You may remember the Coolest Cooler. Many moons ago, the awesome tailgating and camping aid was the talk of the crowdfunding scene… and rightly so.
The $250 cooler with a Bluetooth speaker, USB charging port and a margarita mixer built in, racked up a record sum from Kickstarter backers who truly believed it was the coolest.
However, despite the campaign netting $13.3 million back in summer 2014, many backers are still to receive their coolers and are now facing a wait until next spring before they arrive.
That’s a full year after the initial February 2015 deadline. Not cool. Not cool at all.
In a blog post on Monday (via The Next Web), CEO Ryan Grepper apologised for a host of missteps, citing manufacturing issues as the reason for the delay.
He wrote: “Backers made the Coolest cooler a reality – the reviews on the product have been extremely positive. It is taking much longer than anticipated to manufacture and ship and we are working quickly to make improvements. Our current timeline is to have all backer cooler rewards shipped out by Spring 2016.”
See also: Five of the biggest Kickstarter cancellations
While many Kickstarter backers are known for their “support and patience” as Grapper puts it in the title of the post, others are justifiably fuming the company made the Coolest Cooler available on Amazon Launchpad before fulfilling all of the rewards.
Grapper says the firm had committed to Amazon before the production issue arose, presumably superseding the commitment to the folks that made the Cooler a reality in the first place.
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Grapper says backers are still getting the Coolest Cooler for much less than retail price, but it might not be enough to placate those who clearly feel slighted by the company’s tactics.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
