You see a new mahjong tile set you love. You click purchase. Your card is charged.
And then you wait.
And wait.
And sometimes wait some more.
At HipHipMahjong!, we decided early on that we wanted to do things differently. We do not presell our mahjong tile sets.
When you purchase tiles from HHM, they are here. They have been manufactured, painted, inspected, packed, and delivered to us. We have physically received them before we ever ask you to buy them. That choice is intentional.
What Is a Presale?
A presale allows a business to sell a product before the finished inventory is actually in its possession. In many cases, the money collected from customers helps fund the production of that inventory. Essentially, the customer is paying for a product that still has several steps to go before it reaches their table.
Presales can be a useful business model, particularly for new companies testing demand or businesses that do not want to take on the financial risk of purchasing large amounts of inventory upfront.
It is simply not the model we chose for HipHipMahjong! We believe the investment in our inventory should be ours.
There Are Too Many Things We Cannot Control
Creating a custom, hand painted mahjong tile set is a long process. There are samples. Revisions. Manufacturing. Painting. Quality control. Packaging. Freight. Customs. Transportation. Delivery.
And even with careful planning, things happen.
A manufacturing timeline can change. A production issue can require part of an order to be remade. Materials can be delayed. A shipment can be held in customs. Freight schedules can change. Barges and cargo ships can experience delays. Ports can become backed up. Weather can interfere with transportation.
Some of these issues can add days to a timeline. Others can add weeks. As a business, we understand that these are realities of manufacturing products in bulk. What we do not want is for our customers to carry that uncertainty with us. If something gets delayed before our inventory reaches HipHipMahjong!, that is our problem to solve, not yours.
Your Order Should Feel Like an Order, Not an Investment
When you buy a set of HHM mahjong tiles, we want the exciting part to start immediately.
You found the set.
You bought the set.
Now we get to send it to you.
We do not want you wondering whether production finished on time, whether the shipment cleared customs, or whether the estimated arrival date has moved again. We also do not believe our customers should have to finance our inventory months before receiving it. We take that financial risk because it is our business.
That means ordering inventory without knowing exactly how quickly a design will sell. It means committing to production quantities. It means paying manufacturing and freight costs. And sometimes it means having a warehouse full of something while we wait for you to discover it. We are comfortable with that because we think that responsibility belongs with us.
Why HHM Sets Sometimes Sell Out
There is another side to our no presale policy. Sometimes our mahjong tile sets sell out. We would rather sell what we physically have than continue accepting orders for inventory that has not arrived yet. That can mean a popular seasonal mahjong set disappears faster than expected. It can mean waiting for a restock. It can also mean that we occasionally have to say, “It’s gone,” when we would obviously love to keep selling it.
We know that can be frustrating, especially when you had your eye on a particular set. But we would rather be transparent about what is actually available than sell inventory based on a projected manufacturing or shipping date that can change for reasons completely outside our control.
We Want to See It First, Too
There is another important reason we wait. We want to see the finished product before you buy it. A design on a screen is one thing. Hundreds of finished mahjong tiles arriving at our warehouse is another.
We want the opportunity to inspect our inventory, see the colors in person, look at the hand painted details, check the packaging, and make sure the product we are selling is the product we expected to receive. Our customers should not be the first people opening those boxes.
We should.
The HipHipMahjong! Way
HipHipMahjong! started because we wanted mahjong products that felt special enough to become part of the moments happening around the table. Christmas mornings. Birthdays. Girls’ nights. Family traditions. Holidays. Vacations. Tuesday afternoons that somehow turn into memories. We put a lot of thought into what eventually lands on your mahjong table, and that includes how we sell it. So while presales may work beautifully for other businesses, they are not part of the HHM model.
We invest first. We wait first. We take the risk first.
When it is finally your turn to buy, we want your tiles to be here and ready for their next stop.
Your table.
Because these are the moments.