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The Writing Community On Drop.com Has Been "sunsetted"


Theroc

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I am sad to see Writing Community on Drop gone. I just know about the community recently and have not joined any drop there yet. I just checked the post they announced that some community will be sunsetted and so many people are disappointed with their decision.

So sad!

:D Nice to meet you :D

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The writing community on massdrop used to be very promising. The people running it were constantly present. You had a question, you'd just tag Liz or Jonas or whoever was running a given drop and they would get back to you within hours. Requests for corrections/clarifications were addressed within hours, Better photos, photos of writing samples were uploaded upon request...

The people running it back then were there because they were passionate about the products they were selling. They were let go; Replaced with career buyers who had no clue or interest in what they were peddling beyond the bottom line.

Edited by Theroc
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Some of us are not wealthy and can not afford to purchase an expensive pen and find out that it is a complete failure.

Even those who wouldn't blink if they had to write off $500 or $1000 on a terrible consumer purchase decision would still be left with a bad taste in their mouths after screw-ups not reasonably satisfactorily resolved. Massdrop never gave me the impression that it's willing and prepared to sort out any screw-ups, so unless (bleep) price on something was really, really "special" I wouldn't consider buying from it.

 

Drop's customer service left many people with problems. I have never had an unresolved issue with any of the online pen retailers that I have purchased from. I recently purchased a limited edition pen (valued at $1000.00 USD) from a online pen retailer. It was such a gorgeous pen, but the nib was a mess. I contacted the retailer. This was the last one that they had. So, I sent it back for a full refund including shipping both ways.

I bought exactly one fountain pen from Massdrop: an Aurora. It went without issue.

 

I bought exactly one fountain pen from Iguana Sell: another (more expensive) Aurora. The nib was horribly bad. Iguana Sell paid for return international shipping, and the issue could not be resolved within the immediate future (because Aurora in Italy is "on holiday" for the rest of August), it gave me a full refund even though neither side were happy with the outcome and we both wasted time and effort (and it cost the business money).

 

If Drop continued to sell fountain pens, who would I buy from again? The retailer that showed it's prepared to take responsibility and shield the end-customer from impact in the face of issues, and take it up with the manufacturer separately to resolve it between business entities after the customer has been appeased. I was lucky not to have had an issue with the pen I bought from Massdrop, but from reading the comments in reviews and discussions on that site, I certainly didn't get the impression it would be responsive or accommodating to the end-customer in the face of the manufacturer's fault.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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The writing community on massdrop used to be very promising. The people running it were constantly present. You had a question, you'd just tag Liz or Jonas or whoever was running a given drop and they would get back to you within hours. Requests for corrections/clarifications were addressed within hours, Better photos, photos of writing samples were uploaded upon request...

The people running it back then were there because they were passionate about the products they were selling. They were let go; Replaced with career buyers who had no clue or interest in what they were peddling beyond the bottom line.

Interesting.

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I have to confess to being a selective buyer on Drop. They never made a lot of money off of me, but i’ll still miss them. Their ten pack bundles of Clairefontaine, Rhodia, and Leuchtturm notebooks were good deals that i’ve not seen elsewhere.

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It's not like they had all that many great deals. They routinely screwed up orders too, and weren't able to fix mistakes due to the way they placed orders.

 

The only "great deals" I got from them were 3x montegrappa nerouno duetto's for $160 each and a lamy 2000 for $100, but they messed up my 2000 order and I only got lucky in that they screwed up my friend's as well and we wound up each getting what the other wanted, so we just swapped.

 

But if they're not doing enough business to keep it going, why keep it going?

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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I took advantage of one Massdrop deal (oh sorry, "Drop") a while back. Lamy Dialog 3 for ~$250 was a good deal. Beyond that I was never swayed by their offerings.

 

What really irked me was the opacity toward warranties. It was very very hard to get a straight answer as to whether the products were under warranty. And it seemed there was no single correct answer. In fact I'd see contradictory information when comparing their support documents to a product listing. Why this wasn't posted prominently on each and every product listing either demonstrates laziness or worse, dishonesty.

 

Everything I've ordered from them has been warrantied by the manufacturer, my monteverde was (but they warranty EVERYTHING with no complaint) and we'll soon find out if my montegrappas are.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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It's not like they had all that many great deals. They routinely screwed up orders too, and weren't able to fix mistakes due to the way they placed orders.

 

The only "great deals" I got from them were 3x montegrappa nerouno duetto's for $160 each and a lamy 2000 for $100, but they messed up my 2000 order and I only got lucky in that they screwed up my friend's as well and we wound up each getting what the other wanted, so we just swapped.

 

But if they're not doing enough business to keep it going, why keep it going?

 

I had hit the "request" button for this and the Lamy 2000. I guess it was a pointless exercise.

 

I went crazy looking for the writing section on the App. I tried logging in on the website.

I thought my loging in had some issue. I thought of asking on this forum if others are facing this problem and then chanced upon this tread.

 

It is surprising they never sent out any email or did i miss an email. i could not find any alert even on their App which says these communities are no longer there.

It is surprising they never sent out any email.

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I had hit the "request" button for this and the Lamy 2000. I guess it was a pointless exercise.

 

When did you request the Lamy 2000 on Drop.com? I'm pretty sure there was a drop for the Lamy 2000 Makrolon on 3 August 2019, before all this "sunsetting" business. It wasn't cheaper than Endless Pens' usual price for the model, and then Endless Pens ran another special promotion to bring its price down even lower temporarily.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I bought a couple of pens from them....not expensive ones...a Kaweco Steel and a Ensso...both went fine and I was happy...what I liked was their international shipping (to Ireland) was decent...only about $7 I think which was very good. Will still miss reading the pen deals even if I wasnt buying much !!

Eric.

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Writing Community is just back on Drop! I just saw it on my profile today. It seems they cannot let Writing go

:D Nice to meet you :D

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That's correct. After the community's response they made the decision to bring back the discussion forum.

However, the writing "shop" is still shuttered.

 

 

Writing Community is just back on Drop! I just saw it on my profile today. It seems they cannot let Writing go

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It's taking orders for the Pelikan M205 clear demonstrator (which no doubt Honeybadgers will promptly jump in and recommend against, haha!) now, with six more days to go on that drop, though.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Well, considering that Drop has basically just restarted its activity with regard to its Writing community, I certainly wasn't expecting multiple products with overlapping 'drop' periods to all appear at once.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Yeah, one pen. Whoopee.

There's a second model offered in an active drop now. ;)

Edited by A Smug Dill

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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I just checked, at it does not appear that the Writing Community is "back." They are just offering drops on a couple pens under the "Office Supplies" community.

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