Yoto Australia Black Friday Debacle

I ordered a mini and cards late in the sale (dec 1st) as I was nervous about spending over $100 on a main present for my 4 year old, and my wife had never heard of Yoto and was unsure.

Despite my concerns about the delays in dispatch, I waited patiently as I reasoned why would they repeatedly promise Xmas delivery if they weren’t 100% sure the stock was arriving in the country in time. However I cracked and ordered a mini off Amazon last week as it’s my daughter’s main present. It arrived in a day and it’s great, the product is every bit as good as reviews made out and I’m sure she’ll love it.

With great timing, I got an Aus post tracking number for my original order Friday night. It was listed as express post, which seemed like a good sign. However, nothing’s happened since then. According to tracking, it’s not been given to Auspost yet so there’s no way it’ll arrive before Xmas. I contacted Yoto today and got a response saying it’s shipped (Is creating a postage label shipping?) and that they’ve been working very hard to clear the backlog.

I’m sure I’m not the only one in this situation and it’s maddening. Yoto is acting like this backlog of orders is completely out of their control, but they caused it, and have repeatedly doubled down and made it worse.

Firsly, the Black Friday sale items should have been showing as out of stock as soon they had sold through their Australian stock. That’s how online orders should and normally do work. Obviously their online ordering system failed. Fine. Email customers explaining that and offer to refund them immediately so they can make an informed choice on whether to buy a different Xmas present for their child or wait and reorder once new stock from overseas arrives.

Instead they’ve made the crazy decision to keep parents in limbo before Xmas and promise that all orders made before 5th would be delivered. Why say this if there was even a 10% chance that wouldn‘t be possible. It’s just digging themselves into a deeper hole.

I’m lucky that I can afford to purchase another mini off Amazon and wait. I‘d still like the cards I ordered before Xmas but it’s not the end of the world. I’m just annoyed on behalf of those parents that can’t afford to do that or didn’t know they could get them on Amazon, or have just simply believed the promises in the emails from Yoto. Those parents are now faced with either an order stuck in tracking limbo or a generous voucher that doesn’t solve the empty space under their tree on Xmas morning.

It’s all so unnecessary on Yoto’s part and a PR disaster in many ways. I really hope they learn from this, (perhaps with the help of the ACCC?) and don’t ruin what is a great product with poor logistics and bad decisions.

Anyway vent over :)

Update 24/12 - tracking just updated. Out for delivery today! Just when id given up. Hopefully all the other orders with no tracking updates get same result today, as i had just shipping label created then out for delivery, no updates in between.