boaphile plastics is starting to piss me off....

I am in the Houston area and am not using my rack right now, if you can pick it up you are welcome to borrow it. That way you can purchase your animals and still have your planned rack.
Lucille Hollander

A lot of manufactures of products like this have to deal with "lead time" which is the time it takes from taking the order to shipping the finished product. This covers things like orders rec'd before yours, time of production, any re-tooling for specific production runs, etc.... When placing an order with Boaphile Plastics or any manufacturer of caging, furniture or cabinets it is advisable to inquire about lead time to see if it fits your needs. An example of this is the custom cabinet company I work for which has an average lead time of 8 weeks from the time a dealer places the order until it is shipped.

Now, granted, there are a lot of little things that can cause lead time to shift, forwards or backwards, but all manufactures strive to keep things flowing smoothly. This is still NO EXCUSE for poor customer service which should have told you a projected shipping date when your order was received and notified you of their lead time for your product. Also, inquiries should be handled promptly and calls/e-mails responded to in order to keep you, the customer, happy (or at least placated) with the knowledge that your order does indeed matter and that they are proceeding as efficiently as possible to deliver your order in a timely manner.

My best guess is that Jeff doesn't keep a bunch of "extra" cages sitting around in stock, taking up space. This is not a financially responsible method when accounting comes into play for smaller manufactures (read less than 500 total employees.) Most smaller companies like this utilize at least some for of lean manufacturing procedures which is more financially responsible while allowing them to produce the greatest number of products possible in order to fill the orders they get.

Try contacting Boaphile Plastics again and discuss these things with them. You might be suprised with the answers you get once you approach them using this information as a knowledge base for your inquiry. I really do hope that this helps and if you need any other questions answered along these lines, don't hesitate to contact me privately.

David

I hate to say it Matt, but I told you so.
Nature's Spirit, even with this whole "bottleneck" situation still got my rack to me 4 days after payment. And I am sure they had other orders needing to go out as well.

If these companies do so well I would imagine its time to start pre constructing a few of each model to anticipate sales. Small price to pay for customer's gratification.


We just ordered a rack from the Boaphile on or around the 28th of October..... Hopefully we'll se it before December.

I bought some cages a few years ago, and they came in a timely manner with no problems

May I make a suggestion to all cage builders (you know most cage builders are going to read this thread).

When someone places an order, and you send an email, or phone call letting them know you received the payment... Let them know how long it will be before they can expect to receive the product.

How about not taking payment till cage is made and ready to ship. Maybe take a small deposit? Also letting a customer know that it would take 6-8 weeks. Just a suggestion.

Bthacker

Its not like they dont tell you its going to take time to construct before taking payment...most builders usually state that they ship within 2-4 weeks...no one is being left in the dark...

The problem is alot of them are taking longer and longer due to recent order activity. two weeks has turned to four weeks, four weeks has turned to six weeks, and on and on...

If you're not capable of sending someone who purchased a $400+ rack or cage thier product within 2 weeks of payment I dont believe you should be selling racks. Bottom line.

You dont walk into a pet store to buy an aquarium expecing to pay the entire amount and then wait a month for it do you? No. In most cases you walk out with it, in soem its special ordered and it arrives within seven to ten days.. WHY? because they are selling something that's already made.

I am NOT a big fan of selling items that have not even been built yet, but for some strange and retarded reason, thats the NEW standard in this biz.... Selling stuff that hasent even been made yet! Lovely. I dont like it.....
One bit..

These manufacturers need to either construct some in advance to anticipate order load or hire some people to help if you're that darn busy. If you're that busy, then you're obviously raking in enough dough to hire a few minimum wage kids to help assemble plastic racks. So what's wrong? Don't want the extra overhead? Worth ticking off a few customers here and there who have to wait longer? Thats no way to do business.... Thats no way to get someone to come back for another purchase....

Either that, or these cage\rack builders need to stop taking payment in full before construction and start taking deposits. That way when people get fed up and pull out of thier purchase they may realize they have to put thier ass in gear in order to earn these customers. I've talked to MANY MANY people who have ordered from various manufacturers, and some are quite happy with thier racks, but will NEVER order again because it took so damn long to obtain them.

Do you know how many people would order a boaphile cage if it could be to thier door by the end of the week? What about animal plastics? People would go nuts! Rather than hunting down a lower grade rack or cage that will ship faster they would purchase the quality they actually wanted instead of settling for less sooner! (unfortunatley thats how alot of people work nowadays)

Like I said, i recently purchased a Boaphile rack, at the end of october, it still has yet to arrive. I'm not upset in the least, I was told in advance it would take 2-4 weeks, i KNEW this goin in. But you can bet your ass if it takes longer I'll be quite LIVID.

For what I paid thing had better cook my meals, do my laundy, wash my car, and put the kid down to bed. It would be nice too if it fed all the animals, did my payrol, paid my bills, and all that other stuff too. But it wont. It will house some herps. Thats it.

Hundreds of dollars and a months wait for something to stick some animals in. Granted it has built in heat, some rubbermaid drawers, and is built with a seamless type design. Wow. All that wait for somthing that sounds so genrally simplistic?

I can see how many people would be a bit let down after waiting SO long for something so simple.

<i>I'll let you in on a little secret</i>....we were looking to drop a nice hunk of change for some nice racks and enclosures for a showroom type setting we're building, we ordered from boaphile, we've got some cages on the way from cagecrafters, and we're ordering from a few others as well. We're trying them ALL out. One by one....

We're comparing prices, shipping times, construction quality, and general value. The "winner" will be getting a whole hell of alot of our business because we're starting this project from scratch. There was no way in hell i would just outright order all the caging we needed without "testing the waters..." And theres no way we're going to order from someone who cannot work with a deadline. Thats business. so far we have yet to compile enough information to make a valid decision, but once we decide we'll be happy to share our experiences with all of these people.

As for the boaphile rack specifically.... I'll let you know when it finally arrives.

I recently purchased a 4' cage stack from boaphile, over $1200 worth of caging. Prior to ordering, I sent an email to them that stated I had heard that they were having some problems with meeting deadlines and I asked for an accurate time frame. If they said six weeks, that would have been fine. But, they said 2-4 weeks, but usually faster. It has now been 5 full weeks and nothing. I just sent them an email, so we will see what happens.

Matt Crabe

i bought a four stack of four foot visions from
Vision Herpetological
they had a three week lead time and told us that off the bat and did not take payment until they were ready to ship the cages... like i said in my prior post we got them in a little less than three weeks. there was good comunication and the transaction went very smoothly. we got our visions that are deeper, taller and have glass sliding doors (compared to the other company's products)... the only instalation we had was to put the glass in and adhere the tabs onto the glass. we were very pleased... with the product the turn around time and the comunication and customer service. i thought about boaphiles and even inquired but after seeing many posts like this and hearing from many other people whom had bought racks and cages from boaphile plastics we opted for visons and we definately made the right decision

I just purchased 3 - 4 foot Vision cages . I paid for them last wednesday and they came in yesterday. Im all the way in Florida, I couldnt believe how quick they got here since they were coming from California. For cages I would go with them. Not only quick service but excellent quality cages.

spencer tedesco