipment . Your parcel is then already neatly wrapped up on a pallet and ready to start the journey to your shipping address!

From: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032617671

EDIT - But of course it would be really surprising if the shipment would be on schedule and that the one month delay was somehow compensated!

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One thing is for sure it isn’t delivery by airplane :smiley: these huge container freights are bad for the environment, yes, but if you take into account how efficient they are (per km and due to their huge size), they’re far better than air post. So next time you order from China and it takes ages, realize that. I did not know there is delivery by train from China as well. I guess it goes through Soviet^H^H^H^H^H^HRussia then?

Now a question why would you order from China and already assign the FP3 to a customer from there? Why not order them in bulk to The Netherlands, and send them from there? I guess the latter is a lot cheaper?

If you as the logistic center knew a batch is coming in from China, what would keep you from assigning shipments of devices from the batch to individual customers in advance?

By the way … on mobile I had to activate the desktop page view to see the order status, it’s not there on the mobile page version. (Fennec F-Droid)

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Or just let the customers know, that the whole batch - your phone is in - is being shipped.

And if Rhenus indeed manages the shipment from The Netherlands as well, they might be responsible for assigning all the parcels in one batch directly to the individual customer.

(Somehow I do not see the container delivered to FP-office Amsterdam, where they open it up to add adress stickers to every single parcel. :wink: )

Edit:
@AnotherElk
I just added your “order-status” problem to my thread with the (rather short) list of (not so urgent) errors; hope you don’t mind.

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I still have the box in which my FP2 was delivered, it shows Rhenus as return address. There’s no boxes of phones passing through the office.

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There are three routes, that are shown on the hompage:

  • North Corridor (Trans-Siberian Route)
  • Middle Corridor (New Silk Road)
  • South Corridor (New Silk Road)

All cross at some time the russian border of course.

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So they are preparing the shipment (which can take who knows how many days). After that they ship it (from somewhere in China), and regardless of route it is approx 3 weeks till it arrives in Germany. (You’ll still get it first :smiley: ). If (big if) they would ship it today, it would be at least 1 October.

That’s what I call optimistic. :grin:
From my experience that is not how modern logistics work.
Most likely the container arrives by train in Hamburg, is loaded onto a truck and taken to Eindhoven, where they do the customs formalities etc., break the seal, open it up and address all the parcels to the customers.
Due to customs, I get this.

My understanding on the other hand is reaching it’s limits, when I see, how some parcels are moving around from one hub to the other, before they end up at the customer. A parcel might be taken from the factory to a hub 100 km away, where it is handled, put into a delivery van and returned to the very same town where it started.

In another case, I could watch a parcel from another country -via online tracking- passing my hometown twice and taking it more than 100km away from it every time. As I understood it, the load was broken into smaller loads twice, until finally the delivery could take place. :roll_eyes:

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First FP3s are already being delivered (not directly ordered from FP):

Hope y’all don’t have to wait too long anymore either. :slight_smile:

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Those waiting for their orders will probably feel a bit like some other suffering feller when reading these reports :wink:

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I got an official response from Fairphone regarding the one month delay:

We made some changes on the design of the phone, to make the phone even more robust, and that delayed the supply. (e.g. the plastic of the back cover was changed to make it more resistant). We also had some supply constraints with suppliers, leading to lower production volumes.

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The same answer also got posted on Twitter in reply to people asking for reasons for the delay.

That was me :stuck_out_tongue:

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Do you think these changes were made before or after the deliveries for the big resellers? I hope I won’t have to use the warranty…

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We would need to ask Fairphone… Everything else would be just guessing. :man_shrugging: I sincerely hope for you and us all that it was in time :crossed_fingers:

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I ordered my FP3 from a reseller. I got a message from them that due to challenges in device availability the order will be delayed. They could not confirm any exact date when they’ll ship it. :roll_eyes: I hope it won’t get delayed too much.

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Right now the FP3 can not be ordered from the Fairphone Shop (no “Buy” or “Pre-Order” button). My guess would be that it’s not necessarily about a delay in production, but perhaps just about an intentionally limited number of phones offered in the shop software.

I guess this will be clarified tomorrow.

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The button's back.

grafik

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