Upgrading your gaming experience! Turn your kitchen or dining room table into a premium, quality, thematic, portable gaming solution with amazing gaming accessories that enhance the gaming experience.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Greetings backers,
Sorry to bother you with an extra update,
I need to make more clear the procedure for everybody to take advantage of the savings. Simply, Click add on item “Cyber Christmas Sale” in our late pledge manager, this will add that to your cart and will allow us to manually apply your discount before your credit card is charged. It does not auto calculate, sorry about that limitation, but we will make sure to give you your discount. Thank you again for all your great fantastic support, and get some cool goodies for Christmas, @GameTopperllc style.
If you have any question please feel free to email us at [email protected]
Thanks again!
Burky
Greetings Game Topper Nation!
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and good times with loved ones. I cannot be more grateful to you all for your support in making this dream of upgrading peoples gaming experience a reality,
We have done 10 cons so far with Pax U left to go. It’s been amazing!!! People are loving their Game Toppers and all their accessories.
We are shipping out product within 2 to 3 days. The response has been so wonderful, we are almost lmost out of stock of several items.
I wanted to let all of my backers know first about our Cyber Christmas Sale.
Basically, you get 15% off of our Daedalus Dice Towers and Player Shields, the Dog Might Poker/Component Accessory Trays, our Rail Bundles, Storage Bags, and already discounted accessory bundles. I will release this to the public Monday.
If you buy two Thematic 3mm, premium, stitched edge, game mats you get 20% off of those.
We have the sought after, Gate Keeper Dwarven Halfsies Dice for only $10 that make great stocking stuffers!
I also wanted to make you aware of a very special Dog Might Games special that they graciously made available to all of our backers...a 15% discount on their amazing Sculpted DM Screens. These custom sculpted DM screens are simply fantastic. Please use this link to go to their site to get this discount. He will want to contact them directly for any shipping information.
http://dogmight.com/stock?promo=gametoppers
This sale is discounted off our already discounted prices and is my way of saying thank you, and providing some great, affordable upgrades for your Game Topper this Christmas season.
I must warn you there are several items that we are very low on stock. If we start to run low on something, we will be sure to let you know before we charge your card to make sure you get what you order or make an appropriate substitution. This sale will be good through the end on the year. Generally speaking, if the order is placed before December 15th you should receive it by Christmas.
As always, any help you can give sharing is much appreciated!
Lastly, we are hard at work to launch another Kickstarter late 1st quarter of 2019.
We have new models, new and improved accessories, new mats that will blow your mind, some new exotic luxuriant models, and storage solutions! We will also be EU, and Australia friendly. You will see a lot more in the days ahead, but here a couple sneak peaks for fun. Thank you all for being the best backers ever!
Burky
I must say it has been an amazing ride. I cannot thank you enough for all of your help, support, and trust in making Game Toppers a reality. We really are upgrading a lot of people’s gaming experience.
When I see the reports on our Game Topper Nation Facebook Group my heart is so full of gratitude and thankfulness that we actually have been able to do this thing. Please join and share your pics if you haven't already. It's a fun place.
I’ve been working on this update for three weeks believe it or not, but due to incomplete information I have waited to do this update. As soon as I post an update, I usually will be inundated with emails and that is why I wanted to make sure that I had quality information first. Doing fulfillment during the convention cycle is incredibly difficult. There is so much to do regarding taking care of everyone’s concerns, questions, and or shipping specifics. It is also very important for me to continue to build this brand by promoting our products nationwide throughout all of the conventions, thus I’m a bit late on his update, my apologies.
I’d like to give you just a brief update about our company and what is happened this summer at all of the conventions. Where is Burky? Everywhere! We have done Salt Con, Geekway of the West, Dice Tower Con, Origins Game Fair, and Gen Con. In each of these conventions we have had unbelievable support from the publishing community, backers and new admirer's.
At Gen Con alone we had over 24 publishers utilizing our Game Toppers in their show kits. The response has been fantastic!!
During this time we were able to finish shipping the majority of all the kickstarter backers and the pre-order sales. We are now shipping pre-orders in 3-4 business days and selling out of several items. It’s a good problem to have.
Not only have I been managing marketing, fulfillment, customer service, and prototyping new products for the next run, I am also working on the next step which is international fulfillment. Crazy right? I will be going to Essen Germany in Oct with this trade mission in mind. At one point I worked 55 days with one day off. Currently on 35 days with 2 days off. That all being said, this is not it my first trip to the rodeo of starting a new business. A lot of people do not know the price that you pay to start something from the ground up. While it has been a sacrifice and incredible amount of hard work, I am thrilled on what is happening and I’m so glad to be a part of this community and be able to offer this product. Thank you all for all your support!
Kickstarter fulfillment:
The large task of shipping this product began in late Feb, and now we are mostly complete with Kickstarter Topper and Thematic Mat pledges being shipped to original Kickstarter backers and late pledge/pre-order backers. We are still finishing sending out the storage bags, Halfsies Dice, and our Canadian segment. I’ll cover these each separately.
Canada Segment:
I’m so glad to announce that this entire segment of Canadian backers is ready to ship. Our storage bags just came in and we were able to include these in the same packages to be able to ship them seamlessly to each backer.
We have chosen to work with Snakes and Lattes warehouse distribution in Toronto. This shipment will leave this week and be shipped to Buffalo New York. (We expect 5 business day transit) From there it will be transported to Snakes and Lattes warehouse. (We are told this will take 3 days) Then each order will be sent Canadian post to each backer. The transit time will depend on where you are from Toronto. You’ll receive a tracking number once these items have been sent out.
Local pick up in Toronto:
We have had several people ask if they could do a pick up at the Snakes and Lattes warehouse, it appears this is a possibility and I will get back to you with the specifics of those that would like to expedite the process by picking up their top are at the warehouse in Toronto. Please let me know if you are interested in this at [email protected]
This process has definitely taken longer than I had hoped for my friends in Canada, this truly was a disappointment for me, yet in the long run I think it was the best decision to save everyone a bunch of money. This particular shipment has cost me more than I have collected in shipping charges, but by doing it this way we have saved our Canadian friends a ton of money in taxes and in brokerage fees. I am covering these brokerage fees for each backer so there are no additional charges coming from me. I want to thank you each for your patience and kindness and support as have talked with so many of you. If you do you have any further questions please reach out to me at [email protected]
Going forward we are continuing to develop an ongoing presence in Canada so that people can get their shipments quickly at an affordable price.
Storage bags:
To our thrill and excitement our storage bags have finally arrived! This has been a bit of a grueling situation for me as many of you will know by reading our past updates, but a little bit of perseverance, dedication to quality, and a whole lot of patience, we are finally here.
My son and I spent the day at our fulfillment center. When you get a whole container full of product which is 37 pallets, it’s quite a daunting task to look at. My decision was to pull one carton from each pallet and individually sample test a cross section of each style of storage bags to make sure that they met our specifications for size and for quality. It’s took us a better part of the day, but when it was all said and done, every bag that we tested was wonderful without a failure or concern.
We did not test all 900 bags, however we feel confident that we did a good job to make sure that we did a good spot check. I think you will be thrilled with the quality and functionality of these bags especially at the price we were able to offer these at.
We now will begin the process of shipping each bag to each backer. We will do this in segments again, but this process should go relatively quickly. We anticipate within two weeks all of these bags will be shipped. This delay with my Chinese manufacture has cost me close to $15,000, but we knew that it was the best move to get your toppers to you first, rather than wait for these to arrive. I sure hope you enjoy them and it makes your storage and travel a great solution for you. I will be putting up a video showing you how to utilize the features of these bags as well.
We have a very small quantity of storage bags left if you did not get one and would like to order one.
Halfsies Dice:
John from Gate Keeper Games has given me an update on the dice production. As many of you know John had some unforeseen delays with manufacturing of this particular set. I’ve known John for several years and he has a very honorable man and is committed to getting these dice to you as soon as possible. He has gone so far as to take the responsibility to manage the fulfillment of each set to you. He has been informed that three months from July 1st that they should arrive in the states. (October 2018) . Then he will begin the process of shipping those items to you. So not very far away and you will have these beautiful dice.
With all of that said we have a big announcement:
My son Josiah Burkhardsmeier has started working for Game Toppers LLC along with my wife Joan. He is a computer science major at the University of North Dakota with only two classes to finish his degree. He is incredibly intelligent, hard-working, and has a great attention to detail like his father. (He also is the youngest "Worlds" Champion of Star Wars Armada, and recently just won the North American Championships at Gen Con. He even designed the Grand Admiral Thrawn card for Fantasy Flight Games). Like I’ve always said, he’s way smarter than me. As you can tell, I am very proud of him.
While working with me doing stone masonry, I taught him how attention to detail really does matter. He has carried that commitment and ethic into his contribution to Game Toppers. He will be managing our inventory, logistics, and customers support. He has also been helping me at the conventions in our show booth and is really wonderful to communicate with as many of you can attest to who have met him. He will be a great asset.
I’m very excited to bring him as an addition to our company to grow our brand to the next level. We are now working to develop a team to take this product worldwide and set up a network of affiliate game stores worldwide.
Now that we are nearing completion we are going to take some time to reflect and build on the things that we did well, and improve on the areas that need improvement. We have implemented a new support line in that email is [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.
As many of you have experienced we are generally quick to respond and have a great commitment to take care of our customers. We worked very hard to do this to the very best of our ability, but if for some reason there is something we have missed that needs to be addressed please reach out to us so that we can make that right as soon as possible.
We are selling out of several styles of Mats, Rail Bundles and Dice Towers, so if you want to get more of the Game Topper goodness and get them them at our lower Kickstarter prices order now while they last. We hope open our e-commerce store in about a month, but for now you can use the late pledge manager or our pre-order store to order now.
Again, I am so grateful for you all and hope to continue to enhance our offerings to you and make this one of the premier accessories lines in our industry.
Sincerely
Burky
Greetings Topper Nation,
My good friend Kelly Hughes, also a Holmes Backer has been helping manage our booth at conventions and doing an amazing job! We are driving back from the Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio, what an amazing whirlwind of an experience! 14 premier publishers were using our Toppers! Everywhere you went you ran into them! Arcane Wonders, CMON, North Star Games, The Dice Tower, Dogmight Games, GreyFox Games, Queen Games, R and R Games, Czech Games, Capstone Games, Formal Ferret Games, Bezier Games, Tastey Minsteral Games, Eagle Gryphon, and I cannot thank Ryan Bruns president of Mayday Games and Sett Hiatt of owner Mayday Games for partnering with us at Origins!
I was so thrilled to have met so many backers! I think over 30. What a joy to share your enthusiasm and stories. It really was a great experience! I’ll try to post in the Game Topper Nation Facebook page more pics if I can get the time. At this time over 2/3rds of our backers have been fulfilled.
Kelly is driving and I’m working trying to get what seems like a million things done.I’ve worked another 18 days straight and not much let up in sight with Dice Tower Con just around the corner and getting the rest of the.....wait for it.....Luxuriant Watson’s out! Yay!!!!
That’s right our Luxuriant Watson’s will be arriving at the fulfillment center by Wednesday.
I just sent out address finalization out. This is not, I repeat, not a shipping notification.
It is simply verifying that your address is correct, so that we do not ship it to the wrong place. When I lock the orders this means that we will start pulling the orders. Expected This Wednesday.
Currently, we are pulling about 25 orders a day. All of the US based luxurious Holmes have either been sent or are being sent as I write this.
We have 193 Watsons to go out. So this will take us close to 8 to 10 business days to pick every order and get it ready to be shipped. So every day 25 or so should be shipped.
When your order is picked, the next day you will receive an email notification that it has been shipped. Then it takes 5 to 7 days transit time for it to get to you.
Then on the day before your deliver, you generally will get a call to to schedule that delivery time.
Exception:
Anyone that has a Spee Dee Delivery in North Dakota, Minnesota, northern Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota, and northern Missouri, and Iowa, will not get a phone call for Spee Dee Delivery delivers just like UPS or FedExx it just arrives at the door. So if you get a Spee Dee tracking number and have a difficulty with recieving it, you must call Spee Dee to have them hold it.
I would ask anyone in this Watson Lux segment with HDPE components to please be patient. If you haven’t received your email notification that your topper has shipped that means it is still being processed, thank you for your patience.
I’m asking for some understanding so that we can get this done efficiently and I can use my time to make sure I take care of everyone well. If anyone has a major conflict with vacation, I can put in Note to not deliver. You will be called using the number you have listed in Backerkit, and you can ask them to place a hold as well. You could also ask friends and family to help you with that delivery time. Once it shipped, it is out of my control and I cannot do anything about it.
We have had just a slight amount of situations with Pilot, primarily, over the Memorial day holiday created some confusion, but was very isolated to just a few orders. There were a few that took longer than the 5-7 days like they tell me. I only try to relay the information I have at the current time. Had a couple isolated issues With temporarily lost orders. They have been found and any correspondence regarding your order can be directed to the pilot headquarters and you can ask for Anthony. This is his number 734-941-4090 and email is [email protected]. He is the head coordinator of our account.
You can also check with our liaison at InExpress at…. [email protected]
Note:
It would be helpful if you were having difficulties with notifications to contact them versus posting in the social media, it just creates anxiety for everyone. Everyone is being taken care of, and if you have a problem we will absolutely help you, but the best way for me to help you is by contacting us please. I will not handle customer service related issues through our social media pages. It’s just too hard for me to track with the volume of information I am handling. I can’t remember who I talk to on Facebook or Twitter.
My email is [email protected].
Canadian orders.
This is a very complex shipment because of palletizing all of these custom orders and invoicing each one to be able to cross over the border takes a lot of work to coordinate with accuracy with our shipping partner there. You’ll see the bag situation below, that has complicated matters, but I’m working on that too. It does not appear that we are going to have a problem with the tariff as I understand it, as our product would not be classified in the areas that are being challenged. I’m not making any guarantees on that as I cannot control political climate. I will be working diligently to try to get this order out ASAP.
Our product is a complex product with a lot of moving parts and because we provided so many wonderful options this takes a lot of work to coordinate. But we are very close and I want to thank you all for your kind understanding.
Storage bags:
When I receive my last batch of sample bags, the handle did not meet my standards of quailty related to strength and load. As alway I want to to have a longstanding durable good for years of fun. If it isn’t good enough for my home, it’s not good enough for yours. So I have Instructed our manufacture to put a reinforcement panel and sew it completely through each side panel which will create an incredible amount of strength to be able to resist any tearing. We have been doing some testing and we feel we have that dialed in, but that has caused a delay.
We expect that shipment of bags to arrive in the United States, hopefully, by the end of July. This is not guaranteed but based on current information. We will ship our storage bags out separately.
I am also working on the logistics of that for our Canadian friends.
Again, I cannot thank you all enough for your love and support! Your encouragement has truly meant the world to me. Again, apologies if there’s ever been frustration with shipping or delays. All I can tell you is that I do have a team that we can connect you with and I will work diligently to do whatever I can to make everything right, so never fear that it will not be handled favorably for you. Somethings in this world I just can’t control as much as I want to, but I will do my very best to take care of you.
I’m looking forward to being finished with this fulfillment and going on to the next great innovations and bring additional Game Topper goodness into your lives.
Thank you again.
Burky