Find another hat company to make some. You can then place an ad here for a buy in. Take the payment up front. When they are done, you can then show proof that you received them before you ship them to the NTers that purchased one them. The hats should only be available for purchase on NT. Do not let another company handle any sales. I've been part of custom hat buy ins that have gone smoothly. The only complaints that I've seen were people commenting that they wish they had gotten in the hat buy in. Didn't hear of any charge backs in all the hat buy ins that I've been in.
Pre-orders are bad news for reasons we've explained countless times now.
There's just too much that can go wrong. (Production delays, material substitutions, sizing issues, etc. etc.) Though crowdfunding has made pre-ordering merchandise months in advance more commonplace, it's a recipe for nonstop complaints. (Why aren't they ready? Why don't they look like I imagined? My hair is longer than it was two weeks ago, can I change my size request?) That's a headache we don't need.
Then, on top of that, we'd have to deal with payment processing and distribution. We'd be responsible for collecting and remitting any applicable sales tax, all of the associated accounting issues, and other logistical issues associated with playing retailer for one product.
For comparison: our group fundraisers, which allow nonprofits to receive money directly, have generated MORE per event than our apparel offerings and nobody walks away disappointed or defrauded. I'd rather spend time fulfilling our digital rewards (e.g. account badges) than dealing with chargeback fraud and other nonsense.
I completely agree on ecapcity botching it on their end...
I appreciate the charity donations that they made... And any money given to a reputable charity is always a good thing... But I don't believe they viewed it as anything more than a tax write off...
They either didn't know, or didn't care that this has is/was very special to many of us... Just as NT is a special to many of us, for many different reasons, representing NT is also special...
Ecapcity: announced the time and date of launch; put it up for sale early; honored some of those early sales; apparently sent out multi's; and then had the nerve to say it was a hassle for them; their site crashed; and the sale started late...
I will never purchase anything from them, even though though have my #2 GOAT hat, 70's Red Sox with the green underbrim... How anyone can honestly say they did a great job is beyond me...
It could have been a simple endeavor... Create a link that is not posted on Twitter, Facebook, or ECC home page... Only place to get it is an NT-user exclusive forum on NT that lurkers can't see... Meth says he posts link at 9am on Sunday and no new sign ups will be accepted till the following Monday... Meth posts link at 9am on Sunday... NT'ers get exclusive first chance... Everyone wins...
That's not really fair.
First of all, understand that nobody is chomping at the bit to take on all of the work required to make and sell these caps for us - especially not when we require that the profits go to the charity of our choice.
I get that the product is special to you, and I appreciate that. Everyone on the staff is grateful that so many people want to represent our community. But there are people who want to represent the community and appreciate that the opportunity to do so requires an incredible amount of effort with or without financial compensation, and then there are those who have a false sense of entitlement and believe that they're somehow "owed" not only a fitted cap at a suitable price point, but a guaranteed purchase and an experience that meets or exceeds those offered by billion dollar multinational corporations.
It's unfortunate that those in the former category - whom I believe comprise the majority - must now suffer because those in the latter category have made themselves
insufferable.
Remember: it's because of Cap City that we've been able to produce NikeTalk fitted caps, period.
Claiming they were motivated solely by a "tax write off" is just plain ignorant. What do you think a tax write off represents? Some sort of incredible financial boon for Cap City? If I give you $500, tell you to donate it all on my behalf, and then you report the $500 as income to the IRS while simultaneously recording it as a tax deductible charitable contribution, did you get $500 for FREE? No. You spent time on an effort from which your net financial gain was absolutely zero. The government doesn't give you BACK the $500 you donated on my behalf. You just don't have to pay taxes on it.
It's easy to ask someone to create some special, super secret URL that's only given out to a special select few, but you're ignoring the difficulties involved on the technical side to set something like that up and you clearly haven't given your proposal adequate thought.
Assuming I want to set up some secret, elitist, "members' only" forum just for a 288 piece fitted cap release, who gets access? Every registered member? If so, that's no barrier at all. Anyone who wants the cap can just create an account in five minutes and subscribe to the new forum to receive an update via email when the link goes live. What a waste of everyone's time. If, to prevent this outcome, we begin arbitrarily deciding who is and who isn't "worthy" of a cap, how is that fair? Someone who signed up last month isn't "good enough" to represent the community? Someone who's lurked for over 10 years? Someone who was an active poster on ezboard, but whose account didn't survive the transition to our current platform?
That's your plan to prevent complaint and disappointment?
And all it takes to break your "perfect" release is for a single "qualified" person to leak the link on Twitter.
It's so easy to criticize. Respect is due for those who actually put the time and work in to make these caps possible. This release was far from perfect, but it was an improvement on the initial NT fitted release in many ways. More NikeTalk members walked away satisfied and far fewer came away empty handed. When all is said and done, we hope this release will still yield more money for charity than the previous offering, even though New Era charges significantly more per unit and we're likely to suffer a significant loss due to fraud.
Though I wish we could start work on a follow-up release that could improve upon this one, between the fraud and the negativity we're going to have a very difficult time finding a new retail partner now that a small minority of you have successfully alienated Cap City.
When you make this a no-win proposition for someone: "get it perfect by my unrealistic standards and do a lot of work for no money or we'll punish your business", it's pretty obvious what's going to happen.
Barring some sort of miracle, I don't see anyone stepping up to assume the burden of producing these things at no profit for what's now viewed as a demanding and unappreciative audience.
And that's really unfortunate, because the small minority of frauds and malcontents has essentially ruined this for all those who were genuinely grateful, patient, and deserving of the substantial effort and sacrifice such a project requires.
like I said can't wait for more charity opportunities 
Methodical Management
thanks for the update. Sad to hear that we may never see another NT fitted, but definitely understandable. Hopefully these charge backs get resolved and what was originally intended can be donated
