After some deliberation on my part, and some convincing of the hubby, he decided to buy me a HansenCrafts miniSpinner <3!  For those who don’t know, a miniSpinner is a small, electric spinning wheel.  My hope is that spinning with this will be much easier on my back, and allow me to actually spin for periods of time, rather than just small bits here and there, which only discourages me.  Makes me feel like I don’t get anything done.

Anywho, I placed my order on Sunday, December 29th, and still have yet to receive it.  Part of that is due to the post office sending it to Denver for some stupid reason, and it getting lost in limbo, and turning up in Salt Lake today instead of being delivered as it was supposed to be, but part of that is due to issues with my order.

I ordered the miniSpinner in cherry, partly because it was noted at the time on the website that the maple Woolee Winder was out of stock, and partly because I’m not fond of that light of a wood.  The next woods up from the cherry were quite a price increase, and I’d rather of gotten some accessories as well.

I also ordered 3 extra bobbins, the orifice reducers, and the lubrication that they sell and recommend for the miniSpinner.  I wasn’t quite sure what it was, or where I could find it here, so I figured I would go ahead and grab it since it was only a couple of bucks, and it is better to be safe than sorry.

A couple days pass, and I still haven’t received a shipping notice.  On the website, they have the following statement:

We always ship as soon as we possibly can, and most orders ship within a few days.  We try to carry a reasonable inventory, though some premium wood models may be unavailable from time to time.

Given that cherry is not one of their premium woods, and there was no notice about it being out of stock, I figured I was good!  However, I find on Ravelry after asking how long orders typically take to ship out, that the cherry is also out of stock.  The following was posted by HansenCrafts in their group, on the following Tuesday.

If it’s a weekday, most orders go out the same day. We’re currently awaiting a shipment of WooLee Winders so are a few days behind on maple and cherry, but those should ship later this week.

At that time, I replied and noted that I ordered on Sunday, thanked them for the response, but received no further reply, so I went ahead and emailed on Wednesday to get a shipping ETA.  Through correspondence I was told that they had ran out of the cherry Woolee Winders on Friday, and that they were expecting them either Thursday or Friday, and that my order would be going out then.

Now, I must pause here to say that this was a pretty disappointing reply.  Customer service, especially when dealing with expensive orders (It was around $1200 total, here), is pretty key, and I feel that when you’re dealing with amounts like that, customers deserve to be notified if there is a delay in their order, especially when you know in advance of the order that an item is out of stock and thus will delay the order.  That’s reasonable, isn’t it?

After waiting a couple of more days, and not hearing anything else, I decided to email again on Saturday, January 4th, and ask if my order made it out.  I received a reply from Kevin that said he had been out, and would forward it on to the girl who does the packaging to check on for me.

I waited another couple of days, and heard nothing. I sent a follow up email on January 6th, Monday, to let them know that I was still waiting to hear about it, and received a response later that day stating that she was sorry, and that they had run out of bodies for the miniSpinner, and that mine was the first in line to get done and go out.  She also noted that it seemed they weren’t as prepared as what they thought for the holidays, and that they would “try to do better next time.”  Not being sure how to respond to that, I didn’t, and waited for the next day and replied, saying as much, and asking again when my order would go out.  No sooner did I reply, that we got a shipping confirmation.

Huge disappointment.  I’m very confused as to why I was not contacted by them, and had to ask again, when my miniSpinner would be going out, especially after being told previously that it was already supposed to have gone out.  I am not confident at all that they would have bothered to contact me, had I not contacted them.

It might be just me, but I don’t find it unreasonable to expect a certain level of service when you’re spending a large amount of money.  Especially from a small company.  To recap, order placed on December 29th, order shipped January 7th. Six business days.  Total wait time will be one day shy of two weeks, assuming that it is delivered tomorrow.

Part 2 of this review will follow once I actually receive my miniSpinner, and have had some time to play with it!

All views expressed here are solely my own opinion.  I was not compensated in any way for this review, and have not received any benefit from writing this review.