Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Group Buy: Budget CRI 95 LED Strip Lights

Not only covid to blame..

Brandon Fowler - May 23 2019 at 11:46 PM

We just sent the 841st Solaris Controller out today. It won't be long before only a handful are left. As stressful as this has been it's a great feeling. A lot of people never thought they would ever ship. It won't be much longer before we are all caught up on your pre-order mats and power units, too.
Now some good news! I've got some more standard daylight mats in the warehouse ready to ship. Regine will start reaching out to people tomorrow about them. If you need yours urgently write me ASAP. The next batch will be in approximately 3 weeks. There will be high-power mats in the next batch also. The next batch of power units will be the 3rd or 4th week of June.
The frames are behind schedule because one of the suppliers is moving incredibly slow. The hard part is done and all that is left is this one part which was supposed to be simple. I'm talking with other suppliers now but still hoping the original one comes through soon. Either way, we are 90% done.
Next week I'm meeting with the manufacturer of the lightboxes in person to finalize the design. It's all locked except for the bag, which was a last minute addition that greatly complicated things. I thought it would be cool to have a bag that can hold the entire kit, frame, lights and all, and that ended up increasing the shipping costs by too much, especially for international shipments. They have been working on some revisions for the bag that will bring the shipping costs down. We are also going to be discussing other options to help bring shipping costs down.
The RGBA strips are booked to start production on Monday and will be ready in 2 weeks.
Click to expand...
 
Lawrence Steele said:
Not only covid to blame..
Click to expand...

Yup. And I keep coming back to this gem from December, 2014:

"It will take approximately 14 days for our lights and controllers to be made. You will get everything in January. I'm confident there will not be any delays since I've spent the last 3 months working out all the details."

I think it's pretty obvious that Kora LED is insolvent, that Brandon nor the company has the funds to fulfill all orders on it's books, and that he's using funds from a trickle-in of orders to slowly send out bits and pieces from the group buy.

From everything we've seen and from Brandon's actions, this is obvious.

I wish he had the respect enough for the group buy members to state publicly what we all know.
 
Sooo... I made a PayPal order when this group buy started. Since then I have had three kids but never received anything and had given up following this thread. Is there a way to get a refund or am I out?
 
Scott Pultz said:
Sooo... I made a PayPal order when this group buy started. Since then I have had three kids but never received anything and had given up following this thread. Is there a way to get a refund or am I out?
Click to expand...

A refund... Unlikely to happen.

You have to join the Facebook group, Brandon doesnt read or write on Reduser any more. Regular LED Strips, some mats and controllers can be shipped, if you need them just contact Brandon or Regine: reg@koraled.com brandon@koraled.com

Perhaps you can get some parts of your order.
 
Brandon just wrote the following on Facebook:

Update

About a dozen orders have gone out since the last update and the feedback on the lights and power has been really good. Two are still pending, which I need to follow up with Regine on. To be clear, these are orders that got stuck in the warehouse after shipping was paid. I'm not saying there are only two orders left from all the pre-orders. Only that the shipping backlog is cleared up now so we can move forward. There was apparently some confusion about this.
Regine is not back yet because I really can't afford it right now. I do hope to have her back soon. Money is brutally tight right now with the COVID situation. I'm full-time doing whatever side-gigs I can do to weather the storm and keep this going.
I'll be honest, the smart business move would have been to bankrupt the whole thing and move on. We were close to wrapping this up but the COVID situation threw us off a cliff. Remember, with the warehouse being in China, we got hit with both ends of this mess. That said, I'm not one to really give up on anything ever, hell, I've been shooting a film for 8.5 years now. So, we will see this through to the finish line and everything will be delivered. I REALLY want to be done with this.

As for the plan, I need to get a little more cash together to finish off the remaining pre-orders. To speed the process up, I'm about to do a bit of a sales push to clear out excess inventory. Everything has got to go, including the new Solaris DMX MAX controllers, which just went up on the site (Thank Quibi for those). The proceeds all go to finishing off your pre-orders.

It's not really that much stuff that needs to be sold to do this, we are talking like less than 5% of what's been shipped already.

I should have done this a long time ago, but with a couple of unnamed individuals seemingly hell-bent on destroying my life over all this, I've been reluctant to even try. So, to anyone that wants to jump in and shitpost in the comments, either here, there, or where this all started, know that by doing so you are screwing every single person waiting to get their pre-orders. Let us finish this.
As for the timeframe, once I have the money in hand your pre-orders will be in the warehouse ready to ship in 2-3 weeks. The frames may take a little longer but not much. High Power Mats are next, then 24V Power Units, both of which are partially done. Then we work down the list from there.
The sales push will be starting in 24 hours.
Click to expand...
 
Sorry to dig this thread but I've been trying to get info on that infamous Kora LED GB.
I still have a few unfulfilled order and I don't get any reply to my emails or DM on Messenger. I can't comment on the FB group, I don't even know if it still exists...
Anyway, anyone has info and is willing to share them? Shoot me a DM please.
 
Brandon, 20. Mai


The latest:
I've now paid in full for the RGBW strips to be made and we are still waiting. I'm told 2-3 weeks now because that's what manufacturing is told from the supplier they are waiting on and most likely that supplier is being told 2-3 weeks by someone else up the chain. That's just how it is right now and I have no leverage. Especially because of the small quantities.
I've also paid for half of the tubes and I don't have an ETA at all for those yet. This is after being burned the first time by another manufacturer when we first did these.
Mats and Power are next after this and then we are done, except for frames which will be made locally.
I expect that when things do start moving they will move pretty quickly. The profit from the Black Friday sale has gone towards finishing off these products. Half of the next batch of power is also paid for already. In early July I will have more money which I will put towards mats if enough doesn't come in from the sale by then.
I probably should never have gone down the rabbit hole of making custom products like this. Certainly not at the price they were offered. Learned a lot in the process and it was fun for a while but making stuff is damn hard and things can go sideways pretty easily.
And then there's the logistics... It's currently taking 2+ weeks to ship anything and that doesn't include actual transit time, which tends to only be a few days. The time it takes to go from warehouse to freight forwarder to shipping company is 2+ weeks right now. There was a 6 week period where nothing moved at all. I have been given no real explanation for why it is taking so long. It has been a constant battle. Once DHL/FedEx gets the shipment then things move fairly quickly (about half normal speed). Also, we have switched to FedEx now for shipments.
And finally, I do not handle any of the fulfillment or support at all. I am full-time doing online work so I can A ) survive, B ) have money to loan the company to finish the mats/power, and C ) pay for my medical bills. I'm making nothing off Kora now. There have only been like 3 small orders this year. Once the logistics are running more smoothly I will do another sale to clear out more inventory and put the money towards finishing off the mats/power.
I'm also dealing with some health issues right now that are limiting what I can do physically.
And for the record, thousands of rolls of LED strips and ~850 LED controllers have been shipped. Out of over $400k in orders, around $25k is still unfulfilled over half of which is in process. It is incredibly frustrating to not be done with this. I really am doing the best I can.
Click to expand...
 
Brandon, 12. June
Everyone who has RGBW strips on order has been emailed by Maica. All but a handful have replied already. They aren't in the warehouse yet but should be on Monday or Tuesday.
There are a few extra rolls if anyone wants one. 100% of the proceeds go towards finishing off these open orders.
Tubes are next! Then the last of the mats/power and frames.
Click to expand...

Until today, 19.August, i dont have my RGBW strips.
 
I wonder what's causing the delay. They could just inform us of the status or whatnot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top