American Bonsai Processing Orders

[Maiden69]

Those of you that have ordered from American Bonsai lately, how long does the order takes to ship out? I placed an order 26 MAY and it is still showing as processing on their website. Is this normal? Most of the stores, even small run businesses that I have ordered from process and ship orders in 1-3 days.

 

[Hack Yeah!]

Holiday this week, maybe a little behind? Maybe contact them next week if no updates by Monday

 

[Tieball]

Likely just the holiday weekend. It definitely throws off shipping schedules.

 

[jeffapana]

They were vending at the Bonsai Societies of Florida convention 5/26-28 so they were down at least 2 staff members over the weekend

 

[Ruddigger]

They have terrible customer service. I like their product, but the owner will straight out lie to you and say your order has shipped and string you along as long as possible. I’ve posted about them before.

 

[Maiden69]

I emailed them this morning, apparently they just moved to a new location or a new shop, and are "short staffed".

****Automated Email Response****

Thank you for the email.

We're currently short staffed, but kicking butt getting orders out and spending time getting our new shop set up.

Please understand while we are pumping orders out as fast as possible, our email communications are at a limited capacity.
If it is an emergency please call the shop directly.

We apologize for the delays while we work to get orders out in a timely fashion.

Thank you so much for your patience.

 

[Millard B.]

I have known the owner of American Bonsai for about 6 years now, each year except 2020, cancelled due to covid, he has been a vendor at the Florida Hotel in Orlando over the Memorial Weekend Show and Sale. I have been also a vendor there selling my self made thrown and slabbed stoneware bonsai pots. I bought the master set of stainless steel bonsai tools, they are top notch, I dropped a medium sized scissors in my 100 gallon soil lerio and found them a year later, not a speck of rust! I find that the small set of pliers holds small wire precisely where you put it. Not a bad word to say about Cullen!

 

[Maiden69]

10 more days without any reply to the email I sent asking for an update other than the automated one... I guess I will wait one more week, if I don't get a reply I will cancel the order through Paypal. I can understand been short-staffed, but 2 and a half weeks with no updates its not good customer service. If they were in this situation, the first email with the order notification should have stated the longer processing period.

 

[Maiden69]

Well, I will definitely NOT order from them again.

1st email 5 JUN
2nd email 15 JUN

Decided to give them a phone call, answered quickly... ask what item I was missing, both. What did I order, then he said that the size 11 was on backorder, but that they received them and were either shipped out already or about to. To check all my emails including the Spam folder. That if it was not shipped out he will call me within 10 minutes, that he was on the way to the warehouse to verify status. My call was placed at 2pm CST, did not received a call back. Checked my phone app in case it was silenced and sent to voicemail, nope.

Today, since it is 30 days from the date of purchase I filed a claim with Paypal... will see if their email also gets an automated reply. According to paypal they have until 16 JUL to fix the issue.

 

[Hartinez]

Well, I will definitely NOT order from them again.

1st email 5 JUN
2nd email 15 JUN

Decided to give them a phone call, answered quickly... ask what item I was missing, both. What did I order, then he said that the size 11 was on backorder, but that they received them and were either shipped out already or about to. To check all my emails including the Spam folder. That if it was not shipped out he will call me within 10 minutes, that he was on the way to the warehouse to verify status. My call was placed at 2pm CST, did not received a call back. Checked my phone app in case it was silenced and sent to voicemail, nope.

Today, since it is 30 days from the date of purchase I filed a claim with Paypal... will see if their email also gets an automated reply. According to paypal they have until 16 JUL to fix the issue.

Dam. This is unfortunate. I understand the need for grace with small businesses. But it sounds like you gave them every opportunity to make it right much sooner.

 

[Ruddigger]

Sadly, this is standard practice for this guy. If you can pick up some of their tools at a retail store, or a show, thats the only way I’d buy.

 

[Maiden69]

Dam. This is unfortunate. I understand the need for grace with small businesses. But it sounds like you gave them every opportunity to make it right much sooner.

Amazingly a few hours after submitting the report through Paypal I received a notification on my UPS app about a shipment from American Bonsai... funny how that works. I try to support small businesses, this was my first experience with them, and sadly the last. The main reason I ordered was because they had the bigger rounded concave cutter... I found an alternative on Amazon for one of those Chinese brands... it's stainless as well so I was not worried about it breaking.

Sadly, this is standard practice for this guy. If you can pick up some of their tools at a retail store, or a show, thats the only way I’d buy.

I found your post after I posted mine... same crap you posted. I can't understand how someone with a small business is not going to keep track of something like this. Usually, they are the ones that provide the best customer service.

 

[Mike The Bonsai Newbie]

It's so disheartening to read stuff like this because as a newbie, I wanted to support a "mom and pop" business but it appears if I cannot buy these tools in person, I'll never get them.

 

[Maiden69]

I think I'm going to make a review of the cutters... either they sent me the worst ones they have because I reported them to Paypal, or their quality really suck. I used them to prune my Chinese elm and the cuts leave a lot to be desired. Even the 11" cut is crude compared to the cut I get from my medium Kaneshin knob cutters.

 

[Paradox]

I've ordered from them several times however not in the last couple of years. I never had a problem getting my orders from them in the past.

I can understand the chaos moving a business can be though. We moved our office a couple of years ago and it took us time both to get everything packed and moved as well as unpacked and sorted at the new building and that was with a sizeable staff. If he is short staffed, I can imagine it taking a bit to get it sorted and get shipments out.

 

[ShimpakuBonsai]

What a patience you have!!

Maybe the backorder had to come from China and I'm right about a comment I made about their products in September 2021.
See this topic for my post and some of the reactions to it.

 

[Apex37]

Well this is interesting. I’m starting to question the legitimacy of my purchase here. They still have the pot for sale on their website, here, over a year later. I’ve sent several emails asking about it and if they have any background on the pot. Nothing. Unfortunately, at this point, I doubt there’s much I can do.

 

[rockm]

Well this is interesting. I’m starting to question the legitimacy of my purchase here. They still have the pot for sale on their website, here, over a year later. I’ve sent several emails asking about it and if they have any background on the pot. Nothing. Unfortunately, at this point, I doubt there’s much I can do.

You can question, but you got a Nick Lenz pot. AB probably bought it from someone and turned around and resold it. They likely has no detailed history of it.

It is a Lenz, IMO, from the color and type of clay to the glaze and the feet.

 

[Apex37]

You can question, but you got a Nick Lenz pot. AB probably bought it from someone and turned around and resold it. They likely has no detailed history of it.

It is a Lenz, IMO, from the color and type of clay to the glaze and the feet.

Maybe so, a response would still be nice.

 

[rockm]

Maybe so, a response would still be nice.

Maybe so, but you're probably not gonna get one for whatever reason. Just sayin that you shouldn't get all wobbly about your purchase. From what I've seen on AB's pottery section, their potter attribution and ID seems pretty good, although their pricing is on the steep side.

FWIW, I bought a pair of shears a while back from AB. They're kind of "meh" if you ask me.