I noticed DonnyFL no longer sells moderators on their site. Perhaps they learned fulfillment was not worth it. They seemed to have made a wise decision. Lose the retail sales and sell 100% of their products at wholesale and just let the retailers handle all fulfillment. Smart.
I believe if you dig into this you'll find it has more to do with some Alphabet org case against DonnyFl and not because it wasn't worth selling direct. I don't know any other details.
I also want to say, I understand people like you are....artists/craftsmen you are not business minded, I get that. BUT you are now "in business" so you have to learn that end of things or hire someone who does.
Grumpy engineers like myself generally take offense at being called artists and less so craftsmen lol.
It's just that there is no business value in fulfilling a package 2, 3, 10days sooner (not that anyone is trying to make people wait), if it means hiring multiple people and spending more on sqft needed for the increased speed. There is a cost to this that
most customers are not willing to pay. Now, if someone came in and invested a million give or take into Armageddon or K&L the analysis showed that we get x number of cancelations when the order has been sitting for T number of days and the order retention justifies the investment, I'm all for it. Amazon knows exactly how fast it needs to get orders out to reduce cancelations. Well documented. But that's over millions of packages per day globally. For Airgun Depot for example, they are pushing large volumes of orders, have no storefront and order fulfillment time really factors into their business model.
Not to open the hood too far, we average 3 cancelations per year over delays or time to fulfill. To be honest I'd like to get our time to fulfill down lower than it is right now which is ~4 days (excluding preordered items). But is expanding the warehouse and or hiring a few 40-60k/year employees worth it for retaining 3 customers a year with an average order value of $150 for a total of $450? For smaller niche market manufacturers like myself and Armageddon, it would be a poor business choice. For Amazon and Airgun Depot, they have a different set of variables.
No company likes to see complaints. It's primarily annoying, but has the potential to create a bad reputation, warranted or often times not.
BUT as a self declared business savvy person, do you think it wise to spend at minimum 80k more per year to retain $450 and maybe $2000 in lost sales if someone complains a bit to a friend or something? Sunk costs, opportunity costs and liability be damned? I for one, would rather not loose $77,550 per year.
I think the solution to your frustration is better communication prior to you ordering the product.
Like a message on the product page "this will be shipping in 5 days" so you know before what you are to expect. This is easier said than done though and requires administrative sophistication especially with a large number of products.
A bit long winded, but I hope taking the time to explain we are not nimrod artists running around with paint brushes trying to frustrate our customers at every turn. I'm just not convinced that despite varying levels of
business analysis one can perform, shipping is the key factor. Production of the THING is what matters more in my mind. But again balance, they both are needed, it's not totally one or the other.
I will say, I recently spoke to someone who complimented you. They said your business practice has gotten substantially better over time. I am glad to hear that. You make incredible products I love seeing your inventory grow and see your parts on more and more guns. I recently bought your PRS buttstock/bag rider. Incredibly well made!!
Glad you are liking the parts!
And with all the above said, we do strive to be better, even at the customer service and shipping levels.
but I knew it wasn't going to be fast 
