About Shipping Delays……

Because of the unique nature of our match case business some models may be temporarily out of stock for a variety of reasons that are not entirely within our ability to control. As we accumulate data it will be easier to accurately project future needs but until we build a match case sales history it’s going to be a hit and miss proposition – please bear with us through this learning curve.

Each match case is hand-made in our garage/machine shop (usually but not always) by Keith – and patiently assembled (usually but not always) by Marge. As our match case business has grown and we have added additional models the ability to project needs has become increasingly difficult. Try as we might we have never figured out how to predict with any degree of certainty which models and colors are going to be the best movers tomorrow, let alone next week or next month. Just because “standard reds” are hot this month doesn’t mean it won’t be “long greens” next month!

Add to the mix of 10 different match case models the inability to predict unusually large orders from either civilian retailers or military units (a surprising number of recruits show up for duty packing their personal match cases) and you can appreciate the nature of the beast. Of course orders for soldiers ALWAYS receive the highest priority, based on our belief that civilian users understand the difference between survival as a hobby versus survival as a day to day challenge. This is not to say that we do not value our civilian customers, it’s just to say that at times we have to prioritize who gets what when we have limited inventory. Rest assured that your order will be filled as rapidly as possible. Please feel free to contact us by phone or email with questions.

One of our biggest bottlenecks in the past has been the uncertainty of a compass supply, since to our knowledge there are no U.S. makers of high quality compass capsules. At present we are using a Finnish-made Suunto compass that is the highest quality button compass we’ve seen so far. Our continued use of the Suunto capsule is contingent upon two factors --- their high quality and their availability. Because they are manufactured overseas and because Suunto is a large company they sometimes require lead time, which could cause some delay in our filling match case orders. So far they’ve been able to fill our orders in a very timely manner. .

Hopefully this helps explain some of the issues we have to deal with as small home-grown company feeling our way into a world market. We sincerely appreciate your patience as we learn how best to anticipate and meet your wants and needs. We also appreciate helpful suggestions. What we will never do is compromise quality in order to produce larger numbers. Our customers have used words like “heirloom quality”, “the holy grail of match cases”, etc., to describe our match cases for good reason. The payoff is that fifty years from now when the copycat versions lie forgotten in a landfill your K&M match case will be a cherished piece of your grandson’s gear.

Keith and Marge 8/15/07
Keith and Marge Lunders
www.kmmatchcase.com
www.kmmatchcase.com