This is the full text of the email I received from The Wand Company today. Many of you may have seen the unboxing video Adam Savage uploaded. To sum it up, the only official place to purchase this is currently Amazon.uk. So far a batch of 200 sold out pretty fast (two days) with a fluctuating inventory status on the product page leading to confusion. Doesn’t appear a product page for the Tricorder is active (a search yields no results and Star Trek section of the store page displays no products for sale). Once The Wand Company get a larger inventory sent over to Amazon.uk, sales will resume. As for fans in the U.S., there is no certainty on how tariffs will affect the price.
Sales are officially being doing through Amazon.uk. The sales have been paused till inventory can be increased as a response to the confusion and sellout of 200 units within two days
EDIT: I forgot to include legible text to read.
| Dear ____,
Further to our previous email, we’re conscious that you are still waiting for your “invitation to purchase” email with a link to the Tricorder on Amazon UK.
IMPORTANT: we are making plenty of Tricorders
A very small number of Tricorders were sold on Amazon in the last two days. This didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped, though:
The quantity (200 units) sold out very quickly, but then the Tricorder would occasionally appear to be back “in stock” for brief periods, causing confusion and frustration.
During some of these brief periods, international shipping wasn’t available.
Some people had their orders automatically cancelled by Amazon for suspected fraud – we believe this is probably why one or two units would then become “available” again.
We’re really sorry for the distress and confusion that this has caused for some of you. We want to reassure you that we are making plenty of Tricorders and we believe that you will each be able to buy one from us if you want to.
We are pausing Tricorder sales for at least a week
We’ve shipped another batch of 952 units to Amazon this week. We were hoping that they would already be showing up in the Amazon system by now, and that we’d be sending out a batch of “invitation to purchase” emails today, but that’s not the case.
To avoid a continuation of the confusing situation with the Tricorder appearing to fluctuate in and out of stock, and it only becoming available one or two at a time, we are pausing the sales to allow some time for the incoming stock to build up to a sensible level so that we can create some stability in its availability.
As I write, we are manufacturing Tricorders and airfreighting thousands of them into the UK. However, the process of loading them into stock at Amazon takes a bit of time.
Opening Tricorder sales again
Once there is sufficient stock in the Amazon UK store to create a more stable and pleasant purchasing experience, we will set the Tricorder listing to “active” once again and start emailing people again to let them know that it is available. We will aim to do this at around 4pm UK time. We will monitor that stock carefully and pause the sale of the Tricorder again when the stock is depleted, in order to allow more stock to fill the sales channel once again and prevent the listing from going in and out of stock due to order cancellations.
A few Tricorders are already appearing on eBay. Whilst everyone can buy their Tricorder however they wish, we strongly urge fans not to buy from third party sellers at the moment. We have plenty of stock arriving and you should wait for that to become available through our official retailers (Amazon UK, the Star Trek Shop or IGN Store).
Shipping to a non-UK address
Our decision to sell on Amazon UK was not taken lightly and was in response to the evolving tariff situation in the US. When there is sufficient stock available, fans who do not live in the UK will be able to purchase from Amazon UK and we do not know of any restriction that will prevent this for our customers outside the UK. (In case you didn’t already know, we’re based in the UK ourselves.)
The tariff situation
The US tariffs on bulk shipments of products from China have been changing rapidly over the last few months, starting with 10% announced in February and reaching 145% on April 10th. If those tariffs reduce to a more manageable level we will review the situation regarding importing the product in bulk to the US for sale domestically (such as via Amazon US) and take the appropriate action.
US tariffs on small packages to individual consumers with value under $800 USD (“de minimis” shipments) have also been in flux recently. At the moment they are scheduled to become 120% on May 2nd, or a flat fee of $100 USD, but it’s unclear which of those fees will be charged. It’s also possible that the changes due on May 2nd will be amended or postponed.
What will happen next
We will write to everyone in waves in order of their first registration with an invitation to purchase as the stock becomes available. As mentioned above, we will aim to send those emails out at around 4pm UK time.
LLAP
I feel like as a 90s kid, someone old enough to remember and understand 9/11, anti-Muslim sentiment has been around a long time. That doesn’t surprise me regarding this.
EDIT: As a Filipino, I grew up hearing a particular flavor of anti-Muslim prejudice. A great grandmother would tell people that [insert censored comment], an outrageously offensive thing that was made up. A aunt would just generalize that certain parts of Philippines were not safe to travel due to Abu Sayyaf, an Islamist terror group.
censored comment
Muslims eat their babies