April 9, 2020
With regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, Crowd Supply is fortunate that all our employees can work from home and that almost all of our shipping is handled by Mouser Electronics, which has been deemed an essential critical infrastructure business and continues to ship daily to customers worldwide.
Some projects that were in the process of manufacturing when COVID-19 first started have been delayed due to early disruptions in China. Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, nearly all manufacturing has been delayed to some extent, though no projects that we know of are at risk of failing to deliver altogether.
As for projects already beyond their first manufacturing batch, so far, the pandemic has not affected our ability to maintain healthy levels of stock. That said, the entire supply chain is moving more slowly than usual, which requires a bit more planning and patience. For example, though package carriers are still operating, delivery times may be longer.
On one hand, some projects creators who were preparing to launch have been delayed or even indefinitely stalled by the pandemic. On the other hand, many project creators are finding they have more time to devote to projects and are accelerating development. On balance, we’re still seeing a lot of great project submissions and we expect that to continue. Moreover, sales are still strong and don’t seem affected by the pandemic.
About a month ago, we rescheduled Teardown 2020 and started working from home, with the exception of one person who goes to the office a few times a week to handle miscellaneous deliveries and another person who goes in once a week (at non-overlapping times) to handle miscellaneous shipping. We’re in good spirits, but, like everyone else, we’re looking forward to seeing each other in person again!