Tom Petty is right: The waiting is the hardest part.
Back in July, we reported an update on the Coolest Cooler with shipping to begin that month.
However, some customers are still awaiting their cooler, so we reached out to the company for an update on that process. As you might recall, more than 62,000 people backed that record-breaking Kickstarter project, which raised more than $13 million.
In an Oct. 15 blog post on the Coolest Cooler website by founder Ryan Grepper, he wrote that glitches in manufacturing were holding up the shipping process, and they were waiting to sort those out to make sure the Coolest Coolers are totally ship-shape.
“We strive for 100% perfection all the time, but whenever something gets manufactured there will be some (hopefully small) number of defects that escape the factory,” writes Grepper in the post. “These can be simple things like the wrong color knife was put in Coolest, or the drain plug wasn’t quite tightened all the way.”
The company also took to Twitter to update its customers:
We get it. We do. We know the wait is hard but we are working hard to get 'em out in the wild and it's working! pic.twitter.com/JFX0divwuy
— The Coolest Cooler (@Coolest_Cooler) October 14, 2015
The Coolest Cooler’s marketing director Susan Towers told us via email that “With over 60,000 backers, the reality is that it was/is going to take some time to fulfill all backer rewards. We did ship the very first Coolests by the end of July, but our ramp up in August was a little slower than anticipated due to some issues on the production line (we posted a Kickstarter update explaining this).”
Towers also cites issues like a port fire and a “larger than anticipated amount of people order[ing] accessories” holding up the process, adding that the company is offering full refunds for anyone — even those who purchased via Kickstarter — if they’d like to claim one.
The company plans to begin shipping some pre-orders again very soon, and Towers told us, “We hope everyone will have their Coolest before too much longer…Everyone will get their Coolest.”
On the plus side, those who have received their Coolest appear to be extremely happy with the purchase. Here are a few happy tweets:
@Coolest_Cooler it's finally arrived to Abington Ma!! Thank you @BostonsportZ Can't wait to break it in! pic.twitter.com/SQN8UaUMRW
— Tina Ryan (@WHBgirlie) October 20, 2015
It's Game Day! The #GWHtailgate is set to #bthoBama with our @Coolest_Cooler #aggieland @laurenaggie97 @NMFrontera pic.twitter.com/qKZroEGv7E
— Lori (@bbcoachlori) October 17, 2015
Wow! My #coolestcooler @coolest_cooler finally arrived.It's fall but I feel a #margarita coming on #Portland #Oregon pic.twitter.com/19LlGVqF5f
— Michael Castner (@MichaelCastner) October 7, 2015
And now just because:
