If you ordered the Tonic Stamp Platform from Marco Paper

I assume a big part of the delays in shipping from Marco are simply too few employees to handle the demand. If they are not getting all the platforms that they ordered, that also says to me that they must be a smaller company. Bigger companies get preferential treatment from suppliers than the smaller companies do.

I do realize that none of this is necessarily the fault of Marco's, but I think they bit off more than they could chew to some extent. I don't blame them. It would be stupid to not try to grab their chunk of the demand. The sad thing is that this has made me reluctant to order from them again.

I like being able to support a smaller company, but I feel like they are leaving their customers in the dark. I had to call to ask for info. Yes, I got the one email about the new stamp platform, but it was kind of vague. Based on my phone call last week, it sounds like they went off to convention and left one poor gal to try and fill a thousand orders by herself. Not that she had all the goods to do it, but why didn't they hire some temporary help to deal with the sudden rush of orders that needed to be shipped? They also apparently took more pre-orders at convention. Now there appear to be a couple more people working on getting orders ready to ship, but they are still only working on January. Not exactly encouraging for those of us who ordered later. In my case, it was late June.

I thought about it, and decided to place an order for the stamp platform with Scrapbook.com. They said they could ship within 24 hours or so. It will take up to 6 days to arrive, plus I had to pay for shipping. But I should still receive it before Marco's even gets my shipping label ready.

I am NOT canceling my order with Marco's, though. I will be having friends come to join me for paper crafting, hopefully on a regular basis. I think the stamp platform will be in enough demand on those days that I will want a second one to share with my buddies, anyway. Two of the Tonic/Tim Holtz stamp platforms are still cheaper than just one 12x12 MISTI would have been.

Edited to add: I just got an email from Scrapbook.com that the stamp platform which I ordered this afternoon is shipping today!

I will keep all that in mind.

I used to work for a Mom & Pop LSS. It's one reason that I left my order open with Marco's. I decided that I *needed* a second one rather than cancel my order with them.

I'm sure they are a great company based on the recommendations you three have given. Unfortunately, my first and only experience with them has been a bit disappointing. The reasons are probably many, and also probably not completely their fault. Unfortunately, for the number of orders they received, they did not seem well prepared to ship such a high demand item quickly, even after receiving their first shipment.

Based on my two phone conversations, they seem like nice people. I won't rule out the possibility of ordering from them in the future, but I doubt I will be trying again anytime soon.

When you say you ordered the platform and ink oxide last week and got them right away, was it from Marco? They are supposed to be shipping in the order that pre-orders came in.

If Marco is shipping new orders before the pre-order ones, I think a lot of people are going to be upset.

I ordered the 2nd TH platform from scrapbook.com and got it within 48 hours from the time I ordered.

I have never pre-ordered anything before, and this was my first order from Marco Paper. At this point, I do not think I will ever pre-order anything again. From anyone.