Official general purpose tabletop/board game discussion thread.

[Cathal]

Folks a word of caution if you intend to use Raru to buy board games. On July 19, I ordered an item from the local supplier Solarpop who are based in Cape Town. I had credit from a previous unfulfilled order so I used that to pay in for this order.

Raru estimated the dispatch date at August 2, essentially that's 10 working days to fulfil an items from a supplier that is 25 minutes drive from their warehouse. I don't have an issue with this, sometimes things take time. The title has not delivered and when I queried it I got this reply:



And then I got this reply a few days later when I asked for an update:



It has been made aware to me that multiple people in the board gaming community have gotten the exact same message from Raru when querying their board game purchases. Frankly I am not sure I believe the above reasons considering other retailers do not seem to have any issues fulfilling orders from Solarpop in (much) less time than Raru. I will try to get more info from Raru and then proceed from there.

I just wanted to post this here, as I mentioned in the beginning, a word of caution if you intend to use Raru to buy board games.

This sounds like a case of held accounts, whether due to payment difficulties, or other struggles between the company and supplier.

[onelargeprawn]

Must say it feels like it's all going to **** at Raru. Haven't used them in a very long time but when i did i never had issues. But will certainly not be using them anytime soon - if they're even around still, which seems more and more unlikely.

Yes the only reason I used them was because I had a credit from an unfulfilled order. Had I used any other retailers, I would have received my title in a week. If/when this issue gets resolved, I will not be using Raru as well.

This sounds like a case of held accounts, whether due to payment difficulties, or other struggles between the company and supplier.

Whatever they are, the reasons/excuses provided have been vague at best and give me no confidence. From their replies, they seem to be placing blame on the supplier's door. I'll be patient a bit longer and then I intend on including Solarpop in the conversation as well.

[Cathal]

Yes the only reason I used them was because I had a credit from an unfulfilled order. Had I used any other retailers, I would have received my title in a week. If/when this issue gets resolved, I will not be using Raru as well.



Whatever they are, the reasons/excuses provided have been vague at best and give me no confidence. From their replies, they seem to be placing blame on the supplier's door. I'll be patient a bit longer and then I intend on including Solarpop in the conversation as well.

Do keep us updated if you do. And on the other side if this gets nuked XD

[onelargeprawn]

Do keep us updated if you do. And on the other side if this gets nuked XD

If I am able I will absolutely update all my posts here with whatever the outcome is. And if not here, definitely on the other side.

[Bored Gamer]

I am currently experiencing the exact same problem as onelargeprawn with items sourced from Solarpop. Problems with Raru for me started in August last year with board games ordered from them that were sourced from the US. Orders were not fulfilled in six months with various reasons given from suppliers not giving them updates to later on stating that they are dropping their US supplier and will be fulfilling orders from an European supplier. That also didn't solve my problems. All bs as far as I'm concerned. After experiencing ridiculous delays for locally sourced board games, i.e. from Solarpop, I cancelled my orders and used credit for other items that were not sourced from them - no problem with those items.

[onelargeprawn]

I am currently experiencing the exact same problem as onelargeprawn with items sourced from Solarpop. Problems with Raru for me started in August last year with board games ordered from them that were sourced from the US. Orders were not fulfilled in six months with various reasons given from suppliers not giving them updates to later on stating that they are dropping their US supplier and will be fulfilling orders from an European supplier. That also didn't solve my problems. All bs as far as I'm concerned. After experiencing ridiculous delays for locally sourced board games, i.e. from Solarpop, I cancelled my orders and used credit for other items that were not sourced from them - no problem with those items.

So when it came to board games sourced from the US, Raru used to deal with ACDD. Apparently their service was abysmal and so Raru started sourcing items from a European supplier, Blackfire. Unfortunately, their account with Blackfire was canceled for "logistics reasons". Some believe it was the local supplier trying to protect the ranges it considers it has exclusivity over. Not that there is no proof of the above.

I honestly have no idea why Raru can't source items from Solarpop when the 20+ online stores in SA can. As others have proposed, perhaps Raru hasn't paid and thus SP will not release.

I got a reply from Raru stating that they are waiting for my item to arrive at their warehouse. It was yet another copy-paste reply. I'll be patient for another week and will then cancel and proceed to get a refund to my bank account.